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White House Names Google's Megan Smith As CTO

Posted by timothy on from the let's-see-about-getting-that-cable-fixed dept.

itwbennett writes that, as expected, The White House has named long-time Google executive Megan Smith as the government's new CTO, in charge of improving technology and the use of data across agencies. Smith most recently served as vice president at Google's tech lab, Google[x]. She previously served as CEO of PlanetOut, helped design early smartphone technologies at General Magic and worked on multimedia products at Apple Japan in Tokyo. She holds bachelor's and master's degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT, and just might be, as noted in a previous Slashdot post, the first US CTO worthy of the title. Also on Thursday, the White House named Alexander Macgillivray, a former general counsel and head of public policy at Twitter, as deputy U.S. CTO.

4 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Oh boy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    improving technology and the use of data across agencies

    That is the exact opposite of what we need right now.

  2. You think this makes things worse? by rsborg · · Score: 4, Insightful

    improving technology and the use of data across agencies

    That is the exact opposite of what we need right now.

    The NSA and the security industrial complex don't need stinking laws and the approval of the public to aggregate and track you. They're already doing it. I doubt this role will help them (or hinder them). What integrated data could provide is more effective programs and less paperwork, and possibly more data.gov APIs.

    Worrying about the CTO "improving things the wrong way" is the same as worrying about sharing your bank password with your spouse while storing your password file in cleartext on a malware infested desktop.

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  3. Sounds great! by Pollux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As if we don't already have enough corporate executives running the white house.

  4. Re:She may be fit for the job..... by bobbied · · Score: 3, Insightful

    She only fits this "job" as far as politics is concerned. There is no CTO of the federal government position, they just invented it, so they could appoint her to it so she fits as well as anybody could who has a position invented for them.

    Take a look at her Wikipedia page and it's pretty clear what's going on here.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

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