The White House today announced that federal Chief Information Officer (CIO) Vivek Kundra will resign in August to accept a fellowship at Harvard University.

We offer our most sincere congratulations to Vivek on the new position and wish him the very best of luck in the future. I have come to know Vivek during his tenure as the CIO and admire his creativity and dedication to making government work. Whether it was a big or small problem, Vivek would try to find a logical solution to move forward. With Vivek’s departure, the Obama administration and those who believe in government reform will be losing a powerful voice in the push for openness and accountability.

Vivek has been instrumental in some of the biggest strides to modernize the government’s use of technology to more efficiently deliver services and information to the American public. Vivek spearheaded important new sites such as Data.gov and the IT Dashboard, and he launched the IT reform agenda needed to make them sustainable.

Leading up to the 2008 election, OMB Watch led a broad coalition of organizations in developing transparency recommendations for the next president. In those recommendations, we identified the lack of government-wide IT leadership as a stumbling block for transparency. We're pleased that the Obama administration heeded our advice and want to applaud Vivek for the yeoman's work he has done to set the federal government on a constructive path.

The importance of the CIO role will be one of Vivek’s key legacies. While it will be hard to replace the energy and enthusiasm Vivek brought every day to the job, the president needs to move promptly to name a successor to continue Vivek's important work.