data.gov is coming - Vivek Kundra named US Federal CIO

Vivek Kundra on data.gov and the Imperative to Distribute Data

VK: One of the things we want to do is embark on launching data.gov which would democratize data and give data access to the public and based on that challenge whether it is citizens, NGOs the private sector to help us think through how we address some of the toughest problems in the public sector.

VK: Data.gov will publish data feeds, so we'll have a vast array of data, and the way I like to think about this is that if you think of two forms of data that have been published in the federal government that have fundamentally transformed the economy. One example is the National Institute of Health working with other world bodies when they published the Human Genome Project data online. What that did is it created an entire revolution in personalized medicine where you ended up having over 500 drugs that were created and that are in the pipeline coming into the FDA.

VK: Second, is what happened in the geospatial community when the defense department decided to release data around satellites you created this GPS revolution where now you could go to your local car rental company and get a GPS device or your iPhone and get directions.

Vivek Kundra: Federal CIO in His Own Words - O'Reilly Radar - March 5, 2009

So... who is Canada's Vivek Kundra?

UPDATE 2009-05-22: Data.gov has launched.

Comments

[Robert]

www.USGovXML.com is an index of publically available web services and XML data sources provided by the US government. It includes detailed descriptions of the data sources and their operations. Links to the host systems for documentation, tech support, etc. are also available. Source code snippets are provided to help developers better understand how to use the data sources. Web based applets, for use by mobile devices (i.e. SmartPhones), have also been provided. The mobile applets are available at www.USGovXML.com/mobile.