Quietly, Kundra steps into federal CIO position

We mentioned back in January that Vivek Kundra, Washington DC's CTO, was a highly plausible pick to take on the top tech job in the Obama administration. Switch that T to an I, please: Thursday morning, before tackling a full day of health-care meetings, President Obama named Kundra the White House's Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO).

In his brief statement, Obama cited Kundra's depth of experience and commitment to lowering the cost of government tech operations, and said that Kundra was charged with a key role in "making sure our government is running in the most secure, open, and efficient way possible." In addition to his tenure in DC, Kundra served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia, taught tech at the University of Maryland, and held executive positions at Evincible Software and Creostar. (Image courtesy dc.gov.)