WASHINGTON – On April 15, President Barack Obama will visit Florida to host a White House Conference on the Administration’s new vision for America’s future in space, the White House today announced. The President, along with top officials and other space leaders, will discuss the new course the Administration is charting for NASA and the future of U.S. leadership in human space flight. Specifically, the conference will focus on the goals and strategies in this new vision, the next steps, and the new technologies, new jobs, and new industries it will create. Conference topics will include the implications of the new strategy for Florida, the nation, and our ultimate activities in space. Further logistical details will be announced as they become available. After an independent review panel found that the previous program to return astronauts to the Moon was fundamentally un-executable, the President included an additional $6 billion for NASA in his FY2011 budget over the next five years. This funding will help us achieve our boldest aspirations in space. The President’s ambitious new strategy pushes the frontiers of innovation to set NASA on a more dynamic, flexible, and sustainable trajectory that can propel us on a new journey of innovation and discovery. The President and the NASA Administrator both believe that we have to be forward thinking and aggressive in our pursuit of new technologies to take us beyond low-Earth orbit. The President’s plan does this. A foundational element of this new strategy is to invest in the development of a targeted set of inter-related technologies and capabilities that can help us travel from the Earth’s cradle to our nearby Solar System neighborhood in a more effective and affordable way, thus laying the foundation to support journeys to the Moon, asteroids, and eventually to Mars. After years of underinvestment in new technology and unrealistic budgeting, the President’s plan will unveil an ambitious plan for NASA that sets the agency on a reinvigorated path of space exploration.
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President Obama to Host Space Conference in Florida in April
I’m on the road today, joining San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and San Francisco CIO Chris Vein for an event to highlight San Francisco’s Open 311 API (Application Programming Interface) initiative. This is a great approach that ties together efforts in San Francisco, Boston, the District of Columbia, Portland, and Los Angeles to open more services to citizens, and to use data to drive progress in people’s lives. Too often, people grumble that their complaints about government – be it city, county, state, or federal – get swallowed by the bureaucracy. Open 311 is an answer to that problem, placing the role of service evaluator and service dispatcher in the power of citizens’ hands. Through this approach, new web applications can mash publicly available, real-time data from the cities to allow people to track the status of repairs or improvements, while also allowing them to make new requests for services. For instance, I can use the same application to report a broken parking meter when I’m home in the District of Columbia or traveling to cities like Portland, Los Angeles, Boston, or San Francisco. This is the perfect example of how government is simplifying access to citizen services. Open 311 is an innovation that will improve people’s lives and make better use of taxpayer dollars. The event which will take place at the 311 Customer Service Center in San Francisco, California will be streamed live below starting at 2:30 p.m. EST/11:30 a.m. PST. Vivek Kundra is U.S. Chief Information Officer
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Open 311
Ed. Note: Learn more about the Administration’s Cybersecurity efforts on our Cybersecurity page. Today in my keynote speech at the RSA Conference in San Francisco I discussed two themes that are vital to our nation’s cybersecurity efforts: partnerships and transparency. These two themes go hand-in-hand. You cannot have one without the other, and they form the foundation of nearly all of the action items outlined in the President’s Cyberspace Policy Review . Earlier this year in a memorandum on open government to all Federal departments and agencies, President Obama said, “My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.” Building on this statement, I am personally dedicated to ensuring that the Federal Government’s cybersecurity efforts are as transparent as possible. For this reason, I was pleased to announce today that the Obama Administration has revised the classification guidance for the Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative (or CNCI), which began in 2008 and forms an important component of cybersecurity efforts within the federal government. Anyone can now view or download an unclassified description of the CNCI and each of the 12 initiatives under the CNCI . Transparency is particularly vital in areas, such as the CNCI, where there have been legitimate questions about sensitive topics like the role of the intelligence community in cybersecurity. Transparency provides the American people with the ability to partner with government and participate meaningfully in the discussion about how we can use the extraordinary resources and expertise of the intelligence community with proper oversight for the protection of privacy and civil liberties. In order to be successful against today’s cybersecurity threats, we must continue to seek out innovative new partnerships—not only within government, but also among industry, government, and the American public. Transparency improves our collective knowledge and helps bind our partnerships together to form the most powerful cyber tools that we have. We will not defeat our cyber adversaries because they are weakening, we will defeat them by becoming collectively stronger, through stronger technology, a stronger cadre of security professionals, and stronger partnerships. Howard A. Schmidt is Special Assistant to the President and the Cybersecurity Coordinator
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Transparent Cybersecurity
