Business Week & Techcrunch are reporting that if elected Barack Obama will appoint the first ever cabinet level Chief Technology Officer. The immediate task of the US CTO would be to increase broadband access throughout the United States – especially in rural areas. Currently only 23 out of 100 United States citizens currently have broadband internet access – that ranks 15th for industrial nations. According to the article ”Obama sees greater broadband penetration as an enormous economic engine, much like the railroads were a century ago”.
The US CTO will also oversee a $50 billion venture capital fund that will be utilized to invest in technology ventures that will both spur job creation and energy independence. Obama has vowed to make the United States energy independent in 10 years and to do this the CTO will likely focus on new energy technology like that of Tesla Motors. As I previously wrote in the Political Web it’s clear that Barack embraces technology and the CTO will likely be a critical role within the Obama Administration.
Some of the candidates being considered for the job are Vint Cerf (Google’s chief internet evangelist) Steve Ballmer (Microsoft), Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Ed Felten (computer science professor at Princeton).
