Today, President Obama appointed Vivek Kundra federal chief information officer, which is a new administrative position in the U.S. government. Kundra, currently the District of Columbia’s chief technology officer, will be in charge of policy and strategic planning of federal investments in information technology. Kundra, 34, has previous experience as an executive at the DC-area software and IT firms Evincible and Creostar.
As it turns out, Kundra also has a connection to a Seattle tech startup. Since 2007, Kundra’s group in the DC municipal government has been using a data-visualization package from Tableau Software, based in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. Kundra’s group used Tableau’s product to create charts and graphs for its CapStat program, which has received a fair bit of attention as a way to present trends and analysis to the general public on municipal issues like crime, disaster response, school security, and city maintenance. The program is one of the ways in which Kundra has been recognized in his efforts to make the workings of the DC government more transparent.
Here’s how the Tableau connection came about. Back in early 2007, a DC data analyst named Phil Heinrich was asked to look into patterns of ambulance deployments across the city. He came across Tableau on the Internet, tried it out, and signed up as a customer. Pretty soon, he was using Tableau’s software to help the mayor of DC, Adrian Fenty, monitor city departments more effectively.
As we’ve reported previously, Tableau raised a $10 million Series B round last September from New Enterprise Associates, and has been signing up customers and selling its wares at a record rate. The company was founded in 2003, and has been profitable since 2007.
Tableau isn’t the only Seattle startup with a tie to the Obama administration, either. Blist, based near Pioneer Square, was tapped by the Obama-Biden Transition Project in January to manage and publish interactive lists of donors on its website, Change.gov.