Nitin Pradhan

Nitin Pradhan
Departmental Chief Information Officer (CIO)
Incumbent
Assumed office July 6, 2009
Preceded by	Dan Mintz
Prior position: IT executive, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)
Personal details
Website	US DOT CIO

Nitin Pradhan (Hindi: नितिन प्रधान;) was sworn in on July 6th, 2009, as the Departmental Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the US Department of Transportation (DOT) as part of the Obama Administration. Pradhan is the chief advisor to Secretary of Transportation, Ray LaHood relating to information technology. In his role as the Departmental CIO, Pradhan provides information technology vision, strategy, planning, policy and oversight for DOT's more than $3.0 billion IT portfolio ^[1], the 6th largest in the Federal Government. DOT has over 55,000 employees and $70 billion in budget. Prior to joining DOT, Pradhan was an IT Executive at Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), the 12th largest school district in USA. Earlier, Pradhan was the Managing Director of Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) ^[2]. He has also been the co-founder and CEO of a wireless startup. Pradhan’s personal blog is titled “Winning Through Technology.”^[3]

Early life and education

Born and brought up in Pune, India, Pradhan attended Loyola High School (Pune) where he was known as an avid sportsman focused on athletics, soccer, and field hockey. After high school, Pradhan attended the Faculty of Technology and Engineering, Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India where he completed his bachelor's degree in engineering. He followed this degree with master's in marketing management from University of Pune, India. After his masters, Pradhan started his technology career in India by establishing and growing one of the most profitable divisions of International Data Management Ltd., (IDM) in India. Pradhan came to Washington, DC on a graduate fellowship from the Kogod School of Business at The American University (AU), to study for his second master's – this time in accounting.

IT philosophy

Pradhan’s IT philosophy is focused on people first, innovation, agility and driving business value. He believes that technology is first about people. Technology based Innovation is his second theme. He believes that Chief Information Officers (CIOs) have a dual role to play as Chief Innovation Officers. This aspect focuses on creating innovation lifecycle within organizations consisting of ideation and crowd sourcing tools like DOT’s IdeaHub ^[4], a process for selection of best ideas, and a cloud based agility platform for quick deployment of “apps” that drive business value. Finally, he has promoted the concept of new IT—IT 2.0 ^[5] as he calls it—is based on providing significant business value immediately. He is a strong proponent of using technology to deliver business results for example, using emerging innovations like Intelligent Transportation Systems and DOT’s Connected Vehicles Program ^[6] designed to leverage vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), driverless cars, and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) wireless communication in order to make driving safer by making cars, trucks, buses and other vehicles aware of the vehicles around them – even if the drivers aren't.

Career

Pre US DOT CIO

DOT IT Portfolio Rationalization

While studying at the American University, Pradhan researched and experimented in using Internet for business. This was the era where Internet browsers were yet to be invented and Internet itself was primarily a research and education tool. This pioneering effort helped him launch one of the first online businesses in early 90s and while his online company did not succeed, this early experimentation was vital in him joining Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) ^[2] and later becoming its Managing Director. At CIT, Pradhan co-led in the creation and implementation of Virginia's first industry led Information Technology and Telecommunication's Strategic Plan in partnership with leading industry, university and government executives. He helped secure funding and established and expanded technology centers of excellence focused on increasing Internet utilization in partnership with Virginia universities, government and companies. He was also a mentor for entrepreneurs and startups seeking to build profitable companies around Internet technologies. Pradhan also championed bold innovative initiatives launched in the DC metro region in the mid-nineties including Potomac Knowledge Way ^[7] and Netpreneur ^[8] established by the Morino Institute ^[9] and the creation and expansion of the Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC) ^[10] a membership and trade association for the technology community in Northern Virginia, now the largest technology council in the nation, currently serving about 1,000 organizations. After CIT, Pradhan co-founded a wireless startup and was the CEO in early 2000. Pradhan's interest in technology and its potential for positive impact on the education sector attracted him to join Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), the 12th largest school district in USA. During his tenure, he promoted digital innovation and technology based solutions as an answer to educational challenges and opportunities and helped transform the organization in to a premier technology integrated educational institution. He started innovative initiatives like the Technology@Home ^[11] which helped Fairfax County students, faculty and staff members purchase technology products directly from vendors at educational discount rates and Vendor Technology Briefings to match cutting edge educational technologies with the needs of FCPS. During this time FCPS IT was listed tenth in top 100 best places to work ^[12] by Computer World magazine and was the only K12 organization in the CIO 100 ^[13] list published by CIO magazine.

US Department of Transportation Chief Information Officer

Digital Transportation Exchange (DTE)

In 2009 Pradhan joined DOT as its CIO. His focus at DOT has been on using technology to drive business value ^[5], IT portfolio optimization ^[14], streamlining technology services ^[15] , creating an IT business catalogue and Online distribution(app store) ^[4], holistic cyber security ^{[16] [17]} and public private partnerships like the Digital Transportation Ecosystem (DTE) ^[18]. Some of the DOT technology initiatives include:

Modernization of the National Airspace System (NAS)

^[19] Called NextGEN which upgrades the system from older ground based radars to satellite and GPS based systems.

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS)

^[20] Connected Vehicles Program that improves vehicle to vehicle and vehicle to infrastructure safety via wireless communications between them.

Modernizing Analog 911 Systems (E911)

^[21] To the next generation digital VOIP 911 systems capable of receiving and sending internet protocol based voice, video and text.

Professional recognition

At the U.S. Department of Transportation, Pradhan earned the prestigious national InformationWeek's The Government CIO 50: Driving Change In The Public Sector national award ^[22] for bringing a business person's point of view to management of the DOT's IT strategy, policy, and implementation. Under Pradhan’s leadership, US Department of Transportation IT has also earned InformationWeek 500 IT Innovators Awards ^[23] including one for an Open Government initiative and the other for FAA's NextGen and the White House Open Government Leading Practices Awards ^[24] designation in two of the four award categories, including "Leadership, Governance, Culture Change" and "Flagship Initiative." ComputerWorld magazine named Pradhan to Premier 100 award ^[25] list where he joined an elite group of top US IT executives. The Premier 100 was created in 2000 to spotlight individuals who have made a positive impact on their organization through their work in technology. Each year, 100 honorees are selected to receive this life time recognition award ^[26] .

External links

• United States Department of Transportation (DOT)
• DOT Office of the CIO
• Nitin Pradhan US DOT | CIO.GOV Bio
• US DOT IT Spending - DOT
• Information Week: The Government CIO 50 - Driving Change In The Public Sector
• The White House Leading Practices Awards for Open Government - US DOT Winner
• ComputerWorld Premier 100 Honoree
• Winning Through Technology Blog

References

1. ^ "Federal IT Dashboard| US DOT IT Portfolio"
2. ^ ^{a b} "Center for Innovative Technology"
3. ^ "Nitin Pradhan's Personal Blog "Winning Through Technology""
4. ^ ^{a b} "Making the Web Work for DOT: IdeaHub"
5. ^ ^{a b} "The Changing Role of the CIO"
6. ^ "IT Solutions – Connected Vehicle Technology"
7. ^ "Potomac Knowledge Way (archived site)"
8. ^ "Netpreneur (archived site)"
9. ^ "Morino Institute"
10. ^ "Northern Virginia Technology Council (NVTC)"
11. ^ "Technology@Home"
12. ^ "100 Best Places to Work in IT Companies in Information Technology"
13. ^ "CIO 100 for 2007"
14. ^ "IT Portfolio Rationalization – Effective Optimization of IT Funds"
15. ^ "Telephony – Streamlining Service delivery"
16. ^ "The Business of Cyber security"
17. ^ "DOT CIO Questions FISMA Audits' Value"
18. ^ "Transportation Dept. Creates Online Technology Exchange"
19. ^ "NextGEN National Aerospace System"
20. ^ "Intelligent Transportation Systems"
21. ^ "Enhanced 911 System"
22. ^ "InformationWeek's The Government CIO 50"
23. ^ "InformationWeek’s 500 Award Government IT Innovators"
24. ^ "White House Open Government Award"
25. ^ "ComputerWorld Premier 100 Lifetime Achievement Award"
26. ^ "Computerworld Research"

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Name	Pradhan, Nitin
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