US President Barack Obama on Saturday selected two Indian-Americans to help streamline the federal government and cut costs.
Obama named Aneesh Chopra, the Harvard-educated secretary of technology for the state of Virginia, as the federal government’s first chief technology officer. Chopra, 36, will help reduce health care costs and foster cybersecurity.
“In this role, Aneesh will promote technological innovation to help achieve our most urgent priorities — from creating jobs and reducing health care costs to keeping our nation secure,” Obama said in his Saturday radio and Internet address.
Chopra’s corporate experience included working as managing director of the Advisory Board Company, a Washington-based health research company.
Another Indian-American, Vivek Kundra, will serve as chief information officer. Kundra is “responsible for setting technology policy across the government and using technology to improve security, ensure transparency and lower costs,” Obama said.
Kundra, 34, was chief technology officer for the city of Washington.
Obama also named Jeffrey Zients, a longtime management consultant, as chief performance officer. His selection comes after Obama’s first choice for the newly created position, Nancy Killefer, withdrew in February over tax problems. Zients, a founder and managing partner of the investment firm Portfolio Logic, will also serve as a deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.
“With the leadership of these individuals, I am confident that we can break our bad habits, put an end to the mismanagement that has plagued our government and start living within our means again,” Obama said.
“That is how we will get our deficits under control and move from recovery to prosperity,” he said.
On Feb. 3, Killefer, a senior partner at McKinsey & Co, withdrew her candidacy to be chief performance officer, saying she didn’t want her mishandling of payroll taxes on her household help to become a distraction for the administration. Killefer was one of several Obama choices for top positions who have dealt with tax problems.
They included former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, who withdrew as a nominee for health and human services secretary amid controversy over his failure to pay all his taxes in the last two years until after his selection; and Timothy Geithner, the treasury secretary who had to pay more than US$34,000 in back taxes and interest on income he made while working for the IMF.
Zients has 20 years of business experience as a CEO, management consultant and entrepreneur. He has helped lead firms that provide performance benchmarks and best practices across a wide range of industries.
MISINFORMATION: The generated content tends to adopt China’s official stance, such as ‘Taiwan is currently governed by the Chinese central government,’ the NSB said Five China-developed artificial intelligence (AI) language models exhibit cybersecurity risks and content biases, an inspection conducted by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The five AI tools are: DeepSeek, Doubao (豆包), Yiyan (文心一言), Tongyi (通義千問) and Yuanbao (騰訊元寶), the bureau said, advising people to remain vigilant to protect personal data privacy and corporate business secrets. The NSB said it, in accordance with the National Intelligence Services Act (國家情報工作法), has reviewed international cybersecurity reports and intelligence, and coordinated with the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau and the National Police Agency’s Criminal Investigation Bureau to conduct an inspection of China-made AI language
LIMITS: While China increases military pressure on Taiwan and expands its use of cognitive warfare, it is unwilling to target tech supply chains, the report said US and Taiwan military officials have warned that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could implement a blockade within “a matter of hours” and need only “minimal conversion time” prior to an attack on Taiwan, a report released on Tuesday by the US Senate’s China Economic and Security Review Commission said. “While there is no indication that China is planning an imminent attack, the United States and its allies and partners can no longer assume that a Taiwan contingency is a distant possibility for which they would have ample time to prepare,” it said. The commission made the comments in its annual
CHECKING BOUNDARIES: China wants to disrupt solidarity among democracies and test their red lines, but it is instead pushing nations to become more united, an expert said The US Department of State on Friday expressed deep concern over a Chinese public security agency’s investigation into Legislator Puma Shen (沈伯洋) for “secession.” “China’s actions threaten free speech and erode norms that have underpinned the cross-strait ‘status quo’ for decades,” a US Department of State spokesperson said. The Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau late last month listed Shen as “wanted” and launched an investigation into alleged “secession-related” criminal activities, including his founding of the Kuma Academy, a civil defense organization that prepares people for an invasion by China. The spokesperson said that the US was “deeply concerned” about the bureau investigating Shen
‘TROUBLEMAKER’: Most countries believe that it is China — rather than Taiwan — that is undermining regional peace and stability with its coercive tactics, the president said China should restrain itself and refrain from being a troublemaker that sabotages peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific region, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. Lai made the remarks after China Coast Guard vessels sailed into disputed waters off the Senkaku Islands — known as the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台) in Taiwan — following a remark Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi made regarding Taiwan. Takaichi during a parliamentary session on Nov. 7 said that a “Taiwan contingency” involving a Chinese naval blockade could qualify as a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan, and trigger Tokyo’s deployment of its military for defense. Asked about the escalating tensions
RSS