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Aneesh Chopra, President Obama's nominee as the US Government's first ever Chief Technology Officer, was asked very few hard questions in a confirmation hearing yesterday and none of the Senators asked him anything about Open Government. The President's memo calling for there to be a US CTO set a deadline of May 21st (tomorrow) for delivering suggestions regarding Open Government but Chopra told reporters he wouldn't comment on his likely suggestions because he hadn't been confirmed yet.

NextGov reported from the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and said that Chopra only briefly alluded to the matter of Open Government in his initial testimony. That's very disappointing.

Britain's domestic intelligence agency, more commonly known as MI5, is looking to appoint a chief scientific adviser "to lead and co-ordinate the scientific work of the Security Service so that the service continues to be supported by excellent science and technology advice."

Think the scientific genius behind Q, the fictional gadgetmeister that keeps James Bond ahead of the bad guys, combined with the technological expertise our own recently named CTO Aneesh Chopra has, and you might just see the perfect applicant.

During his weekly address this morning, President Obama named Aneesh Chopra as the nation's first Chief Technology Officer. Chopra, who has effectively been doing much the same job at a state level in his role as Secretary of Technology for Governor Kaine of Virginia, will work closely with Vivek Kundra, the recently named Federal CIO, and Jeffrey Zients, the man Obama today named the first ever Chief Performance Officer.

Last month, two Virginia congressmen recommended Chopra for the job, saying "Chopra's public and private experience in the technology field made him the right candidate," and pointed out his focus on healthcare IT "is ideal for a position that will have responsibilities dealing both with stimulus spending on healthcare and environmental programs."

While the tech world eagerly waits to see who Barack Obama will appoint Chief Technology Officer of the United States, a similar appointment of more immediate impact to many people has just occurred. Terence Milholland began work this week as the first Chief Technology Officer in the history of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

He enters an IRS that the General Accounting Office said last week suffers from technology so outdated it leaves the agency with inadequate integrity, reliability and security for sensitive taxpayer information. Check out our coverage of the first IRS CTO and the daunting problems he'll face on our new blog the RWW Jobwire, sponsored by VisualCV.