- Pritzker Fellows
- Former Fellows
- Jordan Sun
Jordan Sun
VP of Product at SoftBank Robotics America & former Chief Innovation Officer for the City of San José
Fall 2024 Pritzker Fellow
Seminar Series: “Finding Authenticity in Public Service Leadership in the Digital Era”
Biography
Jordan Sun is Vice President of Product at SoftBank Robotics America, a global leader in robotic solutions with 20,000 robots across 70 countries, and brings over 15 years of digitization and automation experience across government, technology, and finance. Before joining SoftBank, he served as the Chief Innovation Officer and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Technology and Innovation for the city of San José. During his leadership in the pandemic, the team raised over $3 million for bridging the digital divide and civic tech initiatives, scaled from 3 to 40 technologists, built the city's first data science organization addressing racial equity challenges, launched the first Digital Action Corps to rapidly build software solving pressing community needs, and passed the city’s first digital privacy policy.
Prior to San José, Jordan deployed forward for his second tour in Afghanistan as the Chief Operating Officer for the U.S. Special Operations Joint Task Force-Afghanistan Technology Team to build early warning detection software for counter-terrorism. He also held the rank of Major as a reservist leading the Army’s technology modernization efforts in Silicon Valley, served in the U.S. Department of State as a Foreign Service Officer focusing on East Asia and cybersecurity, and was the CEO of a digital health spinout from Siemens Healthineers.
He is an alum of In-Q-Tel (the U.S. Intelligence Community’s strategic venture capital fund) and started his career on the trading floor in New York City. Jordan attended Yale School of Management and NYU Stern School of Business.
Seminars
“Finding Authenticity in Public Service Leadership in the Digital Era”
With most of American cultural and political life captured in the digital domain – from iPhone videos to generative AI to voting by meme – how does one seek an authentic public service career, rooted in the spirit of duty and values? Has the definition of public service evolved with technology?
Jordan Sun has an unusual and multi-paned window into the intersection of technology and public service, from his time as Chief Innovation Officer for the city of San José during the pandemic to national security and defense as a Political Officer in the US State Department and launching early warning software applications for Afghan counter-terrorism in the US Military to private sector in collaborative robotics and healthcare. Jordan will share his experiences with the interplay between public service and leadership in the age of democracy and technology.
Together you will examine the changing definition of public service with “AMA” engagements with decorated leaders from various sectors, dissect the notions of authenticity and meaning in a post-social media world, and learn about managing crisis and technology issues. At the end of the quarter, Jordan will bring the learnings together in a “Lab” setting with a case study and hands-on problem solving.
Seminars are open to current UChicago students only.
Has the definition of public service evolved in the modern technological era? How do you deliver results in public service, and for whom? We will unpack my own service career trajectory and key learnings and introduce upcoming seminars.
How has the government evolved with the internet over the last 40 years? What tools and methodologies do government technology leaders depend on? How have we failed and succeeded with technology adoption? How is emerging technology, like generative AI, changing how the government delivers services?
Special Guests: Rob Lloyd (via Zoom), CTO of the City of Seattle & Ariana Soto, CEO of Coding it Forward
With the rise of defense and dual-use technologies and Great Power Competition, we explore how active industry executives and venture capitalists (VCs) should be to influence political, military and national security leaders. This will be a two-part series featuring leading voices in national security technology and policy. For Part One of the series, we will start with speaking with In-Q-Tel, the US Intelligence Community’s venture capital arm which has made more than 750 investments for the CIA; DIA; FBI; NGA; NRO; NSA; DHS); U.S. Cyber Command; and the U.K. and Australian national intelligence communities.
Special Guest: A.J. Bertone, Managing Partner for In-Q-Tel (Venture Capital Firm for the CIA & Broader U.S. Intelligence Community)
During this seminar, we will explore: How do we define authenticity and meaning in a post-social media universe? How do we design, build and evolve a personal brand and public persona? What does it take to remain focused on the mission?
For Part Two of the national security tech series, we will focus on a financial venture capitalist’s (VC’s) perspective and working with the US Department of Defense (DoD). From the VC and DoD’s perspectives, we will explore how the DoD’s recent efforts to accelerate and incentivize the defense tech and dual-use ecosystem.
Special Guests: Justin Fanelli, CTO at the U.S. Department of the Navy & Akhil Iyer, Principal at Shield Capital
Afghan and American leaders share their stories from the last days before the fall of Afghanistan. They will provide you personal insights into their experiences continuing the fight against the Taliban, what exactly happened during the fall and what comes next.
Special Guests (via Zoom): Jeff Dressler, Commissioner, US Afghan War Commission & Sami Sadat, Afghan LTG and CEO of Afghan United Front
For part three of the national security tech series, we will focus on a financial venture capitalist’s (VC’s) journey of co-founding his early-stage VC fund focused on dual-use technologies, healthcare, advanced computing, cyber and telecom. We will also talk through how a VC can help their founders/portfolio companies win funding and contracts from the military and other branches of government to better scale frontier technology products.
Special Guest: Alexander Harstrick, J2 Ventures Managing Partner