Digital Fuel of the 21st Century: Innovation through Open Data Platforms
Mr. Vivek Kundra, Chief Information Officer, U. S. Government
Fellow, Harvard University
He is currently a visiting Fellow at Harvard University, where he is conducting research at both the Berkman Center for Internet & Society and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. He previously served as the D. C. Chief Technology Officer and as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Technology in the state of Virginia cabinet, and also as Director of Infrastructure Technology for Arlington County, Virginia.
Mr. Kundra was born in New Delhi, India, moving as a child to Tanzania when his father joined a group of professors and teachers to provide education to local residents. His family moved to Washington, D.C. prior to high school. He received his undergraduate degree in Psychology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and earned a masters degree in Information Technology from the University of Maryland University College. He is a graduate of the University of Virginia's Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership.
While CTO of the District of Columbia, he implemented a system that imagined projects as publicly traded companies, project schedules as quarterly reports, and user satisfaction as stock prices. The system effectively replaces subjective judgments about projects with objective, data driven analytics. His efforts to use cloud-based Web applications in the District government have also been considered innovative within government.
Mr. Kundra has gained numerous awards and recognition for innovation and IT leadership, including the 2011 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, the 2010 National Cyber Security Leadership Award by the SANS Institute for uncovering wasted federal spending, Chief of the Year on December 21, 2009, by Information Week for driving unprecedented change in federal IT, and in 2008 one of the Top 25 CTOs in the country, and an MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Award Finalist.
For more information about Vivek Kundra you can begin with
http://informationweek.com/news/government/leadership/231400292
Abstract
The history of civilization has seen continuous evolutionary progress, occasionally culminating in changes that are revolutionary. In the broadest classification, three such revolutions are apparent, each one building upon the previous in a pattern of exponential economic growth. The agricultural, industrial, and information revolutions have translated into massive social, political, and economic change for people.
Before the 13 year race to crack the code of life was complete, a team of international scientists gathered in Bermuda to discuss the strategy for managing the Human Genome Project data. They made a set of critical decision to make the human genome data freely available in the public domain that came to be known as the "Bermuda Principles". This decision gave rise to an ecosystem of scientists and companies that have advanced everything from personalized medicine to creating economic activity that improves the human condition.
Today, there is more data being generated and stored than any time in history. From more and more business processes being moved to the digital world to billions of sensors being deployed to instrument our world and universe.
In the Information Economy, the microprocessor is the new steam engine. However, information is both the fuel and the product.
Across time, the world has gone through many revolutions, but the information revolution fueled by open data and network effects is the the largest shift in power. This fundamental shift in power from 'the high priests" to the people will give birth to new industries, topple governments and transform the world as we know it.
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