Sunlight Foundation

Bidding Farewell to Federal CIO Vivek Kundra

Today, the White House announced that Vivek Kundra, the country's first federal Chief Information Officer, is leaving later this summer to serve as a joint fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. We're sad to see him go and urge President Obama to choose a successor who will carry out Vivek's vision of using the Internet to create a more transparent government.

Perhaps Vivek's biggest accomplishment was to strengthen OMB's role as a publisher of government data. While OMB is still largely unwilling to force agencies to share more information, Vivek built Data.gov and the IT Dashboard as tools to aggressively pursue transparency that affects how the government works.

Unfortunately, most of the work he started is also at risk of ending abruptly. With the electronic government fund being cut, and Congress hesitant to codify important transparency requirements, we risk seeing Vivek's successes become temporary gains. That's why we're hoping the White House chooses a successor for his position who shares his belief that technology can be used to change government for the better, by making it more transparent and accountable.

E-Gov Measure in Committee Hearing Today

The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs (HSGAC) is holding a committee hearing at 2:30 pm today to discuss a bill proposed by Sen. Tom Carper -- and cosponsored by HSGAC chair Joe Lieberman and ranking member Susan Collins -- that would create a system of accountability for federal information technology programs. (You can watch the hearing here starting at 2:30 pm) Congress Daily sums up the proposal and I've highlighted what might be the most important part:

A draft of the bill calls for the creation of a Web site to be updated quarterly with details about the price, schedule and performance of certain projects that annually cost $500,000 or more. Since the 2002 passage of the E-Government Act, nearly $450 billion has been spent on information technology, but many projects far exceeded cost estimates and did not perform as planned.

The bill would also require each agency's chief information officer to create a program to improve technology acquisition, planning, project management and oversight and develop metrics for success that can be monitored in real-time.

Under the bill, OMB would prescribe guidelines for departments to follow and agency heads would be required to submit annual reports to Congress detailing Internet technology accomplishments. The proposal would create a "tiger team" of private sector, nonprofit, and federal R&D officials to oversee tech projects.

Agency information officers and technology adopters have been pushing for OMB guidance for some time. There is a strong need for guidance on how agencies can use certain Internet technologies, including social media. Also, the idea of a "tiger team" seems like a perfect way to involve those outside of government who want to help.

Below is a list of those scheduled to testify:

  • Vivek Kundra - Administrator, Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology
  • David A. Powner - Director, Information Technology Issues , U.S. Government Accountability Office
  • Karen Evans - Former Administrator, Office of Electronic Government and Information Technology, Office of Management and Budget
  • Mr. Philip Bond - President, TechAmerica

VA Secretary of Technology Gives Blogger Briefing

This afternoon I attended a talk by Aneesh Chopra, the Secretary of Technology for Virginia, hosted by New Media Strategies.

Chopra described his rather unusual job, a sort of newly styled state-CIO position, and gave us his vision for government and the development of the surrounding areas in the process.

Chopra began by listing the three priorities in his job as a cabinet member under the Governor. He sees his job in thirds. The first third deals with tradition IT manangement (are the servers working). The second third is his role as emissary and cheerleader for technology in government, soliciting, recognizing, and fostering creative new ideas, like combining forms to orient agency workflow toward a citizen-centric model. In his description of this aspect of his work, Chopra really shined, probably a sign of someone engaged in something new and constructive, full of ideas, and seeing potential everywhere he looked. He said "just scratching the surface" and "really simple things" repeatedly, more signs of someone enchanted by the possibilities of technology, and in the right position to make things happen. About including the public in his work, he said:

We have failed to tap the hidden talent of the uncredentialed.


I've tried to say this before in other ways--distributed expertise is disconnected from policy creation, etc--but his formulation captures the real potential for transparent and receptive institutions. Chopra sees analysis from bloggers as having huge potential for stimulating reform (and should check out the Open House Project), and, as I often do, bemoans the focus on the political and wonders about people's capacity to add to substantive policy debate and deliberation. His plan to integrate public policy ideas amounts to a small e-suggestions box for now, but Chopra is certainly deeply involved in the practical fight of how to make Virginia's government function more effectively though technology.

He's not just trying to get the government running smoothly, though. Chopra sees the development of the IT sector of our area's economy as the third major goal in his work, and has grand ideas to test about how young people given a real chance and a computer might find their way into the new tech economy.

Virginians are lucky to have such a proactive visionary leading their tecnological development.

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