Diverse Paths of Leadership and Innovation: Eddie Hartwig '00

Eddie Hartwig '00 will be the featured speaker in the Diverse Paths of Leadership and Innovation speaker series on Friday, February 16. The event, which is free and open to the public, will start at 2 p.m. in Noyce Science Center, Room 1023. The Donald and Winifred Wilson Center for Innovation and Leadership is sponsoring the speaker series and associated course.

Hartwig currently serves as deputy administrator of the United States Digital Service (USDS). Following the failure and successful rebuild of healthcare.gov in 2013, President Obama established USDS to protect and modernize our nation’s most critical public-facing services. USDS is a startup inside the White House that has built more than ninety products across fifteen federal agencies since 2014. Current products include digitizing the immigration process, building Medicare’s Quality Payments Program, and developing a single login and identity platform for government.

Prior to USDS, Hartwig served as advisor and speechwriter to the U.S. Ambassador to Austria. While in Austria, he founded and directed Elevate Entrepreneurship, a grassroots movement to improve and grow Austria’s innovation economy. Hartwig is a former foreign service officer with the Department of State and served abroad in the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, and Austria. He began his professional career as a public defender in Massachusetts, defending indigent clients against the prospect of life in prison. 

Hartwig lives in Silver Spring, MD with Brenda Walter ’01 and their two daughters.