Obama's Chief Information Officer Calls it Quits, is Harvard Bound

Posted 06/17/2011 at 6:57am | by Paul Lilly

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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