A Google-enabled government

President-elect Barack Obama has promised change, and one area where that may happen is in the use of technology in government. One key concept Obama has talked about is creating a Google-enabled government. This involves improving the transparency and access to the vast amounts of government data, and doing so by moving the data into universally accessible formats.

Many federal agencies have put data online but use different formats. The new administration may move this process along by hiring the nation's first chief technology officer to manage and coordinate the government's IT effort--a massive undertaking. There's lot of speculation on who will lead this effort. The media rumor mill has cited many big names in technology including Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy. Among the people on the transition team helping Obama select a CTO is Sonal Shah, head of global development initiatives at Google, and Julius Genachowski, co-founder of LaunchBox Digital, a Washington-based firm that helps start-up businesses.

For more on this transformation:
- check out this Computerworld.com article

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