ObamaCTO.org

Micah Sifry writes:

While much of the tech industry and blogosphere is pondering who President-elect Barack Obama might appoint as the nation's first Chief Technology Officer--Eric Schmidt? Jeff Bezos? Larry Lessig?--a bunch of heavy-hitting public interest groups in Washington and a couple of civic-minded techies out in Seattle have each launched promising interventions in the discussion.

The first one, out yesterday, is a new site called ObamaCTO.org. The site is basically a feedback forum centered on one question: What should be the CTO's top priorities?

ObamaCTO is built on Uservoice, which enables anyone to create an account, post their own idea, comment on any idea, and distribute up to 10 votes to help rank all the ideas posted. ObamaCTO.org just went live, so the number of participants is pretty small, but my guess is it will get a lot of participation soon. Some of the ideas being posted aren't really the responsibility of a potential CTO, however, and it's not clear how the site's managers will filter those out.

Obama's CTO: Never Mind Who; What Should S/he Do? (techpresident.com)

• [Bill]

  otc?

• [jjasper]

  Steve Wozniak for sec of education.

• [Bennessy]

  He should appoint the classhole.

• [gobo]

  As much as I’d love to see Larry Lessig become CTO, he’s moved away from his tech focus into fighting political corruption. I don’t think he’d want the job.

• [Olorwen]

  Bennessy: I was thinking the same thing.

• [Johnny Cat]

  Wow, CLINTOND, thanks for reminding me why the Repub base is so wrong. So very, very wrong.

• [Johnny Cat]

  Augh, after reading the comments there, I see what they did. Didn’t Stern do something similar by having mass voters tell People magazine that Crackhead Bob was the Sexiest Man Alive?

• [T0AD]

  I want net neutrality to come but will Government imposed Net Neutrality lead the government to impose worse things in the future ie censorship.

• [Anonymous]

  The US Government already has a CTO: the Director of the National Science Foundation. That position has existed since 1950 when the NSF was created.

  The Director of the NSF is confirmed by the Senate, is the President’s chief adviser on science and technology, and currently administers a budget of $6 Billion.

  • [Antinous]

    currently administers a budget of $6 Billion

    Roughly equivalent to Washington lobbyists’ lunch budget for a week. That’s pretty depressing.

• [Rosindust89]

  I’d like to see Ted Stevens get the job. The internet is a series of tubes, after all…

• [cryptique]

  One of my votes went to “Unleash Godzilla on an unsuspecting public.”

• [ClintonD]

  So, what are the odds on “TRUCKNUTZ FOR ALL” getting the top spot?

  For those who don’t know: http://wonkette.com/404325/american-people-give-republican-party-major-responsibility-big-ale-on-truck-nutz