I'm Matt Zagaja, an attorney with background in politics, science, and technology residing in Massachusetts. I am a Senior Backend Engineer at TED and am on the leadership team of Code for Boston. I spend much of my time using technology to improve government.

My first job was fixing and configuring computers and networks for individuals and small businesses in Connecticut. I taught myself HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. I built machines from parts, configured them for networks, and recovered data from broken hard drives.

In politics I worked for every campaign that former Connecticut Governor Malloy ran since 2006. I helped Elizabeth Esty unseat an incumbent Republican state representative in 2008. Then in 2013 I managed Matthew Nemerson's mayoral race in New Haven before he dropped out to endorse Mayor Toni Harp. In 2014 I worked for the Connecticut Democratic Party as its Deputy Data Director. I have also volunteered as treasurer for several campaigns and interned for the Connecticut State Elections Enforcement Commission.

I have also consulted for numerous start-up companies in the technology sector. Some of that experience was through UConn Law's IP Clinic where I helped the companies secure trademarks and assisted in the drafting of patents. Other times it has been through individual contracts with the companies or through the UConn Business School's Innovation Accelerator program where I created market research reports that companies used to secure investments and plan their future. In January 2015 I helped Lon Seidman cover CES 2015 for his YouTube Channel. I think technology start-ups are critical to the future of the country. Thus I am passionate and enjoy writing about legal and policy issues around them like network neutrality, patents, copyright, security and privacy.

Besides serving as Senior Backend Engineer at TED, I also collaborate with CTNewsJunkie on two projects: vote.ctnewsjunkie.com and bills.ctnewsjunkie.com. I enjoy working on these projects as experiments in increasing civic engagement through data and software.

This work by Matt Zagaja is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.