White House names Google’s Megan Smith the next Chief Technology Officer of the United States
The White House announced Thursday that it has named its next Chief Technology Officer. She is Megan Smith, a Google executive with decades of experience in Silicon Valley. The Obama administration named as deputy U.S. CTO, Alexander Macgillivray, a former Twitter lawyer known as a staunch defender of the free flow of information online.
With the announcement, President Obama gets a pair of widely-respected technology world figures, both steeped in the workings of some of Silicon Valley's biggest and highest-profile companies, but with different expertise -- one an engineer with a record of executing upon ambitious, even fantastical ideas, the other a lawyer who has navigated some of the Internet's trickiest policy questions.
Obama will likely need the help, as the country attempts to stay on top of technological innovation while addressing the complications raised by an increasingly connected world. The U.S. CTO spot was conceived by Obama when he was a candidate. But its mission has been fuzzy at times. Under out-going U.S. CTO Todd Park, the job became in part a hands-on one, as he helped salvage the troubled HealthCare.gov project.
But under Smith the position is expected to re-focus on being agenda-setting and forward-looking -- something of the technological equivalent of the President's Science Advisor.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/09/04/white-house-names-googles-megan-smith-the-next-chief-technology-officer-of-the-united-states/
There's that company again...Interesting to see how many pies they have their fingers in...Google must be journalistic kryptonite for Glenn Greenwald, since some unseen force prevents him from ever criticizing them, even in light of overwhelming evidence...