Peter Marx Appointed Los Angeles' Chief Innovation Technology Officer

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti appointed Peter Marx as the city's first Chief Innovation Technology Officer.

Marx, a Los Angeles native, is charged with improving the LA information portal service, MyLA311, upgrading the city's websites, and applying data sharing and analysis to upgrade city government performance. He will work in the Mayor's Office as a technology coordinator, strategist and advisor across city organizations. Before joining the Mayor's Office, Marx served as the vice president of Business Development at Qualcomm Labs, commercializing a variety of emerging technologies. Previously he was the VP of the Technology and Digital Studio at Mattel, and managed Analog Protocol, a media-technology consultancy, to name a few. Marx says that if you look at the city as a set of services -- such as police, fire, power, water and transportation -- those classic services are becoming more and more digital, which enables them to be delivered, controlled and measured digitally. And those services can be leveraged by organizations and civic technology efforts through application programming interfaces. For example, he said the city's MyLA311 now allows residents to submit service requests like pothole repair, graffiti removal or they can pay water and power bills. But that's just the beginning of where city services are going, he said.