US president-elect Barack Obama says he will create a new official government role – the country’s first Chief Technology Officer.
The officer will be a representative from the technology industry to “ensure that our government and all its agencies will have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century,” the Obama campaign said earlier this year.
“The CTO will ensure the safety of our networks and will lead an inter-agency effort, working with chief technology and chief information officers of each of the federal agencies, to ensure that they use best-in-class technologies and share best practices.”
The first person tipped for the role was Google CEO Eric Schmidt – after he endorsed Obama – but he has since said he is happy to remain at Google.
“I am extremely happy serving the shareholders of Google as the CEO, so I have no interest in serving as a government employee,” he told the New York Times.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COMMENTS
SmartCompany is committed to hosting lively discussions. Help us keep the conversation useful, interesting and welcoming. We aim to publish comments quickly in the interest of promoting robust conversation, but we’re a small team and we deploy filters to protect against legal risk. Occasionally your comment may be held up while it is being reviewed, but we’re working as fast as we can to keep the conversation rolling.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please subscribe to leave a comment.
The SmartCompany comment section is members-only content. Please login to leave a comment.