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President Barack Obama appointed Indian-American Vivek Kundra as the White House's first ever Chief Information Officer (CIO), a position he held for two and a half years but will leave behind in August to become a joint fellow at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, said Jacob J. Lew, the White House budget director, in a blog post.
When Kundra joined the White House, Lew said he faced "an aging infrastructure with rising operating costs, too many major projects failing to deliver, and increasing vulnerability to outside threats." He then praised Kundra for what he's been able to accomplish during his time as CIO.
"He has cracked down on wasteful IT spending, saved $3 billion in taxpayer dollars; moved the government to the cloud; strengthened the cybersecurity posture of the nation while making it more open, transparent, and participatory," Lew said. "His work has been replicated across the world from 16 countries that have deployed the data.gov model to tap into the ingenuity of their people to multiple countries that have deployed the IT dashboard to save money."
Lew did not name a successor to Kundra, but did promise a "smooth transition." The announcement comes as the White House prepares to spend in the neighborhood of $80 billion this year on technology, money which will go towards upgrading thousands of federal data programs and worker emails with an increased emphasis on the cloud.
Image Credit: CIO.gov
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Wily_One
June 17, 2011 at 1:06pm
I wonder if any of the high profile (but pointless) attacks on public government websites such as the CIA and Federal Reserve have anything to do with it. A better question: if this clown is "CIO of the nation", why wasn't he fired?
Neufeldt2002
June 17, 2011 at 9:04am
I didn't know that Harvard offered weed positions, that must be one hell of a demotion. Going from CIO of the White House to rolling joints at Harvard to get the government classes prepared for their chosen field. I always wondered why some of the decisions were way out there, now I know. o_O
carickw
June 17, 2011 at 7:46am
"moved the government to the cloud"
I sure hope that they own the cloud the moved to.
somethingelse
June 17, 2011 at 11:27am
"moved the government to the cloud"
I bet he doesn't even know what a hypervisor is. They should give credit to the technical IT staff that actually implemented the new technology and not praise some jerk off MBA who probably doesn't even know how to install Windows. I find it funny he's calling quits at a time where so many companies are being hacked. lulz
DDRDiesel
June 17, 2011 at 7:01am
I misread this as, "Obama calls it quits."
Why must you tease me like this?!
