The White House has named Vivek Kundra to fill the position of chief information officer -- the first time such a position has existed under a presidential administration.
As federal chief information officer, Kundra, currently chief technology officer for Washington, D.C.'s city government, will be responsible for managing the government's entire technology portfolio and budget, and for overseeing its enterprise architecture. ...
Kundra will work with the as-yet-to-be-named federal chief technology officer to advance the administration's overall technology agenda -- portions of which, particularly when it comes to improving government communication and services online -- sync with his work as District CTO.
Adrian M. Fenty, D.C.'s mayor, named Kundra as the city's CTO in March 2007. There, he oversaw more than 600 employees, and provided technology services to its agencies and citizens.
Not only is this an important milestone for IT professionals, it's an acknowledgment of the critical role effective information technology must play in helping to run an enterprise as vast as the federal government. And while IT pros would be the first to tell you that technology in and of itself is no panacea, modern organizations simply cannot flourish, or even survive, without it.
According to this New York Times blog post, Kundra's experience as D.C.'s CTO bodes well:
In just 19 months with the District, Mr. Kundra has moved to post city contracts on YouTube and to make Twitter use common in his office and others. He hopes to allow drivers to pay parking tickets or renew their driver's licenses on Facebook.
A contest he launched in October -- "Apps for Democracy" -- brought 47 entries from residents offering applications to give District residents Web and cellphone access to crime reports, pothole-repair schedules and other city data, The Post reported.
Mr. Kundra, who likes to refer to citizens as "co-creators," estimates he spent $50,000 for contest costs and prize money; he hopes to save $2.6 million over what it would have cost to hire contract developers.
And Computerworld reports that "Kundra wants to use technology such as cloud computing to attack the government's culture of big-contract boondoggles and its hiring of contractors who end up 'on the payroll indefinitely.'"
We have enough challenges ahead without mediocre and inefficient government computer networks. Here's hoping Kundra has what it takes to make the federal IT operation -- and, by extension, the government -- well-run and efficient.
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