TTS is proud to present the 2023 Andrew Hyder Government Service Improvement Award to Lalitha Jonnalagadda. This is awarded annually to one or more federal employees who demonstrate both excellence in their work and a commitment to improving the public’s experience with government.
Lalitha is a product manager at 18F. In her tenure at TTS, she has had the opportunity to collaborate with amazing federal teams through visioning, strategizing, coaching, delivering and launching digital products, most notably the Department of Justice’s civil rights portal. At 18F, Lalitha collaborated with and led teams in developing and coaching product management at FEMA, EPA, DOE, HHS’ Office of Head Start and DOJ’s OIP (for foia.gov).
From her nomination:
“Lalitha led the charge for the in-person proofing product offering on Login.gov from the start. She was staffed from 18F to support Login.gov and was immediately tasked with building out, testing, and implementing an entirely new wing of Login.gov’s product. She did this while starting with a brand new team, working remotely, balancing stakeholders both intra- and inter- agency, and all the while maintaining an exemplary work-life balance.
In-person proofing is a critical element of Login.gov’s accessibility work that strives to ensure that everyone is able to verify their identity and access government services. Lalitha championed the ideas that make government services more accessible by continually centering the needs of the users through the development and rollout of the in-person identity proofing pilot. In her leadership of the in-person identity proofing effort Lalitha drove collaboration not only across TTS (between 18F and Login.gov, TTS Operations, and TTS Agreements) but also across agencies, as the US Postal Service was a critical partner in piloting this new offering.”
Lalitha lives in Virginia with her husband and two boys. She is motivated to solve problems for the general public by delivering equitable products and services and ease their interactions with the government. When in doubt, she researches and empathizes with individuals that struggle to use government services to guide her in improving outcomes through her products.
This award commemorates the life and work of Andrew Hyder, a consulting software engineer at 18F who passed away in 2021. Andrew was a community organizer who brought together activists, technologists, community members, and others to improve the way that governments delivered services to those in need. Examples of his contributions can be found in these blog posts: A dashboard for privacy offices and Forms Resource for Federalist Users.
“Feed the people” was Andrew’s well-known refrain, though it went beyond just nutritional benefits and programs like GetCalFresh. He challenged colleagues and partners to think about the true benefits and costs of our work, always seeing the connections from our keyboards to the lived experiences of people across the country.