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Follow UsIntro:
is the Chief Information Officer for the City of Chicago and the
Commissioner for the Citys Department of Innovation & Technology. As
the public face of Mayor Daleys government, Bhatt strives to implement
his vision of a city government that benefits from an assimilation of
best practices from both the public sector and the private industry by
raising the level of service provided to citizens, businesses and
tourists.
An example of
the fast growing breed of Indian CIOs in US government , Bhatt is also responsible for providing affordable broadband for all Chicagoans and also spearheads
Mayor Daley's vision of career academies in the technology sector, with
the first technology academy, supported by more than 80 large and small
businesses opened its doors in fall 2009.
In his previous stint in the private
sector, Bhatt worked as a consultant with Oracle corporation in the US
and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in India. Hardik has an MBA from
Kellogg and Bachelor degree in Computer Science from India. In an
exclusive interaction with Dataquest, Bhatt takes us through his
journey of becoming Chicagos CIO and reasons why Delhi does not need
a public sector CIO. Â
As a public sector CIO, what does your
job profile look like?
The position of a public sector CIO was created way back in 1999 and I
am the fourth CIO of the city. In US, it is common practice to have a
state and city CIO- for instance Vivek Kundra is the
CIO. And all of the CIOs collaborate on conference calls to see how
we can negotiate better with the vendors etc. I am an appointed
representative of Mayor Richard M Daley to implement his vision of
using technology for raising the efficiency the delivery of government
services.
I handle a team of around 100 employees ; and a majority of work has
been outsourced. My budget is around $150 million out of which around
$25-75 million comes from selling municipal bonds. While the day-to-day
operations of the city are run by the chief-of-staff of the mayor, I
have a team for technology support who comprise of the following
thinkers (who are the in-house architects), developers (project
managers etc who manage and develop the project) and finally the
runners (who have been outsourced to a third party vendor). For
instance our infrastructure is managed by Unisys while our telecom is
managed by AT&T.
What makes this job exciting and unique is the fact that each of us are
independent yet are closest to the citizens and are most visible to the
people. I collaborate with the various other city and state CIOs like
those of Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington, Boston and New York to
ensure that out strategy and tactics are aligned. Â
I also am the public face of IT for the mayor and I also chair the Tech
council for Mayor wherein the focus is on improving the technology
sector and incentivizing people for opening up offices in the city.
This council has membership of eminent companies like Boeing, United
Airlines, Abbott, Baxter, Blue Shield etc along with the senior
management from Microsoft, Orbix etc and senior academics from
University of Chicago, North Western University.
Way back in 2007, there were talks of
Chicago going the Open Source way?
We were in fact the first ones to go for Open Source obviously guided
by the cost savings and the flexibility factor. We moved from Sun to
however there were no real dollar savings since infrastructure was
managed by Unisys therefore we asked Unisys that we planned to move to
Source. Besides we also started moving critical applications to
BEA; however we soon realized that it was becoming an expensive
proposition since we needed more Middleware compared to JBoss.
Considering that your position is
appointed by the city mayor, any changes in the leadership can also
result in the CIO being changed. However technologies do not and should
not change as per the whims of a CIO. Your comments?
I totally agree that change in leadership should not result in
deserting a particular technology just because the CIO does not take a
liking to it. Therefore to make sure that technology does not work at
the whims and fancies of a CIO we have set-up an IT Governance Board
(including myself, the budget director and a representative from the
mayors office) and any IT investment that has to be made has to be
first approved by this board wherein the commissioner of the concerned
department and myself make a presentation justifying the investment on
a particular technology. Â
There were also media reports of
Chicago going the Wi-Fi way. Any development on that front?
Way back in 2006, we decided to make Chicago a Wi-Fi city but what
transpired was that AT&T (who was the incumbent) was not
interested. Moreover technology at that time was not mature besides a
connection speed of 3.1 megabits per second was a huge deterrent.
Therefore we dropped the idea of building Wi-Fi and instead decided to
focus on building core infrastructure with a federal communication
system in place and decided to let the competitors sort out the last
mile connectivity.
What about mobile applications. Do you
currently use mobiles for offering government application?
No, at the moment we do not have a citizen card but we are definitely
looking into it. People although have smart cards which they can use
for various activities for instance booking tickets while travelling. I
am currently working with
Pitroda to use mobile phones for offering various government
applications like filing complaints, buying museum tickets and the
works; but this is currently in the pilot project stage. And if this
works out we will be able to issue a $100 ticket on your mobile and you
can access a host of services and more simply by using your mobile by
using this ticket.
As the public face of technology, what
have been some of the most satisfying projects you have undertaken?
In 2007 a lot of companies in the city complained of not being able to
source qualified technical talent in the city therefore we got
universities and corporate together and ended up starting Career
High School wherein we teach Microsoft and Cisco certification to
class 12th standard students who after passing out have the option of
either pursuing a career in technology or moving on. In order to
make technology accessible to one and all, we currently have undertaken
the Smart Communities project for which the city mayor has sanctioned
around $64 million for building these smart communities. Under the
project, 4-5 communities each measuring an area of 5-6 square miles
have been demarcated working closely with community groups to educate
people about technology since many Chicago residents haven't embraced
broadband and digital technology because they see it as too hard or too
expensive. The program is the culmination of months of research and
outreach conducted by the City, the MacArthur Foundation, the Local
Initiatives Support Corporation and residents in five neighborhoods
Auburn Gresham, Chicago Lawn, Englewood, Humboldt Park and Pilsen
aimed at helping residents in underserved neighborhoods work together
to develop technology strategies that will meet their own neighborhood
goals. The Smart Communities program made use of nearly $2 million in
support from the MacArthur Foundation, the Illinois Department of
Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Microsoft Corporation and the Local
Initiatives Support Corporations New Communities Program.
Microsoft Corporation committed an additional $1.03 million in software
grants to non-profit organizations involved in the project in addition
to more than $1.1 million, the company has already invested. As a
result, thousands of unemployed or underemployed residents will be able
to use this software and its training programs to learn new technology
skills, prepare resumes and write cover letters that will help them
find jobs.
HP is also supporting Smart Communities by working with community-based
organizations to place about 40 of its TouchSmart PC's at key locations
in the five neighborhoods. In addition to providing Internet access,
the HP
TouchSmarts will help raise awareness of other technology resources
and human services that are publicly available to
residents.              Â
Does Delhi need a public sector CIO?
Frankly I am apprehensive of the bureaucracy here in India. I believe
that the government structure is different in India. In US we more or
less work on our own and are pretty independent in our working even
though we might depend on the state and national level for funding but
at the end of the day the mayor is the head of the city and all
decisions are taken by him. In India, it is different; here it is the
NIC which connects the federal government to the state and taluka level
who use IT. They take directions from the central agency for using IT
but do not see IT as a strategic tool.
"Delhi Does Not Need a CIO"
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