Vivek Kundra is the federal chief information officer at the White House. President Barack Obama appointed Kundra in March 2009. As federal CIO, Kundra is responsible for directing policy and planning for IT investments at the federal level and providing oversight for IT spending throughout the federal government.
Before beginning his role as federal CIO, Kundra served at chief technology officer for the District of Columbia in Mayor Fenty’s cabinet. As CTO, Kundra was responsible for technology strategy and operations for more than 80 agencies.
In 2008, Kundra was named IT Executive of the Year and has been named in the top 25 CTO’s in the nation. Kundra has also served as assistant secretary for commerce and technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia. He is a strong proponent of cloud computing and has helped to move a number of federal agencies toward the cloud-computing model.
Kundra attended the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia and has a master’s degree in IT from the University of Maryland.
Our small business community has major problems in accessing contracts from both the City of Houston and the Metropolitan Transit Authority (METRO) which will shortly receive over $950 Million in federal funds for primes for our rail projects, with $350 Million for small business. METRO has allowed the prime contractors and engineering firms to pick and choose the small business subcontractors. The primes are allowed to do this without accountability to our small business utilization plans or the 35% small business participation required. Primes always complain there is not enough small business resources to perform the work.
We have actively been addressing this matter with METRO without success. The out of state and out of town General Engineering Contractor and Engineering Primes are taking money from these projects without accountability to small business. Both METRO and the City of Houston are bundling large $50 /$90 /$250 million dollar projects which prevent small businesses from competing.
Thus I am requesting President Obama’s help with the Interagency Task Force on Small Business to keep these funds in our community and enable our Small Business Community to manage/monitor these funds.