Joseph William worked as a strategic tech advisor for Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee on tech industry policy. During his tenure, he expanded the growth of emerging technologies such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI), 5G within the tech ecosystem of Washington. He nearly worked for three years as a tech guru to the governor.

Joseph William, once the tech advisor now, will head for a new post and the coming week marks his new journey. He will take over the director post of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL) Seattle based office, likely to start his work from Monday.

William responded to the news and said:

Given its location, it’ll be an urban lab and it’ll be the first of the national labs to actually embrace its urban setting and celebrate it, use it as a recruiting point, and an engagement point.

One of the main objectives of the director will be to develop a facility that challenges high-profile research institutions such as the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence of Seattle. Joseph William expects PNNL to have the same dignity as others have.

The new director also needs to help the PNNL Seattle office to create its own identity and purpose. This will be one of the vital parts of his role. The PNNL Lab aims at national security and energy. It is the part of the United States Department of Energy’s broad network of government-funded research institutions throughout the US.

William further mentioned:

In the future, as we’re looking at cyber warfare or nuclear detection, the kinds of scientists that we’ll be looking to hire, they tend to fit a younger profile. There is a millennial, Gen Z affinity for an urban lifestyle.

For past three few years, William was working at Washington’s information and communication technology (ICT) as sector lead and played a significant role and supported Inslee’s attempts to help more rural area connect with internet access and also develop a new broadband office across the state. He was greatly involved in promoting rural broadband programs and state broadband office.

He not only tried to expand internet access to rural regions but also considered expanding the benefits of a few tech companies of the Seattle region to other states.

He believes that the new tech advisor, along with the Commerce Department, will continue working to lower the gap of the rural-urban divide. This has to be one of the top most priorities of the Washington State, William stated.

Some of the industry achievements he achieved during his tenure are increased the number of slots for computer science degree by two-fold at Washington State colleges and expanded tech apprenticeships for minorities, veterans, and women.

Earlier, the Washington State Department of Commerce revealed that Joseph William will resign from his sector lead post at ICT on June 23^rd to take the new post at PNNL, Seattle office.

Joseph William was former executive of Microsoft and Sun Microsoft. He has also worked at Seattle Pacific University as the Dean of the School of Business, Government, and Economics before taking over the industry sector lead post at ICT.