Eighteen technology company CEOs are expected to attend the White House Tech Summit on June 19 to talk about modernizing the government’s tech infrastructure and keeping its computers safe from cyberattacks.
The technology leaders could benefit if the government moves to modernize with the help of their hardware, software, and cloud-computing services.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in May to establish the American Technology Council (ATC), which will coordinate how the Federal government should modernize its IT systems and how it delivers digital services. Chris Liddell, the White House director of strategic initiatives, is the council’s director. The members of the council include Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, the secretary of Defense, the secretary of Commerce, the secretary of Homeland Security, the director of national intelligence, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the U.S. chief technology officer.
The council was created as part of the White House Office of American Innovation led by senior presidential adviser Jared Kushner.
One of the first goals of the council was to gather industry leaders in the White House to learn from the experiences of the private sector to improve the Federal government’s IT enterprise.
According to the White House, the industry leaders who are expected to attend include Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google’s parent company Alphabet. Also on the list are Oracle CEO Safra Catz, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, IBM CEO Ginni Rometty, Qualcomm CEO Steven Mollenkopf, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen, and Palantir CEO Alex Karp. Peter Thiel, billionaire investor and Trump adviser, and John Doerr of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers will also attend.
Although Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg had joined other tech executives in a December meeting with Trump in New York, she will not be in attendance.
The group will discuss topics like the use of artificial intelligence to reduce unauthorized use of government systems and the potential for cloud computing to lower the cost of providing government services. The executives were also told to bring a subject matter expert from their companies who could provide more information about the topics that the White House is the most interested in.
