CIO role and Kennedy Space Center

Information Technology Challenges at NASA
Michael Bolger, CIO
NASA Kennedy Space Center

Opening General Session

2008 Southeast Regional Conference
Jacksonville, FL
2 June 2008

This keynote presentation discussed the current IT environment at NASA and the IT challenges that the agency faces as it moves into a new era of space exploration. The CIO from the Kennedy Space Center discussed new strategic directions and supporting initiatives being implemented across the agency to enable future mission success.

NOTES

Michael Bolger began his comments by noting that he had visited the EDUCAUSE website and had seen from the 2008 Current IT Issues Survey that Higher Education and NASA have very similar issues and challenges. NASA has had a long affiliation with universities and colleges and there is a core alliance with university researchers.

NASA itself is quite complex. Bolger has been with NASA since he was a coop student. NASA started naming CIOs about the same time that Higher Education began to do so. His office is now staffed with 140 civil servants plus 500 contractors.