Teri Takai

The Department of Defense is taking a leadership role in leveraging mobile device technology to improve information sharing, collaboration and efficiencies. In a recent press release, Teri Takai, DoD’s chief information officer, said “As today’s DoD personnel become increasingly mobile, a wide variety of devices offer unprecedented opportunities to advance the operational effectiveness of the DoD workforce This strategy will allow mobile devices across the department to converge towards a common vision and approach.”

There are significant challenges that await agencies, like the DoD, that are looking to implement mobile strategies and “bring your own devices” (BYOD) policies – the most daunting being security. In order to overcome various security challenges, agencies must take several factors into consideration. The five tips found in this piece will outline crucial items for agencies to consider when adopting mobile practices for their employees: Keep reading →

The Defense Department’s release of a new mobile device strategy late last week provides a revealing snapshot of how much work lies ahead for Defense officials in rationalizing the rapid adoption of smartphones, tablets, and mobile devices across the Department. It also highlights the urgent challenge to secure the use of those devices on Defense networks – even if it fell short of describing how and when DoD planned to tackle ongoing security concerns.

While the new strategy is seen as “a huge step forward,” as Jeff Sorenson, former U.S. Army/G-6 CIO and now partner at AT Kearney, sees it, it also also reflects the continuing gap that exists between DoD’s ability to integrate commercial mobile technology compared to other, faster-moving organizations. Keep reading →

Federal CIO Steven VanRoekel speaks with InformationWeek Government Editor John Foley at Thursday’s event.

Having launched a formal strategy on the concept yesterday, federal CIO Steven VanRoekel offered examples Thursday morning of how shared IT services will free up valuable resources across government agencies. Keep reading →


In honor of Women’s History Month, Breaking Gov highlights women’s relatively recent breakthrough in the growing and increasingly crucial world of federal IT. This is the first of a three-part series on women in federal IT that reveals who these leaders are and how they’re making a difference.

Just 15 years ago, women were the exception in federal IT roles. In fact, at the time, men claimed every top federal technology job in government. Keep reading →

For Teri Takai, the key to overseeing cybersecurity for the world’s largest defense organization is striking a delicate balance between enabling mobility and safe-guarding information that is often crucial to national security. In her role as the Department of Defense’s chief information officer, she must also convince a widely diverse group of constituents that a shared approach is best.

DOD has always had a highly mobile workforce, but the proliferation of mobile devices is radically altering the department’s already challenging security environment.
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This article originally appeared in the latest edition of CGI Initiative for Collaborative Government‘s Leadership journal. For more news and insights on innovations at work in government, please sign up for the AOL Gov newsletter. For the quickest updates, follow us on Twitter @AOLgov.
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