On Wednesday, Mayor Walsh’s office announced the appointment of tech trendsetter Jascha Franklin-Hodge as the City of Boston’s new Chief Information Officer. A local guy who’s been in the thick of the Information Age’s various facets, from the digital disruption of the music industry to implementing tech in presidential campaigns, Franklin-Hodge is a representation of the mayor’s dedication to making Boston the tech capital of the world.

I was fortunate enough to sit down with Franklin-Hodge just hours after receiving news of his appointment. A cool customer in so many respects – just take a look at that crisp, blue shirt and matching tie – the city’s new CIO will build upon the solid foundation laid down by his predecessor Justin Holmes and promote the Walsh administration’s goals of transparency, accessibility and forward-thinking. Here’s an edited version of our conversation.

Tell me a little bit about yourself. Are you from the Boston area?

I grew up in Brookline. I’ve lived in Boston for the past 11 years in South Boston and Jamaica Plain before that. I’m currently the co-founder and CTO of a company called Blue State Digital that’s done software and marketing services primarily for political campaigns, nonprofits and brands. And before that, I worked for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign. That was my entrée into politics. That was a campaign that was sort of widely recognized for really using the Internet effectively in presidential politics.

 So are you behind the Dean Scream?

(Laughs) I can’t take any credit or blame for that.

So you’re basically a digital Yoda…

I wouldn’t go that far! I grew up here and went to MIT for a year. After my first year there I took a leave of absence, still absent, and I thought it was going to be for just a year but I ended up in California working for a digital music company that then got bought by AOL. I got to see the whole music industry upended by tech.

What it is that attracts you to tech?

Well I’ve been nerding out since I was about six-years old when my parents brought a computer home. My career, especially at BSD, has been built around finding ways to use technology to make a difference in peoples’ lives. BSD was about connecting people with the political process – helping raise money for organizations doing great things and having positive impacts on the world – and that idea of leveraging technology to make a societal impact is what my career’s been about. And that’s exactly the reason why I’m coming to the city. I think there’s so much opportunity in city government to make the city serve its citizens better, to both provide direct services online but also to give city employees the tools that they need to provide great service to Boston.

You kind of answered my next question there, but what attracted you to this position in particular?

It’s all those things, and I think it’s also that this is a really exciting time in Boston. We’ve got a new mayor, and a mayor who’s excited about technology and gets why it’s important, who’s excited about making sure this city is really citizen focused and sees the opportunity to use technology to achieve that goal. For me to join that team that has that passion and commitment and bring my technical experience and perspective to that is just an incredible opportunity.

What are some things that Boston’s doing right and some things that need a little bit more improvement?

I think Boston has been recognized, very rightly, as a leader in civic innovation. We have the incredible Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics…

I love them. They’re so cool.

They’re so great and such forward thinkers about tech, and real champions for not only new technology but for how to get people on board for new technology. The mayor recently signed an open data order to establish a policy to open up the city’s data as the default. That’s something that I’m excited to be working on, to make sure we’re protecting private information but ultimately making the city more transparent to citizens and using data as a way to engage our academic and our start up communities.

There’s so much opportunity in city government to make the city serve its citizens better, to both provide direct services online but also to give city employees the tools that they need to provide great service to Boston.

The city’s also been really good about making services available online, from the kind of mundane stuff like paying parking tickets and licensing your dog, but also really being forward thinking in terms of, for example, helping parents discover the Boston Public School system and find schools that will be great fits for their kids. I’m a huge believer in user experience but really thinking about, instead of coming at a problem from what’s the structure of government or what’s the organization look like that’s delivering this service, you come at it from the perspective of the user.

Beyond that, I think there’s some real interesting opportunities around helping to expand access to the internet and to technical skills in the city. We’ve already seen the rollout of Wicked Free Wi-Fi and we’re going to work to bring that to all 20 Main Streets districts in the City of Boston. That’s something that’s a starting point, but really thinking about how we can make sure the whole city gets to benefit from our technical talent and our resources.

A little bit of current events; Aereo. What are your thoughts?

I don’t have a lot of thoughts on that Supreme Court decision specifically. It’s clear that there’s a tremendous amount of innovation happening in this country and in Boston, and there are things where we as a society, our legal system, our government and our business world still don’t have figured out. It’s exciting to see the evolution of tech and to see how laws in government evolve alongside it. I think the city is incredibly committed to its startup community and to making sure that we as a government engage effectively with people who are trying to do new things, trying to do push boundaries and that’s certainly something I intended to do for my part and contribute to.

Apple or Android?

I’m an Apple guy. Through and through.

What do you do in your spare time? Are you writing code?

I don’t write too much code these days. I like to tool around the city on a Hubway as you might’ve seen in the video (above). For me, anything athletic is my way to relax.

So will you be at the World Cup viewing party on City Hall Plaza?

I’m going to try and make it.

Can we get that in HD or 3-D? 

That’d be great! 4K World Cup.

Where do you like to go when you’re biking around?

I have a pretty wide range. Boston’s such an awesome town, so many places to go. I live in South Boston so I love going along the Waterfront.

Is biking your primary mode of transportation?

I do all things – I take the T, I ride my bike, I walk, sometimes I even drive my car but I try to avoid that. It’s a great walking city and a great city to bike.

You mentioned athletics, what are your favorite sports to play and watch?

I run, I do CrossFit and I bike.

Anything else we should know about?

One of the ways the city is trying to engage with the startup community and the tech community is to really ask people for their help. The city’s going to be doing a hackathon later this summer on Hansen, which is the permitting system, to get our tech community’s ideas on how to make it more streamlined and more effective. Permitting isn’t something as people normally think of as sexy, but it’s so important to the operation of government, to development – whether it’s homeowners or people doing larger projects, we want to get all the skills we have working on it.