The first CTO of U.S. may be Indian

By siliconindia   |   Saturday, 17 January 2009, 02:00 IST   |    25 Comments
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The first CTO of U.S. may be Indian
Bangalore: Technology prowess of Indian brain will be more eminent in U.S. if the Obama Administration zeroes in on one of the Indian-born technology executives as the federal Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Padmasree Warrior, CTO of Cisco Systems and Vivek Kundra, who holds the same title in the government of Washington, D.C. are the two leading candidates for the newly created post. The President-elect is expected to announce his pick for CTO in a matter of days. One of the sources says the selection is being held up because it's not yet clear how the person selected as CTO will interact with the government's chief information officer, a position now held by Karen Evans, and with the new cyber-security czar, another position that has not yet been filed, as reported by Business Week. Warrior, who previously was CTO at Motorola, represents hard-core technology expertise, while Kundra has a reputation for using technology to make government more open and inclusive and advises Obama's transition team on technology issues. Neither the Obama transition team nor the two executives would comment on their potential selection by Obama. While Warrior declined to comment on her candidacy, she gave a brief e-mail statement to BusinessWeek: "Cisco is committed to working closely with the Obama Administration on their plans to deploy digital infrastructure to grow our economy and create jobs. Smart networking technologies and IT play a critical role in transforming government, energy, education, and health care. President-elect Obama and his team fully understand the importance of digital infrastructure to further our technology leadership as a nation." Earlier in 2007, Warrior had written an article in siliconindia magazine on the progress of technology in India. According to her, India had transformed from a solely agrarian economy to a high-growth economy catalyzed by technology. See the article here: India: My journey and the road ahead