Where's Obama's CTO?While nominees for most other high-level posts in the Obama administration face their particular ups and downs, one of the most highly anticipated spots remains empty, without a nominee or even a clear job description. That spot is national Chief Technology Officer. As we've reported, whoever winds up in this new postion will be tasked with both modernizing the federal government's internal IT systems, but also with addressing US technological innovation and competitiveness issues more broadly. US News and World Report discusses some documents outlining the job's responsibilities: "Two key roles have emerged for such a position. One would be working as a 'supra-chief information officer' to use technology to improve the delivery of government services, while the second would entail being an advocate for technological innovation." Meanwhile, Forbes addresses the high expectations the nominee will surely face: "Whoever accepts the role certainly has his work cut out. Every agency, department and bureau already has a technology infrastructure in place, and there are likely tremendous inefficiencies in all of these disparate technologies and infrastructures. This is just the kind of thing that a dyed-in-the-wool CTO would love to attack." The two most frequently mentioned candidates are Cisco's CTO, Padrasmee Warrior and Vivek Kundra, CTO of the District of Columbia. Though noting that both candidates are natives of India, the CIO Weblog calls them "polar opposites: "Kundra has made a name for himself recently by running the DC IT shop like a Web 2.0 startup, exposing data in innovative ways... Warrior, on the other hand... while she enjoys a fine reputation in the industry, it's unclear what sort of change she might bring to an administration which has promised such quality."
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