First federal CIO launched far-reaching changes, experts say

Vivek Kundra, who leaves his post today as the nation's first chief information officer, deserves credit for pushing a grand and comprehensive vision for using information technology more efficiently, for making government more transparent, and for beginning the process of moving a large share of federal computing to the cloud, experts told Nextgov this week.

He also deserves recognition for defining the CIO's role itself. He took what might have been a little-noticed backwater in the Office of Management and Budget and turned it into a bully pulpit for an efficient, centralized and open government approach to information technology, observers said.