The United States federal government finally appoints the country's first Chief Information Officer. For a bureaucracy that is having a difficult time handling a President that wants a computer in the Oval Office and a Blackberry in his hand, I'd say the new CIO has his work cut out for him.
The U.S. government's first CIO, Vivek Kundra, introduced himself today as someone who will act aggressively to change the federal government's use of IT by adopting consumer technology and ensuring that government data is open and accessible.
Kundra also 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."
More information about the new CIO in this ComputerWorld article.
Comments
I worked for a number of
I worked for a number of years for a Fortune 500 IT company (a well-known member of the "Beltway Bandits" club)that derived a large percentage of its revenue from contracts with US Government civil and defense agencies. And in the process I saw first-hand the good, bad and ugly sides of both the government and its contractors.
I wish the administration and Kundra all the best and hope they succeed; however, I fear they may be taking on "Mission Impossible."
Anybody remember the "Information Superhighway" initiative of the early 1990s? I believe we are still working on that one! ;)