U.S. CTO Aneesh Chopra is promoting a networking tool older than Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and even MySpace: the federal government.
"For the key sectors of the economy that need the capabilities of networking and information technology, invariably they are affected by policy," Chopra said in a conversation with The Economist’s Vijay Vaitheeswaran at the inaugural NExTWORK technology conference Wednesday. "So an effective government that’s a partner can actually do a better job of opening up the potential for networking and information technologies to have actual impact on the sectors of healthcare, energy, education, manufacturing, and dare I say the government itself.”
This is government with a little ‘g’ — convener, cheerleader, and financier. The federal government can play a role in encouraging liberation of data, standardization of tools, and pre-competitive research and development simulation, said Chopra, but it won’t strangle industry with policy.
The Obama administration is spending $20 billion to digitize the nation’s healthcare system as part of the recovery act. This is, in essence, a top-down initiative. That money is now flowing out to hospitals and doctors across the country. But the government is encouraging change from the bottom-up, too, as embodied by the Blue Button Initiative. Responding to a challenge from the president, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs began digitizing its records, allowing veterans to download portions of their personal health data “at the push of a blue button.” Since then, over 300,000 Americans have downloaded their 'blue button'.
Aetna, the largest repository of personal health records with over 10 million users, this month announced that it was going to ‘blue button’ its database. Not to be outdone, said Chopra, the CEO of Walgreens flew down to Washington the next day to announce that he was going to ‘blue button’ the Walgreens database. Within a year, 10 million Americans will have access to that data via the web.
In the energy sector, the government is fueling innovation with similar challenges. The recovery act provides $4.5 billion for the implementation of smart grid electricity networks, which intelligently analyze the behaviour of all users connected to them. The private sector matched that contribution with $5.5 billion in capital. “We’re largely in this as impatient convener,” said Chopra. “We issued a challenge to the private sector: provide consumers machine-readable and human-readable access to their energy data.”
Sure enough, energy companies Encore, CenterPoint, and San Diego Gas & Electric quickly formed a consortium where they announced the ‘Biggest Energy Saver’ contest. With potential prizes totaling up to $150,000, the contest will encourage the development of new applications to help customers understand and implement information from their smart meters.
Though the federal government will offer financial incentives to drive innovation, it won't regulate standards on a nationwide level. “We can nudge, cheerlead, champion, bring them together, [or] organize a wiki,” said Chopra, but “standards are ultimately going to be handled at the state level where that authority resides.”
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