During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama used technology to organise, communicate and raise funds in innovative ways that gave him an advantage over opponents in both the primaries and the general election.
It is clear that Obama views technology as a powerful catalyst and, with the US facing an unprecedented array of economic challenges, Obama will need to use technology to drive efficiency and institutional transformation.
A part of his policy platform, Obama has stated that he plans to hire the nation's first chief technology officer (CTO) to effect these changes. A CTO is typically an organisation's top engineer and focuses on outward-facing technologies but, based on Obama's policy statements, he wants to use the national CTO position to: build a 21st-century technology infrastructure; unite and lead the CIOs and CTOs of various federal agencies; and architect innovative technology solutions to help solve big problems.
As a result, Obama is going to need a visionary technology leader who can rally both technologists and Washington bureaucrats around a common purpose. It also wouldn't hurt to bring in a big name — someone who already has a strong reputation that will translate into political capital. Here are 10 of the top candidates.
10. Shai Agassi
This former technology head of SAP has the business experience and the interest in larger societal issues to do well as the US's CTO. However, he's recently founded his own company, Better Place, to create an entirely new business model and power system to run the electric cars of the future. As a result of his passion for that project, it's doubtful he would want the US CTO role.
9. Larry Lessig
Lessig, a Stanford Law School professor, is the founder of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society and has been an outspoken commentator on US technology policy.
Although Lessig has a conservative background, he publicly endorsed Obama for president. At times, he has even been rumoured as a candidate for numerous political offices.
He would be an excellent technology-policy guardian and a decent visionary, but he does not have a traditional technology background, and that would probably hurt his chances of gaining the respect of the federal technology executives that he would have to lead.
8. Padmasree Warrior
Warrior is one of only two candidates on this list who is currently serving as a CTO. She was previously CTO at Motorola and, in 2008, became CTO at Cisco, where she is tasked with driving technology strategy and innovation, and acting as an evangelist of what's possible in the future.
Warrior has also demonstrated an interest in politics, having attended the Democratic National Convention in August and expressed enthusiasm for Obama's vision of the US.
7. Shane Robison
The other current CTO on this list, Robison is the executive vice president of technology and strategy at HP.
All of the CTOs of the various HP business units report up through Robison, as does the forward-looking HP Labs and the company's corporate marketing department. That kind of breadth of experience would serve Robison very well as US CTO.
He's also a visionary who understands the larger context of the current technology revolution and its impact on business and society. It's unclear whether he has any interest in politics or if he could be wooed away from HP.
6. Vint Cerf
Cerf is sometimes called the 'father of the internet' because he and Bob Kahn designed the TCP/IP architecture that made the internet possible.
Cerf, who currently works as chief internet evangelist at Google, was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in 1997 by former president Bill Clinton and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 by George Bush.
He has outstanding technical skills and extensive experience working with government technology agencies, but his leadership and management credentials aren't quite as strong as those of some of the other candidates.
5. John Chambers
One of the technology industry's most passionate characters, Chambers has a will of steel that would help him cut through the bureaucratic stone walls in Washington.
The Cisco chief executive is a terrific visionary and one of technology's most effective leaders when it comes to getting a team to execute. Chambers has also shown an interest in politics, and has been rumoured to be a potential candidate for political office.
However, Chambers endorsed John McCain for president and was a significant donor to the McCain campaign, so that could damage his chances of being considered as Obama's CTO.
4. Ed Felten
A Princeton computer science professor, Felton founded Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy and is a leading researcher, commentator and blogger on technology law and policy.
He famously served as the Department of Justice's leading technology witness in its antitrust suit against Microsoft. He would be excellent in terms of policy, but doesn't have as much experience leading technology teams.
3. Bill Gates
The biggest name that nearly everyone is forgetting is Bill Gates, the former Microsoft leader who retired from his full-time role at Microsoft in June so that he could devote his energies to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates clearly has his sights set on larger societal impact; what better way to make that happen than helping define the critical technology policies of the next decade?
Melinda can handle the foundation. Gates has the vision, the iron will and the ability to rally the troops that would make him a successful CTO. The only problem is that he is still technically the chairman of Microsoft and it would be a conflict of interest to continue in that role while serving as US CTO.
Also, the government uses a lot of open-source solutions and Gates has never been an open-source fan.
2. Julius Genachowski
Genachowski went to Harvard Law School with Obama and served as an adviser to the Obama campaign on technology issues, even helping to draft Obama's technology platform.
He previously served as chief of business operations at InterActiveCorp, was a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adviser during the Clinton administration, and founded his own company, LaunchBox Digital, to help tech start-ups.
Since the election, Obama has named Genachowski to his transition team. It's likely that he will have a role in the Obama administration, either as the first CTO or, more probably, as head of the FCC.
1. Eric Schmidt
The Google chief executive endorsed Obama in October and has served as an unofficial adviser on economic and technology issues throughout the campaign.
Since the election, Schmidt has served on Obama's newly formed economic advisory board. Schmidt is a pragmatic, low-key leader who can successfully work in collaboration with other leaders, and whose temperament might be the right fit for this position.
Schmidt recently denied that he is interested in the position, and no-one could blame him for not wanting to leave Google, which is at the top of its game and still has an excellent future. Nevertheless, don't rule him out just yet. He remains the most likely candidate for the job.
Talkback
Although John Chambers was a McCain supporter, he should not be eliminated from the CTO race. Mr. Obama has had no problem with selecting other competitors from the race so there should be no issue here. This is about selecting the best person for the job regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation.
The CTO for the USA should be both a visionary and a leader. Otherwise we will continue to have multiple systems infrastructures that do not follow prescribed standards. We have already seen the danger and the waste created by system’s incompatibility, the unwillingness of department heads to collaborate, and the failure to share and analyze data that is critical to the security of the country.
The other standout candidate from this list is Eric Schmidt. However, he may prefer to complete his mission at Google.
All candidates on the list are obviously successful leaders and are more than capable of taking on this important role. That said, the two aforementioned executives seem to possess the best balance of skills needed to exceed as CTO of this great country.
To me, the most important question for CIOs and CTOs is not visions of the future. Visions are cheap, very prolific and often decades before their time.
The world desperately needs leaders who have the ability to deliver effective systems that actually work and meet the needs of both the users and their organisations.
There are far too many business systems and infrastructures which require high levels of IT skills and IT training and far too few systems which are intuitive.
We need a simple vision for the future to craft systems and infrastructures which meet the needs of real people and organisations who rarely have the time or inclination to become IT experts to be able to effectively use the systems. My academic experience indicates that the majority of even the so-called generation Y are essentially illiterate in their ability to use simple ICT facilities, other than Facebook, web mail and SMS messaging.
The execution of this vision is the real challenge and is likely to take significant resources, time and a major change of direction by all IT suppliers. I see no evidence that this is being addressed at present, yet it is vitally necessary if organisations are to begin to truly gain a return on the enormous expenditure on IT that is made year in and year out across the world.
If President-elect Obama can get his new CTO to begin to taking steps towards solving this problem, then he will have made a far greater contribution to the world than just creating yet more infrastructure visions.
Execution is far more important and also much more difficult to achieve than having visions.
Richard J Self
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