And Obama's Chief Information Officer Is...

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2009-03-05 12:49:00 UTC
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Vivek Kundra, formerly Washington D.C.'s Chief Technology Officer has been appointed to be the first newly renamed Chief Information Officer of the federal government.

I've only heard of Kundra in the past few months in the context of his work on the Obama transition team. From all accounts though, been doing some incredible (if experimental) things in the District and has the right mindset to thinking about how to get citizen's engaged and use technology to make government more efficient and less costly.

So with the help of the New York Times and the Washington Post, here's a quick primer:

  • Kundra was born in India and grew up in Tanzania, moving to the US at 11. His first language is Swahili.

  • For the last 18 months, Kundra has been the Chief Technology Officer for Washington D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty.

  • He's interested in the way crowd-sourcing can, in some cases, improve the federal contract process. He received 47 submissions in a $50,000 contest last October called "Apps for Democracy" in order to help open up information like pothole repair schedules to DC residents. He estimates that the process saved about $2.5 million in contracts.

  • He's big on transparency and accountability, and really down on wasteful spending. From the Post:

    • "I don't want to buy technology the old way," he said. "Three years ago, D.C. schools spent $25 million to deploy a human resources software program. It failed, and not a single person was fired," Kundra said as he rushed between meetings. "And they had the audacity to ask for more money. How is that an intelligent use of taxpayer money?"

  • He takes an entrepreneurial approach to things, and is willing to let ideas - even those he's spent money on - go away rather than trickle on and drain resources

  • He stays connected to the private tech sector as well, making sure to visit research labs at companies like Apple yearly

  • He encourages employees to use Twitter

I'm pretty thrilled with the announcement and am looking forward to some innovation and advancement in government processes.

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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