The Green Cup

One of President-elect Obama’s campaign promises was to create a cabinet level position for the Chief Technology Officer of United States of America. A lot of discussion has swirled around what such a person would do.

Steven Hodson at the Inquisitr (The White House CTO – Web 2.0 need not apply) talks about Google CEO Eric Scmidt’s statement that he wouldn’t be interested in the job. Hodson’s response is relief. He says that speculation about Scmidt is “centered around the singular idea that whoever fills the job should be a thinker from the Web 2.0 social networking social media world of the web.” He goes on to add that “Technology isn’t just the Internet and as important as that is it is only a small portion of what a CTO would have to be concerned with.”

My Creative Weblogging colleague Scott Wilson (CTO of the United States) give a good description of the issue:

The cabinet role has been bandied about as a proposed solution to a number of different problems; to help the country focus on the creation of technology sector jobs, to unify notoriously disconnected government information systems, to find ways to use technology to broaden public oversight and make government processes more visible to the average citizen.

Then he says “It is difficult for me to see a clear role for a CTO/CIO in the cabinet, however.” My response: Maybe that’s good. After all, it’s difficult to see a clear role for technology and information in our society. It’s too big, too fluid. And maybe that (size and fluidity) is a good reason to have the cabinet position…

Mashable’s Mark Hopkins (The Case Against Senator Obama’s National CTO) is afraid that the CTO’s job would be to get subsidies for telecommunication companies to spread broadband. He thinks the telecommunication companies get enough government money now. He’s probably right about that. But hopefully that won’t be the focus of the job.

Micah Sifry launched a site recently where you can suggest (and vote on) the priorities of the Chief Technology Officer of United States of America: ObamaCTO.org. At the moment, here are the top suggestions:

1. Ensure the Internet is widely accessible & network neutral
2. Ensure our privacy and repeal the Patriot Act
3. Repeal the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
4. Open Government Data (APIs, XML, RSS)
5. Kick Start Research and Innovation in Energy
6. Get broadband to every community in America
7. Ensure reliable & trustworthy election technologies
8. Complete the job on metrication that Ronald Reagan defunded
9. Start a “Green Collar Jobs” program
10. Gov to be run on 100% free software
11. Build a nation-wide smart grid
12. Carefully consider the future of Intellectual Property right

Some of these ideas are problematic. Interesting, but problematic. There are about 500 ideas to look at there now – things like a. mine the moon for helium-3 to use in the generation of nuclear power, b. mandate the transfer of medical records to a digital format, and c. leash RIAA, MPAA etc. before they rob and accuse everybody. You get the idea…

Among my favorites: Jumpstart Grade School Education (ranked 39th at the moment). My own suggest was similar: Bring public school education completely into the 21st Century. It is currently ranked 239th…