Clean energy, better wages for restaurant workers and faster alerts to locate missing children— these were some of the civic tech pitches Martin O'Malley listened to during his first presidential campaign stop in San Francisco Wednesday night.
The former Maryland governor, who is trailing far behind Hillary Clinton in polls, called Clinton's email use a huge distraction for the Democratic party at a campaign stop earlier today in Las Vegas.
O'Malley joked that San Francisco's unusual warm weather was nothing compared to the heat in Las Vegas, where he spoke in front of Donald Trump's hotel.
On Wednesday, the pitches flew fast at The Hall, a food court in the former Hollywood Billiards building in the Tenderloin, located just a few blocks from Twitter's headquarters, a stretch of San Francisco that's increasingly getting gentrified as more tech companies open shop in the area.
A panel of tech execs, that included Kimerly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code, and Sam Lessin, former vice president of product at Facebook, declared John Guydon, CEO of the Lassy Project, as the winner of the best pitch.
The Lassy Project allows parents and guardians to start looking for missing loved ones with the click of a button. "In a matter of seconds, because every second counts," Guydon said. The company is currently partnering with law enforcement and cities across the U,S, to look for missing children. Last week, the app was crucial in helping to find a local special needs child who was missing, Guydon said.
On Thursday, O'Malley will be talking with Guydon and other tech industry leaders at Brigade, Sean Parker's nonpartisan tech startup. Net neutrality, patents and tech innovation are on the agenda.
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"I've been active as a presidential candidate for just 74 days, we've just begun our fight," O'Malley said to loud cheers from a standing-room only crowd. O'Malley stressed open data and civic engagement can improve government. "Our government doesn't belong to the Koch brothers, it doesn't belong to super PACs, it belongs to us," he said.
O'Malley ended his speech by saying: "Our economy is people. We are on the threshold of a new era of American progress and we are in need of renewed faith and a new leader."
He then asked the audience to join him for a beer.
Presidential candidate @MartinOMalley makes 1st campaign stop in #SF for startup civic tech competition. pic.twitter.com/rawI12C54S — NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) August 20, 2015
Full house at our tech & gov. panel w/ @JoinBrigade @POPVOX @BlackGirlsCode @Microsoft & more. http://t.co/vGpXpTBkc3 pic.twitter.com/FIoXli6UfS — Martin O'Malley (@MartinOMalley) August 20, 2015
