What to expect from Vivek Kundra
BY W. David Stephenson | Thursday, March 5 2009
Following up on Nancy Scola's post today, I'd like to suggest a few areas where Vivek Kundra's past indicates some of the priorities he'll probably stress in his new post, based on the frequent conversations we've had regarding a book that we're co-authoring, "Democratizing Data" (it's unclear at this point whether he will be able to continue with the book project: stay tuned!). Again, these are just indicators from his past priorities as I've interpreted them, so take them with a grain of salt!
- expect a radical expansion in the number of real-time data feeds
from federal agencies (some agencies, such as NASA and NOAA, have done
this for years). The DC Citywide
Data Warehouse publishes more than 250 such feeds, on everything
from violent crime to building permits. Providing them can lead
to an explosion in mashups and other creative ways of packaging this
data to serve the public interest (it was the key to DC's innovative Apps for Democracy contest) - IT contractors will really have to perform to keep those large
contracts: Kundra ran IT projects at OCTO as if each was a "stock," and
if it didn't meet performance standards -- which were compiled on a
continuous basis and visible to all, so no one could claim they were
blind-sided! -- the "stocks" were divested at the end of the quarter.
Poof! - most of all, as perhaps only an immigrant could be, he has a
wonderful passion for what he calls the "digital public square," and
transforming the public from passive recipients of government services
into active co-creators. Over time, I suspect that programs to fulfill
that mission will be seen as his lasting legacy.
Hold on: it's gonna be a great ride!