Several prominent public technology officials have recently announced their intention to leave office.
New York City’s Director of Innovation Leaving for World Economic Forum
New York City Director of Innovation Jeff Merritt is to move across the country to San Francisco where he will work for the World Economic Forum‘s Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, an institute that promotes new technologies like drones, machine learning, and the Internet of Things.
Merritt spent four years in New York where he spearheaded the launch of a gunshot detection system and an education initiative that boosted enrollment in the city’s pre-kinder programs. Merritt was also the driving force behind the creation of LinkNYC, a public/private effort to increase the number of public Wi-Fi kiosks. LinkNYC now has over 1,200 Wi-Fi kiosks all over New York City
D.C. CTO Stepping Down
Over in the District of Columbia, Chief Technology Officer Archana Vemulapalli has announced that she would be leaving for the private sector in January next year.
Vemulapalli became Washington D.C.’s CTO just last 2016. She was the key figure behind SmarterDC which established DC as a leading smart city. Vemulapalli was also part of the Council of Global City CIOs and of the Startup-in-Residence (STiR) program that aimed to harness the talents of tech entrepreneurs to improve government effectiveness.
State Department CIO Leaving Government After 30 Years
Meanwhile, CIO Frontis Wiggins of the State Department will also be saying his goodbyes after 32 years in government. Wiggins headed the State Information Resource Management Bureau, the provider of IT support for the State Department, since 2016.
Wiggins retires on December 8.
