Ready for Summer

Welcome back to the Paragon Policy Fellowship newsletter! After a hiatus from hosting the Fellowship, we’re thrilled to return with big updates, from a brand new cohort to behind-the-scenes initiatives that have been in the works all spring.

1. Looking Forward to Summer 2026

2. A Semester Behind the Scenes

3. Paragon Policy Fellowship 2025 Annual Report Released

4. Mentorship Program Update

5. Tech Policy Reading List

After spending a semester refining and strengthening our programs, the Paragon Policy Fellowship is back. This past Wednesday, we welcomed 32 Fellows into our Summer 2026 cohort, bringing together students and recent graduates from across the country and around the world to work on meaningful technology policy challenges at the local government level.

By the numbers:

• 32 Fellows total

• 17 states represented

• 4 countries represented

• 23 undergraduates, 5 graduate students, 4 recent graduates

Here are the projects our Fellows will be working on this upcoming semester:

1. Fort Collins, CO: Evaluating the Role of AI in Improving Resident Access to Digital Services

   1. Fellows will work with the City of Fort Collins to evaluate potential applications of AI in resident programs and public benefits access, including utility assistance, legal assistance, neighborhood mini grants, and more. Rather than assuming a predefined need for AI implementation, the City aims to analyze the challenges residents face when interacting with digital services, how those experiences vary across different populations, and whether AI-enabled tools would improve or detract from resident experience. The City will work with Fellows to assess this need by evaluating how AI-supported interfaces impact service efficiency alongside resident comfort, trust, accessibility, and willingness to engage with AI-supported systems.

2. Los Angeles, CA: Improving Language Accessibility for Senior AAPI Community

   1. The Los Angeles City Council is exploring ways to use technology to strengthen language access for Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) citizens. The Los Angeles City Council specifically called for recommendations on incorporating technology tools to increase language access, and subsequent City reporting tied this work to broader implementation of the city’s efforts for increasing language accessibility. Fellows will work with the City to develop a curated assessment of technology-enabled language access solutions that AAPI-serving nonprofit organizations can use to better support older adults with diverse language needs. Then, Fellows will develop a practical small-grant pilot structure outlining how the City can support implementation of the recommended tools at the organizational level focused on maxmizing impact.

3. San Jose, CA: Improving All Transparency and Public Accountability Practices

   1. Fellows will work with the City of San Jose to develop AI transparency guidelines, including its policies, public-facing AI Inventory, and community-facing engagement practices. Fellows will collaboratively create actionable recommendations to strengthen clarity, accessibility, accountability, and public trust informed by stakeholder interviews. As a leader in the AI space and the home of the GovAI coalition, theCity of San José is looking to identify gaps in its current AI transparency approach and prioritize improvements that are practical, high-impact, and aligned with peer-government and academic best practices.

4. Tempe, AZ: Municipal Data Privacy Framework

   1. Fellows will work with the City of Tempe to develop a recommended framework that identifies core responsible data collection practices and privacy mechanisms to protect not only company or organization, but also individual data. This resource will explore integration with Tempe’s existing equity data ecosystem, translating principles already established to operational technology and automated data collection to draft technology-agnostic standards for disclosure, purpose limitation, and community accountability.

After six consecutive cohorts, our Staff identified a need to focus on internal initiatives such as new professional development opportunities, expanded government partner outreach, policy workshop refinement, and research and publication programming. This break in hosting Fellows allowed our Staff to dedicate all available time and resources to program refinement that we are excited to implement in Summer 2026 and beyond.

Alumni Trade Publication Initiative

One of these initiatives is our Alumni Trade Publication Initiative (TPI). The TPI is a structured effort to consolidate the intellectual output of past Paragon leads and fellows into coherent, theme-based policy briefs for internal trade publication. Designed as an exclusive opportunity for alumni, TPI systematizes prior work into thematic tracks that reflect Paragon’s unwavering commitment to excellence and creativity.

Our inaugural policy brief, “Increasing AI Security and Trust in State and Local Government,” examines the challenges posed by the rapid rise of artificial intelligence and offers best practices for mitigating emerging risks. Participants in this initiative will draw on case studies from Paragon’s government partnerships to identify key challenges and propose actionable solutions and policy recommendations.

Beyond the TPI our Staff has worked on other incredible initiatives, including a refinement to our policy curriculum, improved outreach to government partners, streamlined Fellowship operations & logistics, greater professional development resources for Fellows, and more!

Our 2025 Annual Report showcases the incredible work our Fellows accomplished in serving our public servants and communities.

We believe that emerging leaders remain essential catalysts for fostering public trust. By cultivating pathways in public interest technology for the next generation, we ensure that digital government remains adaptive, equitable, and representative of the communities we serve.

As we enter our third year, we remain committed to evolving from an applied research provider into a durable partner in digital governance. We look forward to building on our work as we shape a more effective, just, and human-centered government.

During this iteration of the Paragon Mentorship Program, we matched 15 promising Paragon alumni with 20 experienced mentors working across tech policy and related fields. The program is designed to create structured, meaningful relationships that support career development and long-term engagement within the tech policy community.

Over the past four months, participants engaged in recurring mentor meetings alongside curated resources focused on career planning, application materials, tech policy pathways, and goal setting. Mentees also had access to opportunity directories and guided discussion prompts to help them translate mentorship conversations into concrete next steps.

The feedback from this cohort has been strong. Around 80 percent of participants reported that the program had a meaningful impact on their career development. Participants expressed gaining clearer insight into the field, more personalized guidance, expanded professional networks, and access to new career opportunities.

As this cohort comes to a close, we are excited to continue building a strong and supportive community of emerging tech policy leaders.

📖 See what our organizing team has been reading since the last issue:

• American Enterprise Institute: The EU’s Marking of Its Own Digital Markets Act Homework Found Wanting (Garv Jain, Advancement Director)

• Harvard Kennedy School: The Digital Gorilla (Jared Salcedo, Policy Education Director)

• Capgemini: Trends in 2026 for smart cities – from technology led to insights driven (Annie Beckman, Executive Director)

• Brookings: Avoiding the next digital divide: Defining digital sovereignty for Tribal Nations in the AI age (Sofia Rodriguez, Executive Director)

• Center for a New American Security: The Export Control Loophole Fueling China’s Chip Production (Lizzie Ong, Policy Coordinator)

• Philosophers’ Imprint: Deepfakes, Pornography and Consent (Nghia Pham, Research Coordinator)

• Tech Policy Press: The Blind Spot in AI Safety (Kalissa Greene, News Media Coordinator)

• NBC: Supreme Court considers lawfulness of broad police requests for cellphone location data (Ruth Ayele, Professional Development Coordinator)

*These recommendations are made out of personal capacity and do not reflect Paragon’s opinions as an organization.

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— Contributed by Garv Jain, Nghia Pham, Ruth Ayele, Sofia Rodriguez, and Annie Beckman