Michael Della Bitta is the Director of Technology at the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA), which was originally founded at the Berkman Klein Center.
By leading software development and technology initiatives, Michael helps DPLA in its mission to empower people to learn, grow, and contribute to a diverse and better-functioning society by maximizing public access to our shared history, culture, and knowledge.
Before joining DPLA, Michael worked as a data and analytics developer, architect, and engineering manager at Appinions, an influencer marketing analytics startup which was acquired by the content marketing company ScribbleLive. Michael’s team used natural language processing, machine learning, cloud, and text search technologies to score the influence of public figures mentioned in free-text news and blog posts and social media at scale.
Michael also spent seven years as a developer and architect on the repository and Digital Gallery teams at the New York Public Library, where he launched NYPL's digital repository which securely stored and digitally-preserved the library’s millions of digital cultural heritage items and metadata.
Earlier in his career, Michael built content management, online learning, and semantic metadata applications at Columbia University’s Digital Knowledge Ventures unit.
Michael has spoken about software development and libraries at the DPLAfest, Digital Library Federation, Code4Lib and LDCX conferences, and been published in PC Magazine and D-Lib Magazine.
With fifteen years of experience participating in the leadership of software engineering and development teams, Michael’s deep understanding of what works to design and implement engineering projects –– in the cloud and at scale –– have enabled him to troubleshoot and fix difficult-to-solve problems and legacy systems and lead teams of engineers to successfully architect and realize new and complex technological projects.