Dani Lopez ’17, from The Bronx, is a civic technologist, advocate, and recovering former bureaucrat building digital infrastructure for the human services sector to improve access to federal safety net programs. She is the co-founder and co-executive director of Beneficial Computing, a civic tech nonprofit incubated by Blue Ridge Labs, the tech innovation arm of the Robin Hood Foundation.
At Beneficial Computing, engineers and practitioners build AI tools and shared digital infrastructure to help people navigate federal disability benefits (SSI and SSDI) while reducing administrative burden and avoidable application denials. Dani led the organization’s rapid response to HR1 policy changes, building a coalition of nonprofits and funders led by Hunger Free America and the Robin Hood Foundation. Together, they supported the launch of SNAPhelp.nyc, Beneficial Computing’s free AI-enabled platform available in English, Spanish, and Chinese that helps New Yorkers understand potential pathways and concrete steps to maintain SNAP benefits.
Dani began her career in policy before moving directly into the benefits bureaucracy to better understand the gap between public policy and how people actually experience it. For several years, she administered federal and state financial aid programs while developing and delivering college access and financial aid programming focused on first-generation, low-income (FGLI) students in New York City. She also served with the U.S. Digital Response on AI-enabled public service projects as a UX researcher and safety net benefits subject matter expert.
At Amherst College, Dani earned her Bachelor of Arts in political science. She is a sought-after speaker and advisor on civic tech, bureaucracy, benefits access, and AI, and has been recognized as a NYC Food Policy 40 Under 40 Rising Star, a Next City Vanguard Fellow, and a City & State New York Latino Trailblazer.
How do you use your liberal arts education in the work you do today?
Almost a decade on and in a very different world than 2016 was, I’ve learned to look at a liberal arts education as equipping me with as many lenses to view the world. No single lens gives you the whole picture nor applies to every situation, but the more you switch them out and combine them, the more you can see.
At Amherst, Prof. Machala’s Reading Politics was one of my favorite classes because it gave me space to connect political theory to real-world events. Once something becomes tangible, it becomes measurable and therefore changeable. Professor Obert’s American Political Development course gave me another lens through path dependency, institutions, and bureaucracy.
As a kid who grew up on an alphabet soup of benefits programs, I can do this because my liberal arts education – Political Science and Sociology – helped me understand where power sits, pulled the curtain back on what power is, why it works the way it does, and why we should question and reshape the systems around us. I specifically focused on the Social Sciences and Humanities over STEM classes. I don’t know how to write a single line of Python, but that hasn’t stopped me from being a two-time tech founder with tools helping tens of thousands of Americans put more food on the table each month – with much more to come!
As annoying as it is, in life, you don’t get a roadmap. It’s all a puzzle – and you’ll never finish the puzzle, but the more pieces you bring together, the more complete your map becomes, the more possibilities you find, and the more problems you can avoid.
What impact do you hope to have through your career?
If my work can make someone’s life materially better while expanding what they believe is possible for themselves and their communities, that is the impact I want to have.
My whole life has revolved around education and benefits access. As a recipient of that support, I know *education* creates opportunities – there’s no better example of this than my Amherst education – but I also know you can’t learn well if you’re hungry, and you can’t change the world if you aren’t in the room.
We have a lot of problems to solve, and I know I’m not going to solve the big ones. I can’t solve climate change, figure out how to cheaply desalinate water, or end gun violence. But I’m really good at paperwork. Which, like, doesn’t sound particularly ‘sexy,’ but that’s where the power is. Paperwork (most clearly under HR1 / OBBBA) has kept people from being fed, housed, cared for, and even getting an education. I see it as my role to remove whatever impediment I can so people have more freedom and capacity to solve the problems I never could.
In the process of ‘doing my bit,’ I also want people to see that even a handful of us can build things, from programs to technology to communities and movements, that reshape the world around us. Systems are designed by people, and therefore they must always be questioned by people and – when needed – redesigned by people. We the People, if you want to be a U.S. history nerd like me.