Indian origin White House CIO quits
By Pulkit Sharma

Most Indians took great pride in the fact that 2 Indian origin technocrats had been appointed to the most important leadership positions in President Obama’s govt.  The first was 34-year old Vivek Kundra, to the position of Federal CIO of the US Govt.  The next was Virginia Secretary of Tech, Aneesh Chopra, to the position of Chief Technology Officer. Kundra has quit his job.

In March, 2009, I had reported on how the newly appointed CIO Vivek Kundra had been forgiven by the White House for a youthful indiscretion.  As a young man, Vivek Kundra had pleaded guilty to a theft charge in 1997.  Valleywag had published evidence which clearly showed that a 21 year old Vivek Kundra had pleaded guilty to a theft of less than $300, for which he received supervised probation before judgment and a fine of $500, $400 of which was suspended.

No one is quite sure if this theft was a youthful prank of a 21-year old still finding his feet in life, or something a bit more serious.  Much of the chatter among tech circles points to some juvenile behaviour that many youngsters get up to, but grow out of with age and experience.  After all, many of us have said and done things at 21 which we are not proud about.

Vivek Kundra insisted that he has disclosed this incident in his past to every employer as well as the White House.  In 2009, The White House did not think it is much of a big deal and had asked Vivek to join the Administration as the CIO of USA.

The White House has now announced that Vivek Kundra, the nation’s first federal Chief Information Officer (CIO), would later this summer be leaving the post for a fellowship at Harvard University.

The White House statement is lavish in its praise for Kundra: “When he began at the White House, he brought with him the promise of good ideas and a hard-charging style focused on getting things done, necessary qualities to tackle the difficult issues facing Federal IT – an aging infrastructure with rising operating costs, too many major projects failing to deliver, and increasing vulnerability to outside threats. Two and a half years after joining the Administration, Vivek has delivered on that promise.  He has cracked down on wasteful IT spending, saved $3 billion in taxpayer dollars; moved the government to the cloud; strengthened the cybersecurity posture of the nation while making it more open, transparent, and participatory.  His work has been replicated across the world from 16 countries that have deployed the data.gov model to tap into the ingenuity of their people to multiple countries that have deployed the IT dashboard to save money.”