Web 2.0 streamlines city's procurement projects

04/06/2008

The District of Columbia's chief technical officer Vivek Kundra has said that by utilizing Web 2.0 technology, Washington DC has revolutionised its procurement process by making it more transparent and efficient, reports Federal Computer Weekly.

The city has been using social collaboration tools, such as wikis and embedded video software, which helps to include small businesses and make the process visible to the public, vendors and officials without costing millions of dollars.

Each project has a designated portfolio manager, who oversees the project and reports back on performance, customer happiness and management on a daily basis.

"They get treated like hedge fund managers, like they would in Wall Street," said Kundra.

"They evaluate each project and they podcast on a daily basis how their cluster is performing and then we evaluate each of the projects."

After the information is taken in and digested, Kundra makes a quarterly recommendation on each project.

Kundra's inspiration for using open-source Web 2.0 came from the developing world, where cities have to be innovative in how they approach challenges on a budget.