Aneesh Chopra is the author of Innovative State: How New Technologies Can Transform Government (2014). Working for the Obama administration, Chopra was tasked with leading the administration's initiatives for a more open, tech-savvy government.

Hmmm . . . they certainly nailed the tech savvy part with with NSA spying programs, but they seem to forgotten about the transparency part.

Technology is ethically neutral, but its use have enormous moral and ethical implications.

Aneesh Chopra | Innovative State: How New Technologies Can Transform Government

Published on June 12, 2014


Over the last twenty years, our economy and our society, from how we shop and pay our bills to how we communicate, have been completely revolutionized by technology. Once it became clear how much this would change America, a movement arose to use these same technologies to reshape and improve government. But the idea languished, and while the private sector innovated, our government stalled, trapped in a model designed for the America of the 1930s and 1960s.

The election of Barack Obama offered a new opportunity. In 2009, Aneesh Chopra was named the first chief technology officer of the United States federal government. Previously the secretary of technology for Virginia and managing director for a health care think tank, Chopra was tasked with leading the administration's initiatives for a more open, tech-savvy government.

Inspired by private sector trailblazers, Chopra wrote the playbook for governmental open innovation. In Innovative State, drawing on interviews with tech leaders and policy experts, and building on his firsthand experience, Chopra offers an absorbing look at how open government can establish a new paradigm for the internet era and allow us to tackle our most challenging problems, from economic development to affordable health care.