Jeff Friedman just launched his own firm to support govtech companies

After a decades-long career in business and technology that touched everything from local government to Amazon Web Services, Jeff Friedman is taking what he’s learned and launching his own company to help govtech clients.

Friedman’s next move is called The Kensington Collaborative which brings business development services to companies that provide tech services to and want to have an impact on public sector organizations.

The firm is based in Kensington (as you guessed) but works with companies from all over. Friedman’s goal is to support clients that want to improve the lives of government employees, their constituents and other related stakeholders.

Some of the companies on his roster including Quadrant 2, specifically its video submission Jotto app; Aquifer, an integration and automation data transfer platform; Rego, a circular economy platform for furniture; and True Elements, a water intelligence platform.

“The Kensington Collaborative believes in the force multiplication and resource liberation capacity of technology to support smarter, faster, and better public services and quality-of-life,” Friedman told Technical.ly via email. “‘Impact’ will be measured through the satisfaction of our clients and their government customers, and the constituents and/or businesses they serve.”

Friedman, an original RealLIST Connectors honoree, has held a variety of roles in Philadelphia’s tech community over the years. Most recently he was business development manager of state and local government in public utilities at AWS. Before that, he was the City of Philadelphia’s deputy director of performance management and cofounder and co-director of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics, an in-house civic idea incubator that piloted experimental projects in the civic space. He also cofounded the now-defunct civic tech project OpenAccessPhilly and is a volunteer govtech startup mentor at CivStart.

“I’ve been inspired by so many entrepreneurs over the last 10-15 years, and I wanted to find a way to share my industry experience and successes directly with technology companies and their government customers,” he said. “I’m currently in a great position to leverage my network, knowledge and capacity to help GovTechs fulfill their public service improvement missions.”

Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism.