The District of Columbia's Chief Technology Officer, Vivek Kundra, kept the audience at INPUT's Executive Breakfast on Wednesday on the edge of their seats as he spoke of democratizing data and demanding performance from government employees and partners.

Kundra opened explaining that his birth in India then the subsequent nine years in Africa as very formative in shaping his view of good and bad government, and ultimately forging his vision for revolutionizing governing. Kundra has been the CTO of DC for fewer than two years and has caught the attention and imagination of many in the public sector. Kundra unabashedly went through the laundry list of inefficiencies and lack of ethics that greeted him when accepting the CTO position from DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, and emphasized the support Fenty has graced him in addressing all of these problems. The ideas and initiatives flowed as Kundra spoke without a plan or presentation. His excitement and drive was obvious.

A recent project called Apps for Democracy was of particular interest to the audience. The project stemmed from Kundra's wishes to open the file cabinets of government to citizens and organizations who want to participate and facilitate change. Under his leadership, the District has created 216 data feeds ranging from crime reports to building permits to air space restrictions. Kundra called this the democratization of data and sees this as part of his vision to create a technology revolution in government. The Apps for Democracy contest offered $50,000 to parties with the best applications using one or more of the District's data feeds. In the 30 days that the contest was open, the District received 47 submissions. This topic prompted questions from the largely vendor audience as to how money can be made from this for innovators, to which Kundra responded that this type of interaction with government can be used as an opportunity to show valuable solutions and then to make it profitable by helping governments scale them across the enterprise.

Kundra mentioned procurement reform as major initiative in the District and that he and Chief Procurement Officer David Gragan work very closely on the topic. Efforts include examining all purchasing vehicles in search of increased efficiency and value across the entire enterprise. The District's recently awarded $75 million a year IT Staff Augmentation contract is a prime example of these efforts, where the District was using previous staff augmentation contracts as solutions contracts and was spending twice as much as Maryland and Virginia professional services contracts for the same services.

Kundra also spoke of the DC One Card project which is combining all of the many identification card applications used by the District for employees and citizens into a unified system producing a singular card for all purposes. The program has been deployed to the school system, libraries, Parks and Recreation and the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. The District currently has an RFP on the street for supplies for this project and may seek services to implement this project over the entire enterprise.

The CTO identified Public Safety, Education and Health and Human Services as top priorities, for many reasons including that they represent 60% of the Districts annual budget. He described his approach to managing technology projects in these and other verticals as similar to the stock market, where he has assigned fund managers to projects and those individuals analyze their funds on a daily basis determining whether to buy, sell, or hold. Ultimately this strategy is meant to prevent unsuccessful projects from eating years of time and millions of dollars before plugs are pulled. A similar approach is being taken with District staff, adding accountability to each employee.

In many ways the District has grappled in the past several years with inefficiencies and tight budgets that are now plaguing the rest of the state and local world due to economic downturn and resulting budget deficits. Vivek and the District's other leaders have for that reason have forged and continue to pioneer best practices that will no doubt be studied and adapted to many other governments driven by our current economic context to evolve.