Luke Fretwell
Democracy and open, accessible technology.
Luke Fretwell is a champion of open, accessible technologies that drive collaborative and inclusive democracies.
He is co-founder and CEO of ProudCity, a platform empowering communities across the nation to deliver digital services. Government Technology recognized ProudCity as one of the nation’s leading civic technology companies on its GovTech 100 list for the past six years.
Luke worked as a journalist for many years, writing in TechCrunch, Government Technology, FCW, FedScoop and StateScoop. A known expert in the field, he has been cited as a reference by media outlets, including The Washington Post.
Luke helped stand up the editorial and digital operations for FedScoop and StateScoop and led product marketing for the open data platform company NuCivic (acquired in 2014).
In 2009, he started GovFresh, where he writes about the intersection of civics and technology. He is the host of The GovFresh Podcast.
In 2014, he founded Agile Government Leadership (AGL) as a community project that brought awareness to open and agile methodologies for better digital service delivery by government. AGL is now Technologists for the Public Good.
In 2019, Luke served as product designer for Alpha team, a short-term innovation project by the State of California to re-imagine CA.gov. He also worked with the state on Code California, aimed at helping to create open source software awareness inside government.
A civic hacker at heart, he’s built many projects, including: GovPress, a government WordPress theme; CityCamp, an internationally-adopted civic unconference focused on technology; and CivicDMV, a project to re-imagine the DMV in the context of digital.
His current projects include Proudly Serving, an open playbook to help local government agencies build people-centered digital services. Luke is a maintainer of the project and has shared his expertise as a content contributor.
Outside of civic tech, Luke has led the rebrand and product design for Inspire.com was a designer, marketing and product manager for Technical Communities; and managed the executive management newsletter and press-related functions for the American Society of Association Executives.
His volunteer service included mentoring youth through the Befriend-A-Child program; hosting a Bosnian refugee family through the International Rescue Committee; and providing hospice care support through Pathways Home Health and Hospice.
Luke graduated from George Mason University (GMU) with degrees in Government & Politics and International Studies. He was editor-in-chief of the GMU newspaper, The Broadside, where he led staff to win the university’s first national Associated Collegiate Press honors.