From techcrunch:
President Obama will be naming Aneesh Paul Chopra as his choice for CTO during tomorrow’s weekly address, as first reported
by the Washington Post and confirmed in this press release posted to the White House’s official web site. Chopra currently serves as Virginia’s Secretary of Technology, and has previous acted as the Managing Director for the Advisory Board Company, where he advised executives on health care operations.
According to Virginia’s state website, Chopra was recently recognized by Government Technology Magazine’s for excellent ‘use of technology to improve government’, and he was awarded Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s 2007 State Leadership Advocacy Award.
The choice comes after months of speculation, during which many of Silicon Valley’s most prominent figures, including Steve Ballmer, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Eric Schmidt (among many others) were named as possible candidates. Whether or not some of these people actually wanted the position is another story, but obviously President Obama chose a different route.
I think Obama should have picked someone from Silcon Valley. I am biased but it would have made more sense to pick someone who unserstands the heatbeat of world’s tech epicenter.