President Obama's former CIO says the government will end up regulating the algorithms found in apps like Uber and Lyft
But the moment we need to do anything related to the government, we're back to paper forms and standing in line.
"In our everyday lives as citizens, there's an app for that. When we're dealing with our government, there's a form for that," said Salesforce executive vice president Vivek Kundra at the U.S. Conference of Mayors in San Francisco, California.
Kundra joined Salesforce in 2012 after serving as the first U.S. Chief Information Officer for President Barack Obama, who would speak about the Charleston shootings at the conference later that day.
It's not sufficient for governments to become an app, though. When asked by Business Insider to elaborate, Kundra explained that he sees governments becoming a platform and forming a golden triangle of shared data with NGOs and private companies.
As CIO, he led the campaign on democratizing data and launched Data.Gov, the federal government's public data repository. Now that he's at Salesforce, Kundra is helping cities evaluate and visualize their data with the company's analytics cloud. He estimated that less than one percent of all data generated by cities was analyzed last year.
As part of his "golden triangle" theory, Lyft gave some of its data to Salesforce so it could display in a demo what the most popular Washington D.C. metro stops are for pickup and drop offs. This information can be crucial to cities, Kundra argues, as these private companies become as woven into the city infrastructure as the bus lines and subways have been.
"Ultimately where government is going to move is regulating the algorithms around Lyft and Uber," Kundra said.
Kundra explained that city planners would use this data to make sure Uber and Lyft are servicing all neighborhoods of the city and not creating transportation deserts. He expects to see an "exponential rise" in the private sector working in tandem with governments.
"Governments should be more like platforms," Kundra told Business Insider. "The government doesn't have the monopoly for the best ideas."
- I spent $2,000 for 7 nights in a 179-square-foot room on one of the world's largest cruise ships. Take a look inside my cabin.
- Saudi Arabia wants China to help fund its struggling $500 billion Neom megaproject. Investors may not be too excited.
- Colon cancer rates are rising in young people. If you have two symptoms you should get a colonoscopy, a GI oncologist says.
- Markets extend gains for 5th session; Sensex revisits 74k
- Top 10 tourist places to visit in Darjeeling in 2024
- India's forex reserves sufficient to cover 11 months of projected imports
- ITC plans to open more hotels overseas: CMD Sanjiv Puri
- 7 Indian dishes that are extremely rich in calcium