Two days after Aneesh Chopra's Senate confirmation hearings last week, he was confirmed as Associate Director for Technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the nation's first Chief Technology Officer. The unanimous consent vote came without fanfare before the Senate adjourned for the Memorial Day weekend.

Few were surprised when the President tapped the then-Secretary of Technology for Virginia to be the first-ever national CTO, promising he would "promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities—from creating jobs and reducing health care costs to keeping our nation secure." Likewise, it was no surprise to the government IT community that he was confirmed without a hitch.

We at The DotGov Buzz were among the first to be "not surprised." When Aneesh Chopra led the June 2007 issue as our Spotlight profile, we reported:

• The glow of the spotlight reveals a public servant with a very large presence in Virginia and with apparent great potential to have an impact on government nationwide… The IT community in both the public and private sectors would do well to keep its eyes on the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Since then, he has racked up numerous successes, awards and accolades as a public servant, including being named one of Governing Magazine's "Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers" in 2008.

In his confirmation hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee, Chopra recalled the moment during a congressional town hall meeting in Plainsboro, NJ, "where I asked my first policy question at the age of 11." It "sparked my passion for service," he said.

"I intend to channel that passion to execute on the President's vision for a 21st Century economy - harnessing the power and potential of new technologies to extend new opportunity to more Americans. Technology and innovation are hallmarks of the American story. They can often offer us powerful new opportunities of doing things never before possible or even imagined," Chopra told the committee.

Here are some excerpts from our earlier profile:

• Having not quite reached middle age, Aneesh Chopra has already accomplished more than many of us in our careers. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University in public health, with a Masters degree from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, he has been a venture capitalist, managing director of a large healthcare think tank, appointee of two governors to high-level committees, and the elected head of groups of entrepreneurs.



• In 2006, despite his lack of formal IT training, he was appointed as the Commonwealth of Virginia's Secretary of Technology at age 33. He was expected to "expand our internal use of technology to better serve our citizens" and "effectively promote Virginia's business-friendly climate to technology companies," Governor Tim Kaine said in announcing the appointment.



• Chopra is the first person of Indian heritage to serve in the Virginia Cabinet. Well-connected in the Washington-area Indian community, he has served as co-president of The Indus Entrepreneurs-Washington, DC Chapter. TiE-DC is part of a global organization committed to innovation and business ties between the United States and India, which claims to have created $250 billion in wealth by encouraging start-up businesses.



• He is an avid supporter of opportunities for globalization and was well received when he led a Virginia trade delegation to India in 2006. He is sensitive to "what's happening to e-governance around the world that can be imported to help us," and poised to help find ways to benefit the state. "We should look to global markets for scale and bring it back to Virginia for marginal costs," he says.



• An entrepreneur himself, he is a co-founder of Avatar Capital, an $11 million venture capital network investment fund that invested in 18 start-ups during the dot-com boom. Although some of those ventures never took off, his interest in entrepreneurship remains strong.



• At the Advisory Board Company, a publicly traded health care think tank serving nearly 2,500 hospitals and health systems, he helped launch the company's first technology-based product. It married a strong business intelligence platform with a consortium of hospitals willing to share their revenue analytics. In less than a year, this collaborative model attracted nearly 150 members willing to pay six-figure annual fees for business-intelligence capabilities. It still serves him as a model of the exceptional achievement that is possible through consortium-building.



• It was his link to Indian-American technology entrepreneurs-business associates of former Governor Mark Warner [now U.S. Senator from Virginia]—that brought Aneesh Chopra to government. Warner appointed him to Virginia's Board of Medical Assistance Services, to the state's Electronic Health Records Task Force, and to the Southern Technology Council, a 14-state regional, technology-based, economic development organization.



• While he admits to having little knowledge of the inner workings of information technology systems, he says he is "a geek who likes technological devices." More importantly, he understands how to assess the capabilities of new technologies and how they can be applied to advance program objectives. "I focus on the root cause of the business problems that we are trying to solve and then seek the best technology approach to achieve my objective. It's not about automation, it's about value."

With his collaborative instincts, enthusiasm, credentials, experience, and willingness to push the boundaries of possibility, Aneesh Chopra is well-equipped to take on the challenge the President set out for him.

One hundred twenty days after the President issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government calling for making the government more transparent, participatory and collaborative, the White House launched its open government initiative as the Senate confirmed his choice to lead it as the first federal CTO.

On May 21, the U.S. Senate confirmed Aneesh Chopra, Virginia's Secretary of Technology, as the nation's first Chief Technology Officer by unanimous consent. Chopra will be a key player in implementing the President's open government programs.

The new open government initiative was announced May 21 on the White House Blog by Vivek Kundra, the federal CIO, and Beth Noveck, Deputy CTO for Open Government. They called it "an important next step in this historic call to action - one that will help us achieve a new foundation for our government built on the values of transparency, accountability and responsibility.

Also on May 21, the Administration launched Data.gov, a site dedicated to increasing "public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government." Using the datasets, the public will be able to "build applications, conduct analyses, and perform research."

The public engagement process will take place in three phases: brainstorming, discussion and drafting. Brainstorming began with the May 21 announcement: Citizens are invited to offer their ideas on an Open Government Dialogue site hosted by the National Academy of Public Administration. Participants can submit their own ideas and vote on others'.

The discussion phase begins June 3, when the most compelling ideas from the brainstorming will be fleshed out in a blog, and a wiki will be used in the drafting phase June 15-19.

Earlier in May, the White House Office of Public Liaison was renamed the Office of Public Engagement and given an expanded mission to embody "the President's goal of making government inclusive, transparent, accountable, and responsible." The office is led by Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement.

It will host town hall meetings online and across the country and will maintain a strong web presence, with videos of White House events, blog posts, and a means for citizens to share ideas and feedback. The Citizen's Briefing Book, which contains the winning ideas out of 44,000 submitted on the presidential campaign's website, Change.gov, and voted on more than 1.4 million times, is available already.

Vice President Biden released his first Quarterly Report to the President on the results of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on May 13. The report states that 150,000 jobs have been created or saved so far as a result of $88 billion spent in 52 states and territories. The report projects the creation or retention of 600,000 jobs over the next 100 days and an additional 3.5 million by September 2010.

The report also includes a number of "Reports from the Field" that demonstrate how the goals of the Recovery Act are being met in communities across the country.

In a May 11 memo, OMB acknowledged the administrative costs the states incur for Recovery Act activities, noting the obstacles that states face in creating the "administrative capacities to meet the important new oversight, reporting and audit requirements of the Recovery Act."

OMB recommends that states follow the provisions of the Implementation Guide for OMB Circular A-87 to develop State-wide Cost Allocation Plans. The plans are submitted annually to the Department of Health and Human Services for review and approval.

Gene Dodaro, GAO's Acting Comptroller General, told the Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs on April 23 that state officials "expressed concerns regarding the lack of Recovery Act funding provided for accountability and oversight." Furthermore, Dodaro testified, "Due to fiscal constraints, many states reported significant declines in the number of oversight staff—limiting their ability to ensure proper implementation and management of Recovery Act funds." Dodaro recommended that OMB "clarify what Recovery Act funds can be used to support state efforts to ensure accountability and oversight."

The GSA Office of Citizen Services negotiated new terms of service agreements with four additional new media providers, including MySpace, bringing to nine the number of providers who have modified their terms of service to accommodate the unique issues created by government users. GSA, its agency partners, and the White House built upon their experience negotiating previous terms of service agreements with Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Vimeo, and Blip.tv to reach the new deals. All of the providers offer their services to users at no charge.

The agreements establish new terms of service that resolve liability and other legal issues that often stand in the way of federal agencies "checking the box" to comply with standard terms. However, the agreements might not satisfy the requirements of all agencies. Employees are encouraged to consult with legal staff and important stakeholders to determine what is best for their own agencies.

Agencies that take advantage of the new terms of service could use MySpace to share information and gauge public sentiment or take advantage of one of the other less-familiar tools. Blist and SlideShare enable users to share data or presentations, while AddThis is a bookmarking tool for promoting content and measuring web traffic.

A survey report issued by Foresee Results on April 28 scored citizen satisfaction with online government higher than traditional government, 74 to 69, but citizen satisfaction with government websites dropped by a half point over the first quarter of 2009 compared to the final quarter of last year. Citizen satisfaction with government websites had increased for three straight quarters prior to the decline, as measured by the widely used American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

The survey indicated that the most effective way to raise the government's scores will be to improve functionality, navigation, and search. Three Social Security Administration websites, iClaim (90), Retirement Estimator (90), and Help with Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Costs (88), earned higher user satisfaction scores than Google (86). GSA's GobiernoUSA (82) was also listed among the ten best federal sites.

"Cloud computing" sounds like an abstract concept, but really it's simple. The "cloud" is the world of resources that is connected to your computer or office network - the Internet, in other words. And "cloud computing" is the practice of using those resources to achieve IT needs, all the way from using software to processing or storing data.

Computers once served as software and data storage spaces unto themselves. More and more, they are being transformed into portals linked to tools and storage spaces dispersed throughout the worldwide web. Email was an early and prominent example. Emails and bulky attachments from four years ago don't clog your hard drive, because they reside in the cloud.

Cloud computing goes beyond the simple needs of individual users. For example, when the New York Times decided to make available online all 11 million articles published since its founding in 1851, the Grey Lady turned to Amazon Web Services, an early utility-level cloud computing leader. The Times started by uploading 4 terabytes of scanned stories (that's four trillion bytes of data) to Amazon's Internet-accessible storage space, and completed its work using Amazon computing power to convert the images into PDF files in less than 24 hours.

These services and others all reside in "the cloud." In cloud computing, software becomes a service that is acquired only as needed (commonly referred to as SaaS - Software as a Service), rather than a product that is purchased off the shelf, and storage space and processing power become resources that are available from dedicated providers, like the water and electricity supplied by utilities. This is referred to as Infrastructure as a Service. The need to buy hardware is eliminated.

When USA.gov and its sister sites, GobiernoUSA.gov and Webcontent.gov moved to cloud-based servers in May, they became pioneers in the government's use of infrastructure as a service. USA.gov is using another powerful technology: "virtualization." USA.gov isn't assigned to specific servers by its cloud computing vendor. Instead, the site is run on a "virtual machine" the vendor can distribute among its servers as it sees fit in order to maximize efficiency and performance. Now, when managers at USA.gov anticipate a spike in traffic, there's no need to buy or set up additional hardware or undergo a protracted procurement process. USA.gov simply notifies the vendor that additional capacity is required.

The market for cloud computing services is expected to triple to $42 billion dollars by 2012, with operational savings for the federal sector alone expected to total in the billions, according to recent studies. That's good news for the environment. The use of centralized resources reduces the need for on-site data centers and servers and cuts the costs associated with powering and cooling them. Reducing the government's environmental impact doesn't simply pass the carbon buck somewhere else. Instead, remote IT centers leverage economies of scale to manage energy use, limit server idle time, and increase cooling efficiency.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is preparing a series of publications about use of cloud computing in the federal government. NIST defines cloud computing as:

• A computing capability where the architecture surrounding massive clusters of computers is abstracted from the applications using it and a software and server framework (usually based on virtualization) provides clients scalable utility computing capabilities to elastically provide many servers for a single software-as-a-service style application or to host many such applications on a few servers.

There are five key cloud characteristics:

• On-demand self-service
• Ubiquitous network access
• Location independent resource pooling
• Rapid elasticity
• Pay per use.

The chief impediment to broad federal implementation of cloud computing is concern about information security. The Information Security and Privacy Advisory Board, which was created by the Computer Security Act of 1987, devoted its December meetings to cloud computing and its security implications. NIST recently created a cloud computing security group and will release an overview and information security standard for cloud computing later this year.

Investment in new technology is "key to empowering citizens, helping to shape the services they need and want to receive, and establishing effective ways of interacting with government," according to the United Kingdom's third Transformational Government Annual Report at the Cabinet Office's Public Service Reform Event - Tower 09 on May 15. "Without IT, the country would grind to a halt," the report says.

Ten citizens per second filed tax returns, the Health Service held 300,000 consultations, and the Department of Work and Pensions paid £121 billion to individuals in more than 190 countries. The report outlined progress in each of three transformational goals: increased focus on the citizen, reduced duplication of effort, and more professional project delivery.

The U.K. Government's one-stop-shop, Directgov.uk, now receives over 15 million visits per month, and its business portal boasts a customer satisfaction rating over 90%, better than Amazon.com.

"This Government has achieved so much by using technology to drive the reform of public services, with increased efficiency and more freedom for people to shape services around their lives rather than government convenience," Watson said. "We have already achieved £26.5 billion of efficiency savings - and will save a further £35 billion by 2011," he predicted.

Two days earlier, Andrew Stott, the U.K.'s Deputy CIO, was named the U.K.'s first Director of Digital Engagement. Stott quickly set up an official Twitter account. Among other duties, Stott is charged with leading the Power of Information Agenda and implementing the 25 recommendations of its taskforce including freeing up geospatial data, developing APIs, improving usability, and funding leading-edge research and development

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the creation of a Virtual Student Foreign Service in a speech at Barnard College on May 18. The program will take shape over the coming year and will use one of the most potent features of social media and the internet: the ability to harness the untapped energy and skill of everyday citizens. The Virtual Student Foreign Service will enable students to "partner with our embassies abroad to conduct digital diplomacy that reflects the realities of our networked world," Secretary Clinton said.

The program's Facebook page is poised to top 1,000 fans in the coming weeks and features a discussion board and a video of the announcement. Secretary Clinton also encouraged students to make a difference by engaging with Kiva, a microlender, Heifer International, a livestock donation program, and the Green Belt Movement, a tree-planting effort. "Supporting these projects, or others like them, doesn't require a lot of time or money, but for the people you help and the planet you protect, your participation can be not just a game changer, but a life changer," Clinton concluded.

A supplement to the White House's 2010 budget entitled Building a High Performance Government describes the President's new management agenda and calls for agencies and the White House to "harness new technologies" to enhance transparency and encourage participation by the public.

The May 7 supplement also highlights the dramatic transformation the federal workforce will undergo in the coming years. Nearly half of federal workers will retire in the next decade, and several hundred thousand will be hired in the next four years. To optimize this transformation, the Office of Personnel Management is tasked with streamlining processes and removing the "burdensome requirements and outdated technology systems" that comprise federal hiring.

The supplement cites a disconnect between program reform and the Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) and the Administration plans to "fundamentally reconfigure how the Federal Government assesses program performance." OMB will begin this process by working with agencies to identify "a limited set of high priority goals" to evaluate. Performance data will be open to the public through the ExpectMore.gov website. Preventing waste, fraud, and abuse with regard to programs and $787 billion in spending via American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) will remain a focus, with Recovery.gov serving as the key transparency website.

Echoing earlier statements by the President, the supplement encourages the use of fixed-price contracts in lieu of the cost-reimbursement contracts that have nearly doubled over the past eight years from $71 billion to $135 billion. It also calls for agencies to sharpen the distinction between inherently governmental functions and those appropriate for contractors.

The GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications has released an Intergovernmental Solutions Newsletter titled Transparency and Open Government. The newsletter features articles by thought leaders on the topics of democratization of data, eliminating corruption through transparency, collaborative government, and more.

Innovations in American Government Awards. Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government has announced 16 finalists for the prestigious Innovations in American Government Awards from more than 600 applicants. Winners will be announced in the fall. The finalists include Santa Clara County, CA's Online Inmate Information and Jail Visit Reservation program; Washington, DC's Democratization of Government Data; and the Social Security Administration's Video Service Delivery program.

AFCEA Bethesda Chapter Annual Awards. Martha Dorris, Acting Associate Administrator, GSA Office of Citizen Services and Communications, received AFCEA Bethesda's highest annual honor: Outstanding Achievement Award for Civilian Government. Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson received the Outstanding Achievement Award for the Department of Defense. Among the other winners were: Jeffrey Levy of EPA and Joyce Bounds of VA, co-chairs of the Web Managers Council's Social Media Subcouncil, for Engaging Citizens, and Steve Ressler, founder of GovLoop, for Social Media.

NASCIO National Technology Champion. Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware was named National Technology Champion by the National Association of State CIOs, its most prestigious award. NASCIO cites his focus on "elevating the dialog on IT issues, publicly recognizing cyber as a critical national security issue and urging more attention in order to fully protect our nation from emerging cyber threats."

Top 20 States in Digital Governance. The American Society for Public Administration has released its U.S. States E-Governance Report for 2008, naming its top 20 states in digital governance based on security, usability, and content of websites; the type of online services currently being offered; and citizen response and participation.

1. Maine 2. Oregon 3. Utah 4. South Carolina 5. Indiana 6. Missouri 7. New Hampshire 8. Massachusetts 9. Arkansas 10. Arizona

11. California 12. Michigan 13. Minnesota 14. New Jersey 15. Georgia 16. Mississippi 17. Pennsylvania 18. Rhode Island 19. Tennessee 20. Kentucky

Government Webby Awards. For the 13th year, the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences presented its awards for excellence on the internet. BayBridge360 won the Webby Award in the government category. NASA.gov won the People's Voice Award.

Best Places to Work in the Federal Government. The Partnership for Public Service and American University's Institute for the Study of Public Policy Implementation released its rankings on May 20. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission again topped the list for large agencies and the Surface Transportation Board took the top prize among small agencies. The Environmental and Natural Resources Division at the Department of Justice led all agency subcomponents. The top 10 large agencies are as follows:

1. Nuclear Regulatory Commision
2. Government Accountability Office
3. National Aeronautics and Space Administration
4. Intelligence Community
5. Department of State
6. Environmental Protection Agency
7. Department of Justice
8. General Services Administration
9. Social Security Administration
10. Department of Commerce

Wireless Innovation Project. The Vodafone Americas Foundation awarded $600,000 to support the winners of its Wireless Innovation Project. Columbia University's Active Networked Tags for Disaster Recovery Applications, UCLA's medical testing-enabled CelloPhone, and the University of California's mobile microscopy CellScope won the top prize.

Nominations for NASCIO's 2009 Recognition Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Information Technology are due June 3.

Also available in pdf 324 kb

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

Web 2.0 and the Federal Government
Washington, DC
June 1, 2009

WMU New Media Talk: How Government Becomes a Platform, with Tim O'Reilly
Washington, DC
June 4, 2009

WMU New Media Talk: Google Maps and Google Earth, Uses in Government
Washington, DC
June 18, 2009

WMU New Media Talk: Panel of Search Experts
Washington, DC
June 23, 2009

Social Media for Government Conference
Washington, DC
July 13-16, 2009

NDU Information Leader Symposium: Cloud Computing
Washington, DC
July 15. 2009

Excellence in Government Series: New Leadership: People, Policy, Programs
Washington, DC
July 20, 2009

WMU New Media Talk: Scribd.com
Washington, DC
July 22, 2009

NDU Information Leader Symposium: Web 2.0 Solutions
Washington, DC
September 24, 2009

Excellence in Government Series: Driving Federal Performance
Washington, DC
October 5, 2009

ACT/IAC Executive Leadership Conference
Williamsburg, VA
October 27-29, 2009

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

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