{"id":438551,"date":"2026-08-20T18:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T18:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/438551\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T18:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T18:00:14","slug":"california-names-former-18f-official-as-chief-technology-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/438551\/","title":{"rendered":"California names former 18F official as chief technology officer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday appointed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/ayushikroy\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ayushi Roy<\/a>, a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and a former federal official, as the state\u2019s next chief technology officer.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"302\" height=\"302\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Ayushi-Roy.jpeg\" alt=\"Ayushi Roy, LinkedIn profile\" class=\"wp-image-77897\"  \/><\/p>\n<p>Roy, a San Francisco resident, has for the past four years served as chief program officer at the New Practice Lab, a division of the think tank New America, that aims to improve the economic security of families. In that role, she has for the past four years researched and designed IT systems used to administer public benefits.<\/p>\n<p>She served as director of state and local technology at 18F, the General Services Administration\u2019s former digital services agency, which helped other agencies modernize their technology and digital services. After the <a href=\"https:\/\/fedscoop.com\/gsa-shutters-18f-possibly-leaving-agencies-in-the-lurch\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">office shut down last March<\/a>, as part of the the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to reduce the federal workforce, Roy became a senior adviser for the Technology Modernization Fund at the General Services Administration and the White House Office of Management and Budget, according to her LinkedIn profile.<\/p>\n<p>Roy\u2019s appointment comes at a period of transition for California\u2019s technology leadership. <a href=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/code-for-america-names-california-jonathan-porat\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jonathan Porat<\/a>, the state\u2019s previous CTO, stepped down in April after nearly three-and-a-half years with the Department of Technology; he later joined the civic tech nonprofit Code for America as its CTO.<\/p>\n<p>Roy will join a department led by Chief Information Officer <a href=\"https:\/\/statescoop.com\/new-california-cio-chris-given-wants-technology-to-be-an-enabler-not-a-bottleneck\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Christopher Given,<\/a> who was appointed in April following the retirement of former state CIO Liana Bailey-Crimmins. Given identified legacy-system modernization, digital identity and artificial intelligence as early priorities for the department.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re fundamentally a department in service of the missions of literally every single department in the state, so we have to be ruthless about how we\u2019re assessing how well we\u2019re serving the state,\u201d Given said in an interview in June.<\/p>\n<p>Roy holds a master\u2019s degree in urban studies and planning from MIT and a bachelor\u2019s degree in human rights and Middle Eastern, South Asian and African studies from Columbia University.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-card__image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787248814_96_sophiafox.jpg\" alt=\"Sophia Fox-Sowell\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tWritten by Sophia Fox-Sowell<br \/>\n\t\t\tSophia Fox-Sowell reports on artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and government regulation for StateScoop. She was previously a multimedia producer for CNET, where her coverage focused on private sector innovation in food production, climate change and space through podcasts and video content. She earned her bachelor\u2019s in anthropology at Wagner College and master\u2019s in media innovation from Northeastern University.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday appointed Ayushi Roy, a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School and a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,41598,71372],"class_list":["post-438551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-chief-technology-officer","tag-state-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}