Obama to host forum on modernizing government

White House event on Thursday will focus on using technology to improve operations.

President Obama will kick off an event in Washington on Thursday aimed at using technology to improve federal operations.

After Obama speaks, senior federal officials will lead a series of panel discussions at the event:

  • Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn and Deputy Veterans Affairs Secretary Scott Gould will moderate two sessions on streamlining government operations, focusing on private sector initiatives such as just-in-time manufacturing and online customer ordering.
  • Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes and Deputy Secretary of Education Anthony Miller will lead discussions on enhancing customer service, "both in terms of improved monitoring and measuring customer satisfaction and also in terms of better delivery of citizen-facing services," according to a White House statement.
  • Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew will lead a discussion on managing the return on technology investments, focusing on helping executives decide between competing priorities and define criteria for choosing projects.

The White House statement said federal officials and private sector leaders will attend the event, which will be held in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Thursday evening, the White House announced that several CEOs of leading private firms would participate in the forum. They include Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, Jeff Bewkes from Time Warner, Indra Nooyi of PepsiCo, Shantanu Narayen of Adobe Technology and Craig Newmark of Craigslist.

Deputy secretaries from agencies across government and federal chief information officers also are expected to attend, along with senior administration officials.

This story was updated to reflect a change in moderators for the discussions on enhancing customer service, based on new information provided by the White House.