When The DotGov Buzz spotlighted Vivek Kundra in February 2008, he had been the District of Columbia CTO for only four months, but he was already emerging on the national scene as a as power player. A year later, at 34, he has received several national honors, including being named one of the top 25 IT innovators in the country and a Federal Computer Week Fed 100 winner. As a member of the Obama Transition Team's Technology, Innovation & Government Reform Working Group, he was an articulate champion of the new administration's open government priorities. On March 5, he was named CIO of the federal government.

Kundra's appointment engendered little surprise and met with widespread approval. On March 12, he outlined the administration's technology agenda in a keynote address at the FOSE government trade show. His first major speech in office, it included these "four pillars":

1. Transparency and open government, which will be enabled by two important new websites, Recovery.gov, which reports government spending on the $787 billion Recovery Act, and Data.gov, which will provide public data feeds from all federal agencies.
2. Engaging citizens in government by providing ways for citizens to be involved in the operations of government across-the-board and on a day-to-day basis, whether through rule-making or other government processes.
3. Reducing the cost of government operations using innovative technology, such as cloud computing, and free technologies already available online. They will drastically cut costs and reduce time and enable government IT to provide services as effectively and efficiently as possible.
4. Finding the "innovative path" to transformational improvements, instead of just fixing what's broke; remaining focused on the citizens, and ensuring that innovations are targeted at fulfilling the government's core mission.

Kundra, who follows Karen Evans and Mark Forman in the role of federal CIO (though they didn't have the title), is the point person for the administration's technology agenda. It's a job that suits him well, as the President noted: "Vivek Kundra will bring a depth of experience in the technology arena and a commitment to lowering the cost of government operations to this position. ... [He] will play a key role in making sure our government is running in the most secure, open, and efficient way possible."

At the District of Columbia, he was "100% focused" on bringing better technology tools to D.C. public servants and residents. Perplexed by the notion that consumers have "far better access to technology in their private space," he was intent on harnessing that consumer technology for the city.

From this outpost, he achieved a kind of legendary status by implementing innovative programs designed to bring dramatic improvement to the District's technology programs. An "Apps for Democracy" contest, which invited applicants to draw upon D.C. government data feeds to create applications the city could use, attracted 47 entries in 30 days saved the government millions of dollars. His portfolio management system followed a stock market trading model, directing District funds only to the most effective IT investments and away from those that offered a poor return. He pioneered the use of wiki and YouTube technology to take the District's procurement process to a more interactive and transparent level. And he is a national leader in exploring the use of cloud computing to keep government costs down.

Last year, The DotGov Buzz reported that one of the main reasons Kundra took the D.C. CTO job was to help support public education. "Education has shaped my life in a very profound way," he said. As a young immigrant, he learned that education "frees you to do what you want in life."

Kundra was born in New Delhi, India, and lived in Tanzania until he was 11, when his parents moved the family to Gaithersburg, MD, seeking better opportunities for their son and his four sisters. The boy didn't speak "a word of English" and communicated as best he could in his native language of Swahili. However, that made him a prime target for teasing by his classmates. Kundra quickly learned English with the help of a language program and by watching episodes of the sitcom Three's Company. He went on to earn bachelor's degrees in both psychology and biology from the University of Maryland. He already had an impressive resume in the private and public sectors when he was confirmed unanimously as D.C.'s CTO in October 2007. He has worked as a consultant to the U.S. Health and Human Services Department; been CEO of two technology companies; served as the IT Director for Arlington, Virginia; and, most recently, served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Trade for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

When he joined the D.C. government, it was in the throes of a school system crisis. The major had just taken control of the public schools from the elected school board and had implemented a controversial improvement program. At the time, 85% of the school system's technology infrastructure was plagued by viruses, the network was unreliable, and customer service was horrific, Kundra says. Teachers' confidential, paper human resource records were "just piled in a school room." The CTO was asked to outfit every D.C. classroom with a new computer and, in just seven weeks, nearly 6,300 personal computers were installed in the schools. Kundra negotiated discounted prices to buy them and tasked technician teams to install them. The teams used GIS technology to map the most efficient routes through the city for installation and even finished a week ahead of schedule.

These technology upgrades and others are helping transform D.C. government right now, but they are just the beginning. Kundra envisions a future where citizens are served more easily by e-government, perhaps using artificial intelligence models like the one Amazon.com uses to suggest products and services based on past inquiries. "The best trip to government is the trip you don't make," he quipped.

Earl E. Devaney, the former Interior Department Inspector General, was named chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency (RAT) Board created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The inspectors general of 10 federal agencies make up the remaining members of the board, as specified in the Recovery Act. They are:

The Board will oversee all spending authorized by the Act and provide quarterly and annual reports to the President and Congress. The Board is also charged with ensuring that its website, www.recovery.gov, explains the Act to citizens, and provides detailed data on government stimulus spending, information on jobs created as a result of the Act and a geographical breakdown of spending, contracts and grants data. Congress appropriated $84 million for the website, which was launched when the Act was signed February 17.

Devaney and representatives of several state and local groups testified March 19 at a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on preventing waste and fraud in Recovery Act spending while maximizing government transparency.

Devaney said he viewed the board as having a dual mission:

• Establishing and maintaining a website to foster historic levels of transparency in Recovery Act funds in a user-friendly manner.
• Coordinating and conducting oversignt of Recovery Act funds to prevent fraud, waste or abuse.

Representatives of the National Association of State Procurement Officials, the National Association of State Auditors, Comptrollers and Treasurers, the Association of Local Government Auditors, and the Mercatus Center discussed state and local governments' needs for additional guidance in releasing contract and spending data.

Committee Chairman Edolphus Towns expressed concerns about the Administration's "primary transparency tool," and released a letter to Vice President Joe Biden, the sponsor of the Recovery Board, calling for a "high tech roundtable of federal, state, and private sector leaders in the field of information technology... to develop a centralized, searchable system for storing and tracking accurate stimulus information."

Grants.gov, the government's online resource enabling citizens to find and apply for federal grants, was identified in a March 9 OMB memo as a "system risk that could disrupt successful implementation" of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The volume of applications for stimulus funding provided by the Act is expected to cause a 60% increase in traffic to Grants.gov. The site's performance had already experienced lags by the time the memo was issued.

In the memo, OMB Director Peter Orszag directs the Department of Health and Human Services, which operates Grants.gov, and GSA, the government's principal e-government facilitator, to work together on immediate improvements to accommodate the expected volume increase. In addition, all federal grant-making agencies were instructed to establish alternative grant application procedures and submit them by March 13 to OMB's Resource Management Office for review and approval.

New state and local guidelines were issued for web pages that pertain to the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. The goal of the guidelines is to foster web pages that are consistent with the federal Recovery.gov website and make it easy for citizens to keep track of activity related to the Recovery Act in their area. The guidelines are posted on NASCIO's Economic Recovery Information web page.

Recovery.gov has posted answers to Frequently Asked Questions about recovery.gov and the Recovery Act. They are directed to two separate audiences: citizens and agencies.

President Obama has directed Melissa Hathaway, Cyber Coordination Executive to the Director of National Intelligence, to lead a 60-day interagency cyber security review and deliver an action plan and "optimal organizational construct" by the end of April.

Because most of the U.S. cyber infrastructure is privately owned, the review will result in a public-private partnership that will aim to enhance economic prosperity, protect information infrastructure, enable the pursuit of national cyberspace goals, and maintain civil liberties.

Meanwhile, Rod Beckstrom, Director of the National Cybersecurity Center at the Department of Homeland Security, submitted his resignation after less than one year on the job, citing interference from the National Security Agency.

IT security was the top priority for federal CIOs who responded to the Information Technology Association of America's (ITAA) annual survey of federal CIOs. This year's survey included the views of 53 CIOs from civilian, homeland security, and defense agencies as well as oversight organizations. ITAA maintains a non-attribution policy for CIO comments included in the survey.

The report includes an examination of the nine top issues identified by CIOs and lessons learned over the past eight years. It found that "no improvement efforts that would provide the basis for achieving desired results for these nine priority issues have been fully implemented."

The report also acknowledges "an impetus for change." CIOs were found to be active in transition planning that focused on cybersecurity, information sharing, risk management, and government transparency. Moving forward, the report reassessed each of the nine challenge issues using a matrix inspired by GAO's maturity model, and found that responses to each challenge area are in the early to middle stages.

ITAA recently merged with the American Electronics Association and changed its name to TechAmerica.

The Web Content Managers Advisory Council has posted the Top 10 Best Practices for Government Websites on its website, webcontent.gov. They are:

1. Meet all laws, requirements, policies, and other directives for public websites
2. Document your governance structure, including roles, relationships, responsibilities, rules, and review processes
3. Develop, document, and implement a strategic plan that both incorporates visionary changes and corrects problems with web content
4. Focus on top tasks
5. Create and manage content effectively and efficiently
6. Collaborate within your agency and across government to manage content and eliminate duplication
7. Follow usability best practices
8. Evaluate the effectiveness of your website
9. Make sure the public can find your content
10. Create opportunities for the public to interact with their government

The Web Managers Advisory Council is an inter-agency group of government web managers from every cabinet-level federal agency and many independent agencies. It is sponsored by the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications and USA.gov.

Due to cutbacks at the Department of Defense and NASA, the number of federal employees who telework fell in 2007 to 94,643 from the peak of 110,592 in 2006. DOD cited resource and security concerns for its cutbacks while NASA revealed that inaccurate accounting had overinflated its numbers in previous years. Telework status for 80 Executive Branch agencies was compiled in a report issued by OPM and GSA for federal employees teleworking during calendar year 2007.

The federal government promotes telework as a recruitment tool, a "green" alternative to daily commutes, a way to cut costs associated with maintaining office space, and as a means to ensure continuity of operations (COOP) in emergency situations. Approximately 60% of federal agencies have now integrated telework into their COOP plans, as compared to 42% in 2006.

Allied Computer Services, EDS and IBM earned more than $1 billion in state and local revenue, topping a list of 13 leading systems integrators in the state and local market compiled by Washington Technology. Others on the list include:

• Companies with $500 million to $1 billion in state and local revenue:
• Accenture
• Deloitte LLP
• Maximus, Inc.
• Northrop Grumman Corp.
• Unisys Corp.

• Companies with $300 million to $500 million:
• CGI Group, Inc.

• Companies with $100 million to $300 million:
• BearingPoint, Inc.
• Ciber, Inc.
• Computer Sciences Corp.
• Science Applications International Corp.

The rankings were based on public data from annual reports, SEC filings, press releases, and discussions with "knowledgeable sources."

Revenues from state and local governments are expected to increase, as the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act directs a substantial portion of the $50 billion in new IT spending to the states and local governments.

On February 24, the United Kingdom became the most recent national government to endorse the OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard, an interoperable format that is free of charge, and competes with Microsoft's Open XML file format. The U.K. CIO Council endorsed the format in their Open Source, Open Standards, and Re-Use: Government Action Plan. The format can be used to create word processing documents, charts, spreadsheets, and presentations that are compatible with a variety of applications.

According to a press release issued by the ODF Alliance, a lobbying organization supported by IBM and Sun Microsystems, the U.K. government has pledged to "work to ensure that government information is available in open formats, and it will make this a required standard for government websites." The ODF Alliance mission is to "ensure that government information, records and documents are fully and natively accessible across platforms and applications, even as technologies change."

Eleven of the 17 national governments that require ODF reside within Europe. Eight regional governments also require ODF, including the State of Massachusetts.

25 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers. Government Technology released it's list of 25 Doers, Dreamers, and Drivers for 2009. The winners included Gopal Khanna, CIO, MN; and Vivek Kundra, for his tenure as CTO of DC.

Excellence.gov Finalists. The Industry Advisory Council's (IAC) Collaboration and Transformation Shared Interest Group (C&T SIG) announced 21 finalists for the annual Excellence.gov awards for "the best IT projects" in the federal government. The finalists will be recognized and the winners announced in a ceremony April 14 in Washington, DC.

ICF's Annual Founders Awards. The Intelligent Community Forum, a New York-based think tank that studies the economic and social development of the 21st century community, issued Founders Awards to Andrew Spano, County Executive, Westchester County, NY; Dave Carter, Head of the Manchester Digital Development Agency, United Kingdom; and Dr. Eric Li Luan Chu, Magistrate, Taoyuan County, Taiwan.

California Public Sector CIO Academy Awards. CIO Academy Awards were presented in Sacramento, CA on February 26th in three categories: Outstanding Leader, Technology Champion, and Outstanding IT Manager. Susan Kennedy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Chief of Staff, captured the Technology Champion Award.

The American Council for Technology is accepting nominations for the 2009 Intergovernmental Solution Awards until 5:00 PM on Tuesday, March 31.

The 1105 Government Information Group is accepting nominations for The 2009 Rising Star Awards until April 27.

Also available in pdf 10.7 kb

2009 Cyberspace Symposium
Omaha, NE
April 7-8

MuniGovCon'09 - A Virtual Conference for Government
April 10

NARA's Annual E-Records Forum
Austin, TX
April 14-15

GSA's IRMCO
Cambridge, MD
April 19-22

Government Web Managers 2-Day Conference
Washington, DC
April 28-29

Knowledge Management Conference
Washington, DC
April 28-29

NASCIO Mid-Year Conference
Baltimore, MD
April 28-May 1

Digital Government Society of North America 2009 Conference
Puebla, Mexico
May 17-20

ACT/IAC 2009 Management of Change Conference
Norfolk, VA
May 31-June 2

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The DotGov Buzz is produced by the following individuals in the GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications:

Darlene Meskell
Zach Miller
Arlene Hernandez
Andrea Noce
Bryant Jones.