Commentary: Time To Seize The Moment And Unlock The ‘Treasure Trove’ Of Federal Data

Occasionally, we publish blog posts, speech transcripts and other commentaries of interest to the Washington Business community. Here is an excerpt from a recent keynote address by Steven VanRoekel, the U.S. government’s chief information officer, to the Bethesda chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. These remarks were taken from a larger discussion about federal budget priorities in the coming year.

When the going gets tough in this country, innovation tends to follow disruption.

Be it a financial crisis, a war or what have you, we tend as a country to step up in those darkest times to innovate. Over 50 percent of the Fortune 500 companies founded in this country started in the worst economic times.