Bryan Sivak, who took over the city's troubled Office of the Chief Technology Officer in 2009 and returned it to respectability before emotionally leaving office last December, has accepted a job as Maryland's first Chief Innovation Officer. more ›

In yesterday's Go Home Already, I bemoaned the fact that D.C. was lacking an equivalent to this awesome map of New York City's 311 service requests. As it turns out, I just needed to do a little more digging around the Office of the Chief Technology Officer's data website. more ›

Freeman Klopott has the story that the District's Office of the Chief Technology Officer was overcharged by a D.C.-based company to the tune of $3.1 million, including $600,000 in profit, between 2006 and 2008. Delivering Business and Technology Solutions Inc. (DBTS), which had received close to a whopping 20 percent of OCTO's outsourced tech projects and employs at least one former OCTO staffer, had charged D.C. for its employees' paid time off and also lacked a paper trail for its subcontractors. (Both are pretty big no-nos in the world of procurement.) more ›

Two pieces of courtroom action to keep track of from today. more ›

Chalk up another guilty plea in the OCTO bribery and embezzlement case. Following in the footsteps of fellow ex-OCTO cohort Yusuf Acar, Farrukh Awan admitted his guilt in federal court on Friday, and will be sentenced to up to two-and-a-half years in prison for his part in the kickback scandal. Awan, who was arrested in March, is the third individual to plead guilty in the scheme, in which OCTO employees took kickbacks and falsified invoices in an effort to funnel funds to Sushil Bansal's Advanced Integrated Technologies Corporation. Since form seems to be holding in these proceedings, I suppose we should expect a guilty plea from Sarosh Mir any day now. more ›

Yusuf Acar, the former D.C. computer security official who was arrested and charged in March for his part in a bribery scheme that allegedly funneled phony contracts and pay checks through the District's Office of the Chief Technology Officer, is expected to plead guilty, the Examiner reports. more ›

D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has named Bryan Sivak, a founder of the Silicon Valley company InQuira, as his new chief technology officer, both D.C. Wire and City Desk are reporting. Sivak, 34, was introduced for the first time by the mayor at a press conference at city hall this morning. The nominee takes over for interim chief Chris Willey, who had been tasked with minding the OCTO ship since the departure of Vivek Kundra, who left the agency for a spot in the Obama administration. OCTO has also been rocked by scandal this year, following a string of arrests in a federal bribery sting tied to the agency. Sivak will have to be confirmed by the D.C. Council. more ›

Ever since the queen of all local government crooks, D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue embezzler Harriette Walters, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison, there's been a tiny little hole in our collective hearts. We'd been following the $50 million tax scam case, and all its twists and turns along the way, since it first broke in 2007. Now that's it's over, to where will we turn when we feel like shaking our fists in disgust at governmental corruption? Luckily, we live in the District of Columbia, where corruption in local government is as common as dirt. more ›

Hey wow, we had almost managed to forget about the ongoing investigation into a bribery and shady contracting ring operating out of the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer. The Post is reporting that a fourth person has been charged in the case. Sarosh Mir, 44, of Herndon was charged last week with conspiring to commit wire fraud. Mir worked for Sushil Bansal, the outside contractor who has been charged with conspiring with OCTO employees Yusuf Acar and Farrukh Awan to steer contracts to Bansal's company, in exchange for bribes. more ›

D.C. Wire is reporting that Yusuf Acar, the Office of the Chief Technology Officer employee who was arrested by the FBI in March for allegedly running an elaborate kickback and bribery scheme, is in talks with prosecutors about a potential plea deal. An Aug. 3 hearing is now set on the progress of the plea agreement for Acar. Another city employee, Farruk Awan, was also arrested in the case, along with businessman Sushil Bansal. more ›

There was some lamentation in the local tech community over D.C. Chief Technology Officer Vivek Kundra's decision to leave city government for a post with the Obama administration. Under Kundra's watch the Office of the CTO did some cool things, most notably the city data catalog and the Apps for Democracy contest (which was a great idea, even if the money-saving numbers quoted in relation to it are transparently ridiculous). But — the occasional FBI raid notwithstanding — there are encouraging signs that OCTO* is going to continue to pursue a spirit of innovation even after Kundra's departure. Yes, the diminished quality of the city's crime incident data feed is disappointing, but that seems to be MPD's fault, not OCTO's. More encouragingly, a second Apps For Democracy contest is underway; the city's geographic shapefile repository seems to have removed some of the hoops through which users previously had to jump to acquire its larger datasets; and — most excitingly — OCTO is rolling out a new 311 API. If you haven't checked out the city's online service request center, you really ought to. From scheduling bulk trash pickup to reporting broken streetlights to arranging for graffiti removal, there are nearly forty different city services can be accessed through the system. And although I'm still waiting on a new recycling bin (any year now!), my admittedly anecdotal experience with the system has been mostly positive. By providing a standardized and reliable interface for developers, the new 311 API aims to make these capabilities available through sites and programs other than the dc.gov website. The example most often cited is a theoretical iPhone app for reporting potholes: fire it up, snap a photo of the offending divot, and press submit. The phone could then whisk the information (along with your current latitude and longitude) to the city government without the need for additional information. At least, that's the dream. The API is still under development, and things are in flux. For instance, it's not yet clear exactly how users will obtain the API keys that will let them use the system — or how griefers will be prevented from reporting every parking meter in the city to be broken every hour of every day. But that hasn't stopped developers from beginning to work with the system. For instance, local developers Zvi Band and Aaron Brazell have released Ruby and PHP libraries, respectively, that aim to make it easier for programmers working in those languages to access the API. And we're sure that the next Apps For Democracy will include many entries that make use of the API, whatever state it's in. There are some functions that are already useful, like the capability to convert a geographic position to a nearby street address (which can be surprisingly difficult to do when using conventional mapping services like Google's). It's an exciting time to be a D.C. resident with a computer and a desire to get a streetlight fixed. What kind of apps would you like to see? * Also: is it just us, or is OCTO's logo in desperate need of improvement? The current state of affairs is inexcusable — particularly when you consider the anthropomorphic octopus options that are open to whoever's responsible for the agency's graphics. more ›

The Examiner editorial staff is understandably outraged that the D.C. government appears to have blocked access to its web site on all city-owned computers. Given the ongoing tumult at the Office of the Chief Technology Officer, it's certainly plausible that the news site has been blocked by OCTO (hopefully, by employee error—blocking a legit news web site on purpose would be an incredibly stupid policy). more ›

More OCTO updates! more ›

The Post reported earlier that a second D.C. government employee has been arrested in the ongoing federal bribery and embezzlement case involving the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer. Farruk Awan, 37, was arrested this morning on charges of conspiring to commit bribery and launder money. Awan is the third person to be arrested in the case, after OCTO employee Yusuf Acar and businessman Sushil Bansal. He's accused of receiving bribes from Bansal in exchange for approving Bansal's company's employees to work at the technology office, among other charges. more ›

Vivek Kundra, D.C.'s former Chief Technology Officer, has returned to his job as federal chief information officer for the Obama administration after being placed on leave in the wake of the OCTO arrests, the Washington Times reports. White House officials told the Times that Kundra was reinstated after they were reassured that he is not a target of the federal investigation of his former office. The story makes sure to mention the recent revelation that Kundra was cited on a minor theft charge in Montgomery County in 1996, when he was 21. The White House said they were aware of the criminal theft case and were unconcerned, calling it a "youthful indiscretion." See also the New York Times' Caucus blog, which reports that Va. Gov. Tim Kaine intervened on Kundra's behalf. more ›

Looks like the cash in the pajamas strategy paid off for federal prosecutors today, although it turns out the money was actually found in some pants, which makes the whole thing slightly less funny. Accused D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer embezzlement scheme mastermind Yusuf Acar has been ordered held without bail by a U.S. District Court judge, the Post reports. Reporter Del Quentin Wilber says that at today's hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola called the evidence against Acar "overwhelming." Prosecutors also reiterated that when Acar was arrested, FBI agents found about $70,000 in cash in his house. But they clarified that the $4,500 they originally said was discovered in the pajamas Acar was wearing at the time of his arrest was actually found in Acar's pants -- so, he wasn't wearing those pants? It's a little unclear. more ›

With a tip of the hat to D.C. Wire, here's a YouTube video featuring D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer employee Yusuf Acar, who was arrested this morning by federal agents, from a Citywide Job Fair last fall: more ›

FBI agents are searching the One Judiciary Square offices of the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer this morning. The FBI is being tight lipped about what they are searching for, telling Politico only that the search is part of "an ongoing investigation." WTOP's Mark Segraves has been Twittering from the scene, adding that agents have since moved from the 9th floor OCTO offices to the 10th floor of One Judiciary Square, which houses the Office of the Attorney General. Some employees in the building have been sent home, according to Segraves. more ›