Tech CEOs descend on White House to talk fixing federal IT
Tech industry leaders from companies like Apple, Amazon and Google are set to head to the White House Monday to brainstorm on how to improve the government's creaky IT systems — aiming to find common ground with the Trump administration after weeks of tension over climate change, immigration and other policies.
The official focus of the meeting has non-partisan appeal: upgrading federal systems that one senior White House official described as "in some cases 10 to 20 years out of date." And the tech giants could stand to benefit if the government moves to modernize with the help of their hardware, software and cloud-computing services.
But the gathering comes at a low point in the tumultuous relationship between President Donald Trump and Silicon Valley, with many in the tech world deeply disturbed by Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord. Activist groups have been urging Silicon Valley's tech workforce to press their CEOs to disengage from Trump.
Monday's session is the first official meeting of the American Technology Council, created by the president in May under the auspices of the White House Office of American Innovation led by Trump son-in-law and senior presidential adviser Jared Kushner. The idea behind the council is to bring the government's IT infrastructure, websites and apps to the same level of excellence associated with the country's leading tech companies.
To that end, executives will spend hours brainstorming on topics like the use of artificial intelligence to reduce fraud and the potential for cloud computing to lower the cost of providing government services, before sitting down for a debrief with Trump.
"This day is going to show we have a lot of people who really want the government to succeed and really want to work with it," a senior White House official said on a conference call with reporters Friday. "This is not going to be, 'Come around, let's do ceremony, let's sit and take pictures,'" but is instead focused on tapping industry's expertise, the official said.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/19/white-house-technology-ceo-meeting-239708
It would be interesting to see how they reconcile the need to upgrade/modernize with the GOP's desire to cut budgets and weaken these agencies.
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The public airwaves are supposed to belong to the public, after all...
rocktivity
