Ben Boer's blog

The Obama campaign has pushed the concept of empowering the citizenry through the Internet. But the Internet cannot merely be perceived as web pages and human interface for information. The concept of eGovernment must also include the interoperability of government systems both internally and externally and the expansion of the economy’s data infrastructure. While transparency in government actions will help inform citizens, better public policy can only be created if the data upon which those solutions are developed is clean and accurate. Additionally, the creation of a data infrastructure promotes innovation in the economy. Yet government has consistently avoided getting involved in the standardization of data, even though the creation of standards has been part of the role of government for over a century. 

An Obama administration would implement the following three policies in order to provide the data backbone for innovation: