GIS Central to Data.gov | Spatial Sustain

Sanjeev Bhagowalia, the CIO of the Department of the Interior, spoke today at the Senior Executive Summit at the ESRI International User Conference. His job revolves around providing the right information for any of the various missions at the Department of the Interior, and he was in charge of standing up Data.gov, a feat that took just one and a half months from conception to implementation due in large part to the use of cloud computing.

The Obama administration is focused on information technology as a means to provide transparency for greater citizen awareness and involvement. The focus on technology is to achieve outcomes, not just technology for technology’s sake. GIS is critical because of its ability to provide context for the role of the U.S. government, and Bhagowalia spoke of GIS as the “killer app” for the government because it informs policy.

Data.gov became a priority for the administration with the goal of making information central, rather than making Information Technology central. The centrality of information breaks down the 5,000 or so government domain names and millions of websites to make the information the driver for knowledge rather than segregated information portals as the repository for knowledge.

Making the data geo-enabled becomes a key driver for Data.gov, because geodata creates synergy between multiple government initiatives. The location of the actions from these initiatives is central to transparency, due to its ability to communicate the when and where of real things that are happening.

Data.gov is an initiative that brings about a new paradigm to share everything, and only protect what you must, rather than the other way around. Geospatial is quickly becoming one of the more important components of the site, with 392 raw data sets, 41 geospatial tools. GIS is also essential to the government’s mission to create solutions in response to problems, rather than just solutions for the sake of creating information.