Jeff Merritt

Career

Merritt began his career working with U.S. State Department-sponsored programs in Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Montenegro. Based on his experiences with democracy promotion in the Balkans, Merritt co-authored "Transacting Transition, The Micropolitics of Democracy Assistance in the Former Yugoslavia" (Kumarian Press, 2006).

From 2003 to 2005, Merritt served as executive director for the Center for Civic Responsibility. In 2005, he founded Grassroots Initiative, a nonprofit organization that seeks to "provide easy political access for underrepresented groups and other political outsiders". In 2006, as president of Grassroots Initiative, Merritt helped elect the first Sikhs to political office in New York City. In 2009, under contract from the New York City Department of Education, Merritt helped run the first exclusively online public election in the United States.

In 2010, Merritt joined the office of New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and in 2012 was named one of city and state's "New York City Rising Stars: 40 Under 40" for his work there as Senior Advisor. At the Public Advocate's office, Merritt helped developed New York City's Worst Landlord Watchlist, a first-of-its-kind tool to allow tenants to look up a current or potential landlord to see code violations in that landlord’s buildings. The tool was expanded through a partnership with Craiglist in 2011 and replicated by the City of Vancouver in 2012. Merritt also led the Public Advocate's open government and technology initiatives and national coalitions on issues of corporate political spending and gun divestment.

Following the election of Bill de Blasio as Mayor of New York City, Merritt helped establish the Mayor's Office of Technology and Innovation. As part of the Mayor's Office, Merritt led a range of technology efforts including the launch of the .nyc top-level domain, development of outreach systems for the expansion of pre-k in New York City, and the announcement of LinkNYC, New York City's plan to build the largest and fastest municipal Wi-Fi network in the world. Merritt currently oversees smart city efforts for New York City which include a focus on "expanding Internet connectivity across the five boroughs to unleash new opportunities, growing the local innovation economy and accelerating public-private partnerships, working with communities to develop solutions that meet neighbourhood needs, and always putting New Yorkers first when we test and deploy new technologies."

Education

Merritt holds a Master's degree from Columbia University and a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Michigan.