Adel Ebeid: a conversation with the first ever City of Philadelphia Chief Innovation Officer [Q&A]
The City of Philadelphia has a new chief of IT.
As reported first by Technically Philly Thursday, Adel Ebeid, the former New Jersey state CTO, will be announced as Philadelphia’s first ever Chief Innovation Officer at a press conference this afternoon.
Described as “the perfect immigrant story” by the city’s Managing Director Rich Negrin, Ebeid, who was born in Egypt but raised in Jersey City after losing as a teenager his father to skin cancer, rose through the ranks of New Jersey state government to become among the only cabinet level leaders that fiery Governor Chris Christie kept on.
Now, after ‘flatly’ turning down the offer, the soft spoken and succinct Ebeid is preparing to move his wife and new daughter to a city he admits he doesn’t know well to help inject innovation into the City of Philadelphia. Answering directly to Negrin, himself an immigrant story who lost his father young and grew up in a smaller North Jersey city, Ebeid joins Mayor Nutter’s cabinet in a role that is meant to “bring the most impact at the least cost,” he says.
Below, Ebeid talks to Technically Philly, before he even knows what neighborhood he’ll call home, about his priorities, his childhood and if he’s going to join Nutter and Negrin on Twitter.
