Kundra: A fast and dramatic start

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra was just named InformationWeek's Chief of the Year, a remarkable accomplishment for a government official who has only been on the job for nine months.

In that short time, he has already moved to change everything about the face of federal information technology--from the tired silos and incompatible systems to the lack of accountability and unexplained project failures. InformationWeek reports that the 35-year-old Kundra has "demonstrated a compelling vision for overhauling the government's lumbering IT operations (with 71,000 federal IT workers and more than 10,000 IT systems), and his progress is so far impressive."

Among his achievements is a smart march toward transparency, one of the top initiatives underscored by President Obama. Along the way, he has put government agencies to the test for more accountability and a faster response to the public's right to see what the government is doing.

It comes at a time when his to-do list is enormous, says InformationWeek. That includes reducing the number of federal data centers, bringing cloud computing to government and improving IT project performance. He has launched a remarkable number of projects, including Data.gov, which went from just 47 data sets to more than 115,000 today. He created the IT Dashboard, which shows the public the status of IT projects.

For more on Kundra:
- see this InformationWeek article
- check out this commentary
- read this interview

Related Articles:
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Kundra's blog joins the IT dashboard