New president of American Council on Technology outlines goals

Earlier this year, the American Council on Technology (ACT) celebrated its 30th anniversary.

They also have a new president, Prashant Gaur, who took over after GSA's Martha Dorris stepped down.

In his first interview as the ACT president, he said his overall goal is to bring the full value of IT to the federal government while collaborating with industry.

This isn't an easy feat, however; Gaur said facilitating government and industry collaboration isn't always simple, especially where ethics are involved.

"The good news we have here is that ACT established the Industry Advisory Council (IAC) over 20 years ago, so we have a very strong tradition of working collaboratively with the government; in fact, I myself started on the IAC because I was with industry. What we have done is put together some rules so that it becomes a forum for where people know what they're expected to do and not to do."

On top of working to meet the overall goals of ACT/IAC, Gaur said he has some personal goals, as well, including making the organization even better than it already is.

Work on that plan has already begun. He outlined a plan with Dorris while she was still president.

"We're only beginning to take off, and what I mean by that is -- our range in terms of the issues we are taking on has grown significantly even in the last three or four months. We are doing projects on acquisition reform -- like better buy. We are working on healthcare, for instance, the Vista project. We are even supporting Vivek Kundra in terms of getting feedback from industry on the IT dashboard."

In addition, ACT/IAC is working to make sure it serves government at all levels of the federal government, from GS-10 and down.

One of the main challenges to affect the organization over the years was getting government more involved. Gaur said he has an idea as to how to improve this relationship, since he comes from industry.

"What we are doing is bringing ACT/IAC closer together. So, in terms of how we mold our programs, they will be designed going forward to provide value to the government at the lowest level. So, in terms of government folks themselves, we want to make sure that they see value in getting involved with us.

Gaur said ACT/IAC already has a high level of involvement when it comes to participation, but his goal is to make all of the programs and activities, such as the Fellows Program and the Executive Leadership Conference, work more seamlessly to create one very visible forum for government and industry.

There are other goals, as well, including an aggressive campaign about cloud computing.

"We were the first organization to arrange for the new administration for the industry to come together and inform the new administration of what has already been done on the industry side and where the industry is going. In fact, we have, going forward, a shared interest group which is focusing a lot on cloud computing."

Overall, Gaur said he understands how much work Dorris did, and he plans to build on those efforts in order to make the organization even greater.

"I feel, sometimes, that they are big shoes, but at the same time, she's still a member and we have a phenomenal board. We have managed to pull in pretty much a who's who list in government IT and I'm very delighted and honored that all these people are willing to roll up their sleeves and work on issues."

Learn more about how ACT-IAC works with the Department of Veterans Affairs on updating its VistA health IT system.

Learn more about the Better Buy project from GSA's Mary Davie.

For more about cloud computing in the federal space, check out the Fed Cloud Blog.