Stanford CIS

Andrew McLaughlin

Andrew McLaughlin is a technology law and policy nerd. He is Executive Director of Civic Commons, a new non-profit that help cities and other governments share and implement low-cost technologies to improve public services, management, accountability, transparency, and citizen engagement. He is also a director of Code for America.

From 2009-2011, Andrew McLaughlin served on President Obama's White House staff as Deputy Chief Technology Officer of the United States, focusing on Internet, technology, and innovation policy, including open government, cybersecurity, online privacy and free speech, federal R&D priorities, spectrum policy, entrepreneurship, and building open technology platforms for health care, energy efficiency, and education. Prior to the White House, he served on the Obama/Biden presidential transition team, as a member of the Technology, Innovation and Government Reform cluster. From 2004-2009, Andrew was Director of Global Public Policy at Google.

From 1999-2002, Andrew helped launch and manage ICANN, the Internet's technical coordinating organization, serving as Vice President, Chief Policy Officer, and Chief Financial Officer. From 1998-2005, Andrew was a Senior Fellow at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. In 2002-2003, Andrew taught a course on digital democracy at Harvard Law School while working on Internet and telecom law reform projects in a number of developing countries, including Ghana, Mongolia, Kenya, Afghanistan, and South Africa. He was a co-founder of CIPESA, a technology policy think-tank and advocacy center based at Makerere University in Uganda. At Google, Andrew co-led Google's Africa strategy, and served as a member of the Board of Directors of Bridges.org, an international non-profit organization based in Cape Town.

Andrew holds a B.A. from Yale University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. After clerking on the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Andrew started his legal career at Jenner & Block in Washington DC, where he focused on appellate and constitutional litigation. He was a member of the legal team that challenged the U.S. government's first Internet censorship law, resulting in the Supreme Court's landmark 1997 Internet free speech ruling in ACLU vs. Reno. From 1997-98, Andrew served as counsel to the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. In 2000, Time Magazine named Andrew one of its Digital Dozen. In 2001, he was named a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum. He is a fellow of the Young Leaders Forum of the National Committee on US-China Relations.