Online magazine Xconomy caught up with Chopra last week at a healthcare IT summit in San Francisco, where, the mag reported, he extolled the virtues of the current administration and its measures âto adopt the latest infotech innovations coming out of Silicon Valley, and to shape federal regulation to encourage entrepreneurial solutions to big challenges like improving public health and nutrition.â
Those big challenges are often being solved by outside developers poring over the fedsâ extensive data sets, conveniently supplied by the tech-and-innovation-oriented government.
After all, as Chopra pointed out in his speech, as reported by Xconomy: âIn the Obama administration, entrepreneurs are welcome.â
Among the success stories are a redesigned and overhauled www.FederalRegister.com and the Apps for Healthy Kids design competition, which put a decidedly techie spin on first lady Michelle Obamaâs efforts to combat childhood obesity.
In an interview with Xconomy following his speech, Chopra raved about the possibilities behind design challenges, essentially competitive, crowd-sourced research-and-development projects. The most visible was probably the Automotive X Prize, which challenged participants to design a car able to travel 100 miles on a single gallon of gas.
In most cases, Chopra said, itâs not just about the prize money, although that is an incentive. Itâs about âthe chance to participate.â Make that democratic, civically-engaged research-and-development projects.
And he promised âtons moreâ such competitions.âThatâs my job,â he told Xconomy.