As we wait for Obama to name his new CTO, some encouraging news on the federal IT front is breaking. Candi Harrison, writes at her blog that Bev Godwin, director of USA.gov, will be joining the White House as director of online resources and interagency development on the New Media Team.  Candi writes that Bev knows the Web manager community, and she will bring that knowledge to the table when decisions are being made. “You couldn’t have a better, more savvy and more capable advocate,” she writes. “This is great news.’

Nancy Scola at Tech President concurs. “With this and other appointments, team Obama is turning the White House into social media's center of gravity in Washington, which is a distinct change from the past.” And Craig Newmark is also excited. “I, for one, welcome our new (Web content) nerd overlords.”

Let us second (third? fourth?) these acclamations for this appointment. We've worked with Bev a little and she and her GSA team have been focused, savvy, and smart about the institutional barriers they will confront as they try to fulfill the President's promises on transparency, open government and collaboration.

The District has been getting major kudos for its IT projects and which are well-deserved. DC's data catalog, for instance, has tons of open data feeds (more than its share about crime, alas), and provides real-time data from multiple agencies. The District puts it online to act as a catalyst to encourage agencies to operate more responsively and timely.

Vivek Kundra, Washington, D.C.'s chief technology officer, launched a contest (with substantial financial prizes!) titled Apps for Democracy. DC is looking for  useful Web applications using the District government's data catalog. The winning designers who create the best widgets, Google Maps mash-ups, iPhone apps, Facebook apps, and other digital utilities will split $20,000 in $2,000 to $100 allotments.

A couple weeks ago, Nancy Scola at TechPresident wrote about the contest. And she linked to Matthew Burton who blogged about it as well.

If interested, you'll have to work fast. The deadline for submissions is tomorrow (Wednesday November 12^th). Here is the submission guide.

A quick review of the apps already submitted shows that many have to do with crime. Yikes! Things are getting better here in our nation's capital in this regard. Seriously.

And full disclosure. I've been asked to be a judge.