Federal News Network | The Path to Digital Government

Digital transformation is driving new business models and disrupting long-standing norms. Innovative startups such as Uber, Airbnb, and Waze are harnessing digital technologies—e.g., cloud, virtualization, advanced data analytics, and mobile—to transform traditional business models and displace competitors by delivering superior service at dramatically reduced costs. Government organizations, often following the pace of innovation in the private sector, are adopting these same technologies with hopes of achieving similar gains in cost reductions and mission performance.

Although, the path to digital transformation is inherently different for government organizations. Many government agencies are traditional “brick and mortar,” with huge infrastructure investments in hard assets such as buildings and legacy information technology (IT) systems. Government organizations are engaged in vital missions, and disruptions could seriously damage national interests and public trust. The transition to Digital Government is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Agencies will continue to optimize and leverage their legacy environments while they identify opportunities to implement new hosting models; strengthen data collection, integration, and analytics; and expand their digital capabilities throughout the enterprise.

This discussion covers:

What sort of benefits are agencies seeing as they adopt digital government initiatives?
How does the CIO and CTO role best work for translating digital government guidelines, such as those in the U.S. Digital Services Playbook, into measureable results?
FEMA did a unique bottom to top approach in creating its Modernization plan. What lessons or key insights did you find that differed from top down reviews most agencies undertake?
How is FEMA leveraging digital technologies to become citizen-centric and leverage regional office relationships with state and local partners in its delivery of services?

Host:

Tom Temin, Federal News Radio

Tom Temin is the host of Federal Drive, airing weekdays from 6-9 a.m. on Federal News Radio 1500AM. Tom Temin has 30 years’ experience in journalism, mostly in technology markets. He was a long-serving editor-in-chief of Government Computer News and Washington Technology magazines, both of which were regular winners of national reporting awards. Before joining Federal News Radio, Tom wrote (and continues to write) a column on government IT and acquisition topics. He was a regular guest on Federal News Radio before joining the team.

Guests:

Adrian Gardner, Chief Technology Officer, Federal Emergency Management Agency

Adrian R. Gardner serves as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, DC. In this position, Mr. Gardner is responsible for the governance and operations of the agency’s information systems, ensuring the system complies with regulatory requirements in support of FEMA’s mission and objectives.

Prior to his appointment to this post, Mr. Gardner served as (CIO) and Director of the Information Technology and Communications Directorate at the National Aeronautical and Space Administration’s (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center. Prior to serving as CIO at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Mr. Gardner served as CIO of the National Weather Service. Prior to his time at the Weather Service, he was with the Department of Energy as the Deputy CIO for Cyber Security from September 2005 to September 2006 and the Deputy CIO for IT Reform from October 2006 to January 2007. He chairs the Working Group for DATA.GOV and co-chairs the Information Sharing Subcommittee within the Federal CIO Council.

Mr. Gardner has served within the federal government for over 20 years, working to enable mission capability and readiness within the scientific and defense sectors. In 2005, he earned the Federal 100 Award, which honors individuals from government, industry and academia for ideas and accomplishments that achieved results for the government information technology community.

Mr. Gardner is a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Southern California, School of Public Policy and Planning, where he holds a Masters degree in Public Administration. He also holds a Master of Science degree in Environmental Studies from Hood College and is the recipient of an honorary doctorate degree from that institution. Mr. Gardner earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Science and Ecology from the Tuskegee Institute. Mr. Gardner serves on the Board of the District of Columbia Urban League.

Ted Okada, Chief Technology Officer, Federal Emergency Management Agency

A member of the Senior Executive Service and FEMA’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Mr. Ted Okada is responsible for leading the technology strategy and direction for a wide variety of mission, business and enterprise systems, providing guidance, advisory services as well as investment and change management planning. Under his leadership, he has aspired to drive FEMA towards the ethos of an “expeditionary start-up organization” by leveraging a broad range of continuous improvement initiatives involving open data, geospatial technologies, as well as a whole community approach to interoperable communications in the event of a disaster.

Mr. Okada is the creator and executive sponsor of OpenFEMA—a project that ensures FEMA is providing timely, usable, and accurate information to constituents to enhance and promote a transparent and collaborative culture within FEMA. This growing open source and digital nature of information-sharing and communications were opened up for use by the media, non-profits, and universities immediately after the Hurricane Sandy disaster that resulted in a number of outcomes benefitting storm survivors.

Mr. Okada has been with FEMA since March 2012 and previously served as the Senior Advisor for Technology for the FEMA Administrator. He has over thirty previous years in international relief and development with a decade in internet services architecture and two technology start-ups. He served as the Director of U.S. Global Public Private Partnerships as well as Director of the Humanitarian Systems Group, both positions at Microsoft. In this position, Mr. Okada developed solutions to the world’s most vexing and least served humanitarian problems. He supported and developed programs in Uganda, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Haiti, DR Congo, Albania, Dominican Republic, Kosovo, Pakistan, Guatemala and the Philippines. With a background in child survival, community health systems, food security, agricultural extension, and emergency management, Mr. Okada also managed advocacy programs for refugees during the 1980’s and worked on landmark citizenship legislation.

While at Microsoft, Mr. Okada led his team in response to the Kashmir Pakistan earthquake in 2005, humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan, and was part of the rapid deployment team that assisted the city of Galveston during Hurricane Ike. He is also lead inventor with former colleagues at Microsoft’s Concept Development Labs on a 2009 US patent filing related to mesh networks in disasters.

Mr. Okada is a 1982 graduate of Northwestern University with a B.A. in Mathematical Methods in the Social Sciences and Economics, studying under the late Michael Dacey and Nobel Laureate, Dale Mortensen. Mr. Okada is a member of Burke Fire Station 14 in Fairfax County, Virginia, and is a licensed General Class Amateur Radio Operator. While reachable through email, Mr. Okada typically listens on the Maritime Mobile and National Hurricane Nets at 14.300 and 14.325 Mhz.

Mark Forman, Global Head, VP and General Manager, Public Sector, Unisys

Mark is an accomplished executive with more than 30 years of professional work experience, including a Presidential appointment to be the first U.S. Administrator for E-Government and Information Technology, the Federal Government’s Chief Information Officer. Mark has a long record of accomplishments in government management reforms, spanning a variety of government and industry positions.

In his current role, Mark is leveraging deep domain industry expertise across the entire Unisys portfolio to provide solutions important to Public Sector clients. He has global responsibility for leading all Unisys activities and growing revenues and profitability within the Public Sector vertical. This includes providing direct leadership for the Client Executive teams supporting Public Sector clients and developing strong working relationships within Unisys to expand existing solutions and develop new offerings.

Prior to joining Unisys, Mark was Vice President for IT Services and Cloud Solutions, assisting government agencies in transitioning to the cloud by providing advanced systems engineering, integration and decision-support services to the federal government. This work includes creating and managing a high quality team of consultants that developed IT Modernization Roadmaps and a modern IT governance framework, and engineers who architected and deployed FEMA’s first hybrid cloud.

Mark is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and CIO Sage. He led the Industry Advisory Council’s Presidential Transition Study. He has given well over 100 speeches on federal IT management, E-Government, business transformation and information technology to a wide variety of industry groups and government officials from around the world. Mark has testified frequently before the U.S. Congress and California State Senate on information policy and management reform issues. He has participated in on-line Q&A sessions hosted by the Whitehouse and Washington Post, and written numerous papers and reports on government management and use of IT. He is a respected speaker on government use of cloud computing, IT risk management, Enterprise Architecture, data center consolidation, e-government and social media tools.

Professional Accomplishments, Affiliations, and Other

Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration
Janice K. Mendenhall Award for Leadership
CIO SAGE at the Partnership for Public Service
GCN Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement award
FCW Eagle Award Winner
Industry Advisory Council Executive Chairman’s Award
Multiple Fed100 Awards
Guest Lecturer, Defense Acquisition University
FOSE 2014 Advisory Council Chair
FOSE 2012-13 Cloud Computing Advisory Council Chair

The Path to Digital Government

Top Stories