The patent system. Online privacy law. Bitcoin regulations. Net neutrality rules. In the coming years, policy makers may have as much influence on technology as the world's hackers do – if not more. So it should come as little surprise that a hacker is running for Congress.

Twenty-eight-year-old software developer David Cole spent over two years working for the White House as the deputy director of new media, where he helped build the White House website, and now, he wants to make the switch from crafting code for the government to crafting policy. He's seeking the Democratic nomination for his home district in New Jersey, which includes Atlantic City. If he wins, he'll challenge the incumbent Republican, Frank LoBiondo, who has represented the district since 1995 – and is not a hacker.

"It's an interesting pivot," Cole says of his career change. But it's a natural one. As an undergraduate at Rutgers, Cole initially majored in computer engineering before switching to political science, and he was involved in the school's student government. "I'd been involved with computers since I was a little kid," he says, "but what I learned in college is that there were a lot opportunities to apply problem solving at a larger level, to some of these big political issues."

After college, Cole volunteered for then-candidate Barack Obama's presidential campaign, and worked his way up to a position as a senior advisor for technology in the CIO's office at the White House, where he worked for over two years. He then spent three years in the private sector working for the Washington, DC-based software company Development Seed and its open source mapping spinoff Mapbox. At Development Seed, he helped build the open source interface for healthcare.gov – i.e., the good part of the otherwise botched Obamacare website.

Though he has spent plenty of time around politicians, Cole hasn't actually held political office before. But he believes that the U.S. House – rather than state or local government – is the perfect place to start. "I'm running to tackle the issues that most affect families in South Jersey, like too few jobs, too high student debt, the need to act on climate change and the opportunity to make vital investments in education and infrastructure," he says. "On those and many other issues, the leadership of the House of Representatives have obstructed any attempts at moving our country forward."

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Cole is quick to downplay his alligence to the tech industry, which is increasingly under fire for being out of touch with the rest of the country. "Software developers aren't the only ones under represented in congress," he says. "Teachers, people in business other than CEOs, service workers, lots of people don't have a voice in government because it's really expensive to run a campaign."

But he does say that, in his new role, he hopes to make use of the problem solving skills he learned as a coder, and the tech industry will probably find a lot to like in his policies. He says that ensuring network neutrality will play a role in revitalizing the economy, allowing small internet players to continue competing with large companies. And to tackle his district's chronic unemployment problem, he hopes to attract more technology and clean energy companies to the area. "We need to replace some of the manufacturing sector jobs and rebuild the economy," he says.

Education, he adds, should be the first step towards attracting more companies to the area. High tech companies are desperate to hire people with the right skills. He wants to make it easier for anyone to learn technical skills, and he says that teaching computer programming to children at an early age will be an important part of making the tech industry more diverse and robust. "It's not OK that the most of the people who are entering this industry are coming from upper middle class backgrounds," he says. "The only reason I got anywhere was that my mom bought me a computer at a young age. I didn't have a lot of money, but I had those opportunities at a young age."

Unseating an incumbent of 20 years is no small task. What Cole calls "youth and fresh perspective" could easily be dismissed by critics as a lack of experience. But Cole says that the district leans Democrat – it went for President Obama in both of the last two elections – and that could work in his favor if he goes against LoBiondo. But first, he'll have to win the primary in June, where he'll face Bill Hughes Jr., whose father served as a representative for the district for the 20 years preceding LoBiondo.

His competitors have far more cash on hand – at least for the moment – but Cole remains optimistic about his chances. "I'm still enough of an idealist," he says, "to reject the idea that big money can drown out big ideas."