Feds Look to Big Data to Position 'Government as a Platform'

Just as the federal government has been working to hasten its shift to cloud computing over the past few years, senior technology officials are now seeking to advance a framework for the government's approach to the challenges and opportunities presented by big data.

Today, at a conference on the cloud and big data hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), U.S. CIO Steven VanRoekel described the government-wide effort to make more data available to the public in an ordered format that could provide the basis for new services and applications, startup companies or even entire industries.

"We are I think at the verge, just at the tipping point of the data economy, both on the big data side ... as well as thinking about government as a platform for value. We're just now starting to see companies founded on government data," VanRoekel says. "We can greatly impact the lives of every American just by unlocking pieces of data."