DC CTO Vivek Kundra Named To Top Federal IT Job

DCTechCzar writes "The Obama administration plans to announce it has appointed Vivek Kundra, the District of Columbia's chief technology officer, to take the top information technology post in the federal government, according to a source. Kundra, who has deployed advanced applications to improve the performance of public services during his nearly two years as CTO for the District, will replace Karen Evans as administrator for e-government and information technology in the Office of Management and Budget. The position effectively serves as the federal government's chief information officer. The administration could announce Kundra's appointment as soon as Thursday."

Comments

Re:I wonder if that's the right message

[WindBourne]

The man moved here when he was 11. He IS an American by upbringing. And watching my wife (a first generation American of Indian descent) it is obvious that they try hard to assimilate here while at home being a bit more Indian.

I'd think "D.C." alone is a title of doom.

[tjstork]

Our non-American friends need to know that as far as cities go, Washington D.C., as a city, is probably the -worst- run city in the USA. Because it is the capitol, not only are they subject to their own local authority, but they are also subject to the whims of the US Congress. The existence of the whole thing is a joke because when the country was founded, the states squabbled even over who would have the honor of the national capitol, such that, eventually a few states kicked in a tiny plot of land, formed the "District of Columbia", and thus, the capitol is its own little piece of land under direct federal jurisdiction, whose habitants actually have no constitutional rights. Since that time, there's been a lot of talk about moving the capitol, or making DC a state, or doing something with it. But right now, we have a total screwed up mess of a city that has really no industry besides government, and the result is that, outside the museums, and government offices, the place is pretty much a big stinking ghetto whose most famous mayor was busted for smoking crack.

From this, comes our national CIO.

I'm like, not jumping for joy.

Re:I'd think "D.C." alone is a title of doom.

[Anonymous Coward]

I happen to live in DC and have done consulting with Mr. Kundra. While you are correct that we have no real rights, DC has one of the highest standards of living. The city is divided into 4 quadrants and 2 of them are incredibly rich, one is lower and middle class, and yes, one is ghetto.

You are also incorrect that DC is made of several states. Originally, Maryland and Virginia gave land, but the current city is entirely from Maryland land. As such, becoming part of Maryland or at least being attached somehow to Maryland and its laws has been proposed before as alternatives to statehood.

Instead of slamming a city you know nothing about, you should criticize the man himself. Having worked with him, I can tell you he creates a culture of fear in his office. None of his clients or employees I have met seem to enjoy him. He also is quite ignorant of IT and DC IT for important services is next to useless. The whole google apps thing is more or less a joke here and not useful in any meaningful way. Instead of focusing on critical services, this man has forced the adoption of gimmicks for the sake of things that "look cool."

As for people who think this man supports open source, I am sure he does, but know that he also supports Microsoft as well. I happen to be involved with several Microsoft projects with DC and I know a great deal of their systems are MS, so the whole open source thing is just fluff PR.

Our government here is run so poorly and Vivek is just another part of the problem. He should be working as a junior programmer or help desk at best and not as a CIO/CTO. The man has no charisma whatsoever and is no way qualified to the country. Certainly the scope of DC government far dwarfs many major cities as well and does not translate on the national level. Shame on Obama for such an ill advised appointment. I suppose I should take solace in the fact that like all Vivek's positions and experience, it is meaningless cruft and he can't do any real damage because no one likes him.

Re:I'd think "D.C." alone is a title of doom.

[Anonymous Coward]

You obviously have no comprehension of our system of checks and balances. The senate was designed to give equal representation weight amongst all states while the house gives representation proportionate to their population.

Taxation without representation is the issue that led to our independence. Our nation's capital deserves some sort of voting representation.

Re:I'd think "D.C." alone is a title of doom.

[RyoShin]

whose most famous mayor was busted for smoking crack.

And, once he got out of jail, was promptly re-elected. Smoking crack is one thing, and can be attributed to a specific person or small group, but then you have a majority vote to put this person back in office; this is much more telling of the state of D.C.

I've not been to D.C., but I hear all the horror stories, and I hope that if I ever do have to go there it's as an elected official so I can avoid driving myself around. It mixes the country's elite with tons of urban poor, both fighting within the city for their own views. That, and it houses the majority of lobbyists in the country.

That said, I won't apply the nastiness of D.C. to one guy I know nothing about. He may well be a proper individual for the job, and highly accomplished in his previous one.

Even crap has peanuts in it sometimes.

Re:Anyone know more info about this guy

[Ark Ku Mon]

Daschle was not appointed last week.

Well of course not as his official nomination was only submitted to the Senate back on the 20th of January, but that was not what I was talking about when I said "last week".

Obama picked him in Dec. That would be BEFORE Geither's and richardson's debacle.

And his tax scandal just came out 6 days ago on the 30th of last month which would be LAST WEEK just as I said... I know you think you got some big gotcha on me, but you really didn't.

Re:Please dig up some facts about this fella

[Danathar]

He's responsible for for shifting D.C. gov to use cloud computing. (Google Apps for instance)

I think it will be safe to say

[Shivetya]

that this nominee paid his taxes on time.

Still, if you want, you can research through most papers using their online facilities.

for the most part he walked into a mess at the DC school system back in 2007 and worked to upgrade them to something respectable. That and investigating people using government systems to surf porn. Apparently before him most of the record keeping was still in paper form.

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=vivek+kundra&hl=en&um=1&sa=N&sugg=d&as_user_ldate=2008&as_user_hdate=2009&lnav=h0&ldrange=2003,2006

not US Government CTO

[rakerman]

The headline says "Top Federal IT Job", but won't that be the new CTO position? Kundra's (reportedly) being named as Office of Management and Budget administrator for e-government and information technology, not Chief Technology Officer.

Re:Anyone know more info about this guy

[GovTechGuy]

Try this link for more information.

i grew up in DC

[conspirator57]

hooray for me. however, it did give me the opportunity to see just how bassackwards DC is w.r.t. IT. They got federal money to improve IT in schools, so they spent much of it on a contractor to "study" the current state of IT in the schools. (Hint: 8086 PC XTs and PC Jrs if anything) It was a complete boondoggle.

And the leader of this farcical group is now one of our nation's fearless leaders. fandamntastic.