Chris Kemp, CTO for IT, NASA (former)
Chris Kemp has been one of the most vocal advocates for cloud computing in government. As CIO at NASA's Ames Research Center in 2009, Kemp was instrumental in creating NASA's Nebula private cloud environment, which is now being expanded to other NASA centers. Last year, Kemp was promoted to CTO of IT across the space agency, both for his technical acumen and his vision for how technology can drive innovation at NASA.
Users quickly lined up for NASA Cloud Services, based on the Nebula platform, which went into pre-release last fall. The services include on-demand storage and servers, and give scientists an alternative to investing in standalone platforms. Next, NASA will deploy a private cloud for enterprise services. In the meantime, the agency put a $1.5 billion data center construction project on hold as it evaluates how far cloud computing can go in satisfying its IT requirements. Kemp also worked to bring metrics-based management, faster project completion, and improved collaboration and information sharing to the agency.
Kemp left NASA in March to become the CEO of a stealth nanotechnology start-up.
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