Obama unveils 'Roadmap for a Digital Government' to spur business ...

President Obama, the most tech-savvy of U.S. presidents, has called on his?White House Chief Information Officer Steve VanRoekel to develop ?a comprehensive strategy to build a 21st Century Digital Government that delivers better digital services to the American people.?

?At its core, the strategy takes a coordinated, information- and customer-centric approach to changing how the government works and delivers services to the American people,? wrote VanRoekal in a blog post. ?Designing for openness from the start ? making open data the default for government IT systems and embracing the use of web APIs ? enables us to more easily deliver information and services through multiple channels, including mobile, and engage the public and America?s entrepreneurs as partners in building a better government.?

Open-source government? In a certain sense, yes, but don?t confuse this with a government that opens all federal processes to the people.

?Agencies will increasingly open up their valuable data to the public and set up Developer pages to give external developers tools to build new services,? writes VanRoekal, who believes that releasing this data will spur market innovation. He cites, for instance, the ?government?s release of GPS and weather data fueled billion dollar industries.?

This is an interesting development, of course, but it does seem rather well-timed for the 2012 presidential election. Obama needs to project a pro-business attitude in order to outflank Romney?s business background. VanRoekal also states it will save taxpayer dollars, which is also meant to symbolically strengthen Obama?s pro-business bona fides.

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