By Bob Gourley
Friends at the Government Technology Research Alliance have an awards activity they call the GovTek Awards. They seek community input and then provide awards in categories designed to highlight contributions in many key federal IT disciplines. You can check out the 2012 winners here.
It is time to vote for their 2013 awards activity. Do that here. But before voting please read this:
If you are active as a technologist in the federal space you almost certainly know some real champions of IT. Your challenge may be in voting for just one in each category. If you run into hard decisions like that let me offer some thoughts/suggestions.
For the Excellence in Big Data category, consider voting for the guy who has run towards every challenge he could solve and has done so in a very open way, Kirit Amin. He has tackled the big challenges and has also helped the community grow at the same time by staying engaged with our Government Big Data Forum and so many other community events. Vote for Kirit!
For the Excellence in Cloud category, you will have many good candidates to select from there too. One who I have personally seen and been so honored to have met is Shawn Kingsberry of RATB. What he has done has been awesome. Breathtaking. Vote for Shawn!
For the Excellence in Education category, Robin “Montana” Williams has spoken at our events and left the crowd far better off for doing so. He really has a great vision and a mission-focused approach to accomplishing it. He is doing things for cyber education that the nation really needs. Vote for Robin!
For the Excellence in Efficiency category you also have many great choices there, including the fantastic/capable CIO of Commerce Simon Szykman. But another stands head and shoulders above all the rest for his life long dedication to big missions and focused determination on getting the right things done the right way. That is Tim Schmidt of Transportation. Vote for Tim!
For the Excellence in Mobility category, it is also hard to decide/recommend there. My good friend and comrade Craig Kaucher is on the list. I’ll always vote for Craig since he has pictures of me. But Rick Holgate is there too. Rick has done awesome things.
For the Excellence in Portfolio Management category: Again, lots of good names. The Blackburns are my cousins so that deserves a vote for Addison Blackburn. But I have long running first hand experience watching David Wennergren make positive change in DOD. Dave is awesome. Vote for Dave!
For the Excellence in Transparency and Social Media category: Anything David McClure touches is done smartly. He is soft spoken but always delivers. Like the special forces he never brags, he just gets things done. Vote for David McClure!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.