White House tech booster knows the way to San Jose

Aneesh Chopra, the White House’s first chief technology officer, bantered onstage with venture capitalists and forecasters about trends in technology May 25. The event, held by Silicon Valley’s premier business forum, the Churchill Club, involved panelists voting with bicolored ping-pong paddles over the likelihood a trend would take off. Chopra touted the president’s tech priorities and initiatives so much that he took some gentle ribbing from fellow panelists about his rah-rah tech optimism. “My theme tonight is ‘yes to everything,’” Chopra joked. Chopra, who makes quarterly visits to Silicon Valley, has become the de facto face of Washington in the region. This week, he was driving up and down Highway 101, for numerous speaking engagements over two days on topics ranging from immigration to software to top tech trends. Chopra appears wherever the industry gathers, whether it’s here; Las Vegas; Omaha, Neb.; Austin, Texas; or Seattle. His one-man roadshow is an effort to counter the stodgy image of government as being low tech and slow to adapt. Chopra’s message to anyone who will listen is that the federal government is changing, and it needs innovators to work on the nation’s biggest policy problems.