Before leaving office this month, federal chief information officer Vivek Kundra laid out the administration’s “Cloud First” policy, which requires agencies to give priority to cloud computing services as opposed to buying hardware and software. State and local government are also moving forward with cloud computing, but Kundra’s vision is the “creation of a global cloud first policy that forces nations to work together” on issues concerning cloud and whether cloud data should be shared between nations, Kundra said in a Tuesday New York Times op-ed piece. If cloud data can be shared, what restrictions should be in place? In Japan, the Ministry…
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The White House will announce today that former Microsoft executive Steven VanRoekel will replace Vivek Kundra as the federal chief information officer, according to an administration official. VanRoekel left his post as managing director of the Federal Communications Commission in June for an executive director position with the U.S. Agency for International Development. His Twitter account, @stevenvDC, has already been updated to reflect his new position as federal CIO. The New York Times reported the news early Thursday. At the FCC, VanRoekel headed the agency’s new media efforts and the redesign of FCC.gov, which operates in a cloud computing environment. Prior to…
Following up on concerns about decreased funding for the General Services Administration’s e-government fund, Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., has asked the federal chief information officer to detail how this will impact transparency efforts. In an April 21 letter to Vivek Kundra, Carper expressed his concern for the future of public websites like the ITDashboard, USASpending.gov and data.gov that rely on e-government funds to operate. Lawmakers slashed e-government funding from $34 million to $8 million in the 2011 spending bill. The dashboard, which updates the public on the performance of major information technology projects, coupled with in-depth reviews of at-risk projects, has saved…
I’m at the General Services Administration’s Government Web and New Media Conference today, listening to administration officials talk about open government, social media, and how to best use technology to reach the public. And one point keeps coming up: When it comes to websites and other programs, keep it simple, stupid. OK, so White House CIO Vivek Kundra and GSA Administrator Martha Johnson didn’t use those words exactly. But their message was clear: The public is increasingly using iPhones and other mobile devices that have trouble with overly-complex webpages. And if the federal government wants to reach citizens through those avenues,…
Look, we at FedLine are as fond of open government as the next business-of-federal-government-themed blog. But even we had to raise our eyebrows at this blog headline from White House Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra: “They Gave Us The Beatles, We Gave Them Data.gov.” * Kundra’s blog isn’t actually about the Beatles, however. It’s more about how the British government took a cue from us Yanks and today launched its own site pulling together all its reports and raw data. Kundra says that states and cities around the world are also launching their own data aggregation sites: All of these sites are…
Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., chairwoman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs contracting oversight subcommittee, plans to dive into the way federal agencies track government procurement data at a hearing scheduled for Sept. 29. In a news release today, McCaskill’s office said the hearing will “assess the problems of the decentralized and cumbersome systems presently in place, and discuss current plans to develop a new platform for integrating these systems to ensure that goals of efficiency, transparency, and accessibility are met.” The Federal Acquisition Regulation Council recently published a proposed rule to fulfill congressional mandates to integrate data from…
Update 2: The Associated Press is reporting that Federal CIO Vivek Kundra is on leave “until further details of the case become known” following the raid of his former office this morning. While the raid was going on Kundra spoke at an IT conference today. He set out bold plans for reforming federal IT by opening up more information to the public for review and feedback. During today’s White House press briefing, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs declined to comment on the investigation into Kundra’s old office. Stay tuned. Update 1: The U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia released some court documents…
Just finished a conference call with Vivek Kundra, the president’s pick for chief information officer. A few highlights. First, he promised to embrace cloud computing — which uses networked software distributed across remote servers, not on individual desktops — whenever it’s permissible under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and other security regulations. Cloud computing has been hugely successful in the private sector (Facebook and Gmail, for example, use a “cloud” model) but government has yet to really embrace it. I reject the view that the public sector has to lag behind the private sector. Kundra also promised to…
After weeks of speculation, it’s official. The White House announced today that Vivek Kundra will be the government’s chief information officer. Kundra has served as the chief technology officer for Washington, D.C. since 2007. In his new role, he will direct governmentwide information technology investments, policy and spending oversight. When a governmentwide chief technology officer is named, they will work together to advance the president’s technology agenda. We’ll have more for you following a news conference with Kundra later today.