Aneesh Chopra, Federal CTO and Linda Cureton, NASA CIO, Discuss Cloud Computing
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Scanning through the Google Alerts received daily on cloud computing, an interesting new channel popped up on YouTube today, called Minds in the Cloud. Sponsored by Intel and Microsoft, this channel says it will produce a video a week on cloud computing. They are off to a promising start with two videos to date.
Can Governments be Streamlined with Cloud Computing?
Aneesh Chopra, Federal Chief Technology officer (CTO) and Linda Cureton, (@curetonl on Twitter) Chief Information Officer (CIO) for NASA discuss their perspectives and plans for cloud computing. Aneesh speaks about how the U.S. Government is working to create incentives for the adoption of more open computing standards for healthcare information, some of which will involve the technologies underlying cloud computing. He makes it very clear these are open standards and there will be benefits to companies to participate, yet no penalties if they do not. His perspectives on how cloud computing can make government more efficient are worth listening to.
The second video is a short interview with Linda Cureton, CIO of NASA. She speaks of how cloud computing provides engineers an opportunity to prototype their ideas and is serving as a platform for innovation. She also is very pragmatic and direct in her assessment of the hype surrounding cloud computing too. Of the CIOs I’ve spoken with she is much more progressive in her thinking and adoption of new technologies than the norm. The engineering teams at NASA must appreciate her more pragmatic and progressive views of technology.
U.S. Government Funding Mobile Apps, Cloud Computing
There is an excellent summary of the 2011 federal budget for information technology as it relates to mobile and cloud computing application spending on the Hillicon Valley Blog today. The post is called Federal IT budget to fund mobile apps, cloud computing and it’s worth checking out. Be sure to visit Apps.gov to see how pervasive cloud computing adopting is becoming in the federal government.
Bottom line: Forward-thinking CTOs and CIOs in governments globally have the potential to drastically reduce process and cost inefficiencies. It remains to be seen if the biggest and costliest impediment of all – which is resistance to change – will be eventually overcome by their efforts.
Note: I’m not affiliated with this new YouTube Channel, Intel or Microsoft’s cloud computing or marketing efforts in any way, and in this blog I will be sure to explain my relationships with companies if and when I write about them. I believe in being honest about vendor relationships and will tell you when I have a connection to those I write about.
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