Vivek Kundra’s Preexisting Wide-ranging Information Technology Expertise Influences His Vision as Chief Information Officer
As Federal Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra manages Federal tech investing. He uses his distinct IT experience in government, the private sector, and academia to secure the government spends sensibly when it comes to tech initiatives. With a Masters Degree in MIS, Vivek Kundra has a keen understanding of IT and its complexities.
Vivek Kundra has a plan for the Federal government involving Information Technology. He strives to make government information readily accessible to the nation’s citizens as part of the government’s Transparency policy. This includes data that is not private or restricted for national security purposes. He also works to make sure the government does not overspend on Information Technology and that technology employed makes different government agencies function expeditiously. His prior experience as Chief Technology Officer for the District of Columbia poised Vivek Kundra well for his current role.
This was a significant move because instead of spending millions of taxpayer dollars for file servers and monthly fees for document software, cloud computing gave the District of Columbia the ability to create documents free by utilizing Google. In addition, he acquired extra security and new labels on the program. This only cost Washington, D.C. $50-an-employee per year, a major cost-benefit and efficient use of taxpayers’ dollars. Vivek Kundra said Federal bureaus should adopt off-the-shelf technologies and formats that are common in the private sector. While the Chief Technology Officer for D.C., his office founded the D.C. Digital Public Square. This site is a center for government information. It also provides applications for users so they can merge that information on maps, timelines, and in other ways.
Vivek Kundra is now applying his expertise to the important tasks at hand as Federal CIO. The expertise gathered during his time as CTO for Washington, D.C. is contributing to the initiatives he is fulfilling as part of President Obama’s administration. He wants the government’s IT efforts applying private sector platforms that are imperative to efficient sharing of information.
