The White House has gone shopping for talent in Silicon Valley again. This time, it's plucked David Recordon from Facebook to become its first Director of Information Technology. Before accepting the government position, Recordon served as the social network's engineering director for five years, leading teams behind Facebook's internal productivity, HR and video conferencing tools, among many other projects. As the IT director, he's expected to "build on the Administration's Smarter IT Delivery efforts to ensure that the technology utilized by the White House is efficient, effective, and secure." He also has to "[modernize] software used to collaborate, and [bring] use of new technologies in line with private sector best practices."
Recordon is joining a growing list of Silicon Valley alumni now employed at the White House, including former Google Site Reliability Manager Mikey Dickerson who led the efforts in fixing the Healthcare.gov fiasco. Dickerson and his personnel now form the first US Digital Service team, which is in charge of overhauling government websites and making sure they're in working order. Former Google X VP Megan Smith is another entry in the list as US Chief Technical Officer, followed by ex-Twitter lawyer Alex Macgillivray who's working under her as Deputy CTO. There's also DJ Patil from eBay, PayPal and Skype, who's now the Chief Data Scientist and Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy.
If the White House's proposed fiscal budget of 2016 is approved, its aggressive hiring of top tech talents from the Valley won't stop with Recordon. After all, the administration is asking for a $105 million budget to form a digital team for each of its 25 agencies.
[Image credit: Tantek/Wikipedia]
Source: Yahoo, The White House Blog
from Engadget Full RSS Feed http://ift.tt/1BavDGn
