Obama names science and technology team, still no national CTO
"I am confident that if we recommit ourselves to discovery; if we support science education to create the next generation of scientists and engineers right here in America; if we have the vision to believe and invest in things unseen, then we can lead the world into a new future of peace and prosperity," Obama says.
By Suzanne Deffree, Managing Editor, News -- EDN, December 23, 2008
Leaving out mention of his to-be-created national CTO position, president elect Barack Obama named several members of his science and technology team in his most recent radio and YouTube address.
"Whether it’s the science to slow global warming; the technology to protect our troops and confront bioterror and weapons of mass destruction; the research to find life-saving cures; or the innovations to remake our industries and create twenty-first century jobs—today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation," Obama said, putting emphasis on science and technology's role in America in his December 17 address. "It is time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology."
Under the incoming administration, physicist Dr John Holdren will serve as assistant to the president for science and technology and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Holdren is a professor and director of the program on science, technology, and public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, as well as president and director of the Woods Hole Research Center.
Best known for his work on climate and energy, Holdren will also serve as a co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). He will be joined in the PCAST position by Dr Harold Varmus and Dr Eric Lander.
Varmus is a Nobel Prize winner for his research on the causes of cancer and has also served as director of the National Institutes of Health during the Clinton Administration.
Lander is the founding director of the Broad Institute at MIT and Harvard and is credited as one of the driving forces behind mapping the human genome.
Obama also appointed environmental scientist and ecologist Dr Jane Lubchenco as the Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is focused to conserving marine and coastal resources and monitoring weather. Lubchenco is a former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has advised the office of the president and Congress on scientific matters in the past.
"Working with these leaders, we will seek to draw on the power of science to both meet our challenges across the globe and revitalize our economy here at home," Obama said. "I am confident that if we recommit ourselves to discovery; if we support science education to create the next generation of scientists and engineers right here in America; if we have the vision to believe and invest in things unseen, then we can lead the world into a new future of peace and prosperity."
No CTO named
Absent from official statements from the president elect thus far have been pointers to his national CTO position. Obama created much fanfare when he announced the position at Google's offices during his campaign, but has given little more than a broad description to this point.
That description calls for a national CTO who would oversee federal government IT infrastructure and policies, while promoting government transparency, leading development of a national interoperable wireless network for first responders, and promoting technology-related economic development.
"I'm very positive about the description," said Dr Leah Jamieson, 2007 president of the IEEE and the John A Edwardson Dean of the College of Engineering at Purdue University. "What's powerful about both the position and having it be very broadly defined is that it's a very public, very dramatic statement about how important technology is in government, as well as in society, in the economy, in everyone's lives. If we started with a narrow definition of that, it would limit the thinking."
To be true, the position will create its own problems. There are existing government agencies, offices, and cabinet positions that explicitly have responsibility for areas technology touches, including the environment, education, healthcare, and communications. The CTO will have to work across several sectors and with other officials in the role. For that reason, Jamieson believes that for the new position to be a success, the appointee must be someone who is collaborative across multiple sectors of government, as well as with industry, the private sector, universities, and professional organizations.
"The only way this will work is if from the outset it is viewed as a collaborative and enabling position," she said. "It's a position that is there to help other agencies sharpen their focus on both the capabilities and the limitations of technology, to provide a service in that sense without replicating expertise that exists elsewhere. One of the most important things about the selection of this person is that it has to be someone who is deeply collaborative. No one wants this [CTO post] to be a grab for turf. It has to be something that enables everyone."
Well-known names rumored to be in consideration for the CTO position include Microsoft's Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and Amazon.com CEO Jeffrey Bezos. Vint Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist and one of the designers behind the TCP/IP architecture that made the Internet possible; Ed Felten, a prominent professor of computer science and public affairs at Princeton University; and Larry Lessig, a public-minded scholar on law in the digital age and the founder of Stanford University's Center for the Internet and Society, are among the lesser-known names rumored for the post.
Obama's representatives have given no specific indicators as to when the national CTO would be officially nominated. However, the president elect loosely said in his address that he will be speaking more after the New Year about how his administration will "engage leaders in the technology community and harness technology and innovation to create jobs, enhance America’s competitiveness, and advance our national priorities."
