TEDxUIllinois 2011: The Invisible Public Way by John Tolva

Mayor Rahm Emanuel hired John Tolva as his Chief Technology officer and tasked him with with leveraging technology to ensure that Chicago delivers better services at a lower cost to taxpayers.

Before joining the city of Chicago, Tolva worked at IBM for over 13 years. In his most recent capacity, he served as the Director of Citizenship & Technology for IBM where he was responsible for developing new social, educational, environmental, and cultural heritage projects that use innovative technologies in partnership with nonprofit institutions and governmental entities.

His team developed programs that performed a wide range of tasks, ranging from contributing idle processing power to the search for a cure to HIV to matching employees with community volunteer opportunities.