Tech Industry Hails Choice for CTO

WASHINGTON, DC – April 18, 2009 – Calling the move a breakthrough for technology policy, TechAmerica hailed President Barack Obama for tapping Aneesh Chopra to serve as the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

TechAmerica President Phil Bond said: The Administration started with a strong job description for fostering innovation in this country and then went out and got the right person for the job. This President will be able to view a whole range of important decisions through a paradigm of innovation. The position and the priorities are the right ones: A direct report to the President focused on policies that help create new markets, more jobs and better government through technology and innovation.

As Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia, Aneesh is well known to the nation’s technology community. He has championed policies that enable better government and a stronger economy through use of technology. Notably, his role in Virginia placed him in leadership in the state with the highest concentration of tech workers, and a state that added tech jobs for four consecutive years as of 2007, Bond continued, citing TechAmerica’s Cyberstates 2009 report, which provides 2008 national tech trends on employment as well as the latest data on state employment, wages, establishments, payroll, and research and development.

Aneesh is singularly gifted in communicating the power and potential of technology to improve government, national security and our economy. His energy is boundless. It is a superb choice.

ITAA and AeA merged on January 1, 2009, to create TechAmerica.

About TechAmerica

TechAmerica is the leading voice for the U.S. technology industry, which is the driving force behind productivity growth and jobs creation in the United States and the foundation of the global innovation economy. Representing approximately 1,500 member companies of all sizes from the public and commercial sectors of the economy, it is the industry’s largest advocacy organization and is dedicated to helping members’ top and bottom lines. It is also the technology industry’s only grassroots-to-global advocacy network, with offices in state capitals around the United States, Washington, D.C., Europe (Brussels) and Asia (Beijing). TechAmerica was formed by the merger of AeA (formerly the American Electronics Association), the Cyber Security Industry Alliance (CSIA), the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and the Government Electronics & Information Technology Association (GEIA).

Learn more at www.techamerica.org.