It’s kind of weird how fast my week transitioned from looking forward to reflecting back. Let me explain.
The beginning of the week was pretty exciting as Emily was going to present some highlights on her time working on open laws for the San Francisco’s Mayor’s Office and her current Fulbright research at a Code for Seoul meeting. As the information age continues to strive for the ease of access to and equal access of various information resources, certain sectors are not keeping up with the pace. Although it was not necessarily something Emily was looking to get into, it effectively changed the course of her next few years of work. San Francisco, in particular, had a huge problem with having their law codes in a simple and clean user interface. Imagine your code in a tube in a bottle in a can in a vacuum in a box in a trunk in a drawer in a cabinet. That was basically what San Francisco’s former site looked like until Emily stepped up and picked up this project that was given to her impromptu on her very first day on the job. The ridiculousness of the effort one had to put into read any one specific law was absurd and very bad for the public that did not have as wealthy a background in regulation and law as lawyers still do. She elaborated the ways she worked with a bunch of civic hackers to build up a new platform to have the San Francisco code on. It was a great success and was even picked up by numerous other municipal and higher level governments to place their code on. Hooray for open access!
And hooray for such a good presentation by Emily!
Her talk was especially helpful for those with little programming experience who wanted to get involved in coding and those programmers who wanted to apply their skills into the public sector. Essentially the talk was a good touchstone on what ways we can try to close the gap between the public and their government.
As wonderfully forward-looking as that talk was, tragic news set my perspective in reverse. On Tuesday afternoon, Luchang Wang, a fellow Sillimander, sadly committed suicide in San Francisco after leaving campus without notice during superstorm Juno. I did not really elaborate my words in public but I will elaborate them here.
Luchang was a weird person. From the moment we first met, our conversation would start and stop on a random topic. They ranged from silly superheroes to fascinating food and the conversation would always seem fluid. Even without trying to get to know each other, I think we learned about each other’s character in a more intriguing light. She cared about things on a deeper level, which would become evident even on the little things that would sprout in conversation.
Luchang, I think there really are few like you that could make little things mean so much. I heard the news late and it felt terrible to read you say you just did not have the time you needed and this was the best solution. Questioning your decision is something you wouldn’t want so I hope you are free and at peace now. Please know that we will miss you, but we will keep on the good fight for you
And so, despite how good and then how painful this week was, I know Luchang would want me and everybody else to overcome but vocalize their sruggles, but it cannot stop them from doing more good in the world because people need it.
Here’s to you, Luchang.
