Appointment of Vivek Kundra as CIO in Obama administration
On 5 March 2009 it was announced that Vivek Kundra, former CTO of Washington DC has been appointed CIO for the Obama administration. See the announcement on the White House website. In the CIO position Kundra will oversee technology investments and technology spending by the US federal government; he will serve as e-government administrator for the Office of Management and Budget (which is headed by Peter Orszag).
As CTO for Washington DC, he was responsible establishing the DC Data Catalog (that published REAL TIME data feeds from DC's government departments - see http://data.octo.dc.gov/) and initiated the Apps for Democracy innovation contest. This is a significant appointment, which will have Kundra working closely with Director of OMB (Orszag), and the yet to be announced CTO. It indicates commitment to giving effect to Obama and Biden's policy announcements about open and transparent government.