The appointment of Aneesh Chopra as the U.S. federal government’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO), together with the earlier appointment of Vivek Kundra as the Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO), is a signal of the importance of information technology to the Obama Administration. We expect Chopra to play a vital role in achieving the policy goals set out in the Administration’s IT platform. He comes on board having already been tasked under the Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government with coordinating the development of recommendations to executive departments and agencies to take specific actions implementing the principles of transparent, participatory, and collaborative government. His experience as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology, where he partnered with industry on several important initiatives, will be useful in addressing the challenges of open government data, where the ODF Alliance has made specific recommendations.

We applaud the Obama Administration on this appointment and congratulate Aneesh Chopra on becoming the nation’s first CTO.