New Federal CTO Is an IT Innovator

President Obama has appointed Aneesh Chopra as federal CTO and Jeffrey Zients as chief performance officer (CPO).  CTO and CPO are new positions created by the Obama administration. 

Annesh Chopra has been Virginia’s Secretary of Technology. There’s a fascinating Youtube clip of Chopra on IT infrastructure, interoperability and 20th century governance.  “We have all this data. We just can’t mine it because it’s siloed.” The Federal CTO will be an assistant to the President, as well as the Associate Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He will be working closely with Vivek Kundra, the new Federal CIO, and the new CPO to develop and implement President Obama’s technology agenda.

Vivek Kundra was the CTO for the District of Columbia.  There’s a very interesting Youtube clip of Vivek Kundra discussing interoperability and geospatial.

The IT industry appears to be pretty happy about these appointments.  All three appear to be IT innovators so this could be an exciting time for technology.  Tim O’Reilly is extremely positive, “Aneesh Chopra is a rock star. He’s a brilliant, thoughtful
change-maker. He knows technology, he knows government, and he knows
how to put the two together to solve real problems. We couldn’t do
better.”  
Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss has more than 20 years experience in the geospatial software industry and 15 years experience developing enterprise geospatial solutions for the utilities, communications, and public works industries. His particular interests include the convergence of BIM, CAD, geospatial, and 3D. In recognition of his efforts to evangelize geospatial in vertical industries such as utilities and construction, Geoff received the Geospatial Ambassador Award at Geospatial World Forum 2014. Currently Geoff is Principal at Between the Poles, a thought leadership consulting firm. From 2001 to 2012 Geoff was Director of Utility Industry Program at Autodesk Inc, where he was responsible for thought leadership for the utility industry program. From 1999 to 2001 he was Director of Enterprise Software Development at Autodesk. He received one of ten annual global technology awards in 2004 from Oracle Corporation for technical innovation and leadership in the use of Oracle. Prior to Autodesk Geoff was Director of Product Development at VISION* Solutions. VISION* Solutions is credited with pioneering relational spatial data management, CAD/GIS integration, and long transactions (data versioning) in the utility, communications, and public works industries. Geoff is a frequent speaker at geospatial and utility events around the world including Geospatial World Forum, Where 2.0, MundoGeo Connect (Brazil), Middle East Spatial Geospatial Forum, India Geospatial Forum, Location Intelligence, Asia Geospatial Forum, and GITA events in US, Japan and Australia. Geoff received Speaker Excellence Awards at GITA 2007-2009.

View article by Geoff Zeiss

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