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July 2, 2009
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Consular Consolidation
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| Soccer fans (and those who love them): Real Madrid is coming to DC. This is a rare treat, as the some of the biggest international stars will be at FedEx Field. Don't miss out. Sunday, August 3. Details in the ad at right. |
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| State Department CTO Charlie Wisecarver is overseeing a massive four-year consolidation of 900 servers, sending them out to a shiny new off-site data center while consolidating applications. Make that two off-site data centers: “If something happens to one, we can run the entire agency without missing anything.” |
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In front of a tapestry from his days in Quito, Ecuador (those State Department guys go everywhere), Charlie rattled off some other big projects: overseeing the now-halfway complete desktop consolidation of the agency’s 28 bureaus, to bring all IT needs under one roof, and, increasing workforce mobility. “Our goal is for all our diplomats, from Albania to Zimbabwe, to be able to log on securely from anywhere, instead of being tied to a particular location.
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Behind Charlie is the network status of the Department’s African operations. (Forwarding this E-mail may violate the State Secrets Act. Though you’d be doing us a solid. So, fo for it.) Charlie grew up in Lexington, Va, and joined the Peace Corps to teach English in Niger, where he met his wife. After a stop at DoD, they were accepted to the foreign service and went to Indonesia, where he started playing around with computers (notably the IBM XT and the Wang minicomputer). Alas, a $500M budget and a few hundred employees leave little time for leisure: “I like to garden, but all I’ve got right now are weeds.”
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| DP! |
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We always tell visitors it’s an IQ test where they choose to sign their name on our office wall, and here’s where the distinguished DP Venkatesh chose to do it yesterday, closest to the refrigerator, but who’s noticing? DP has a remarkable McLean-based, 130-employee wireless software company called mPortal, that helps mobile operators like Verizon deliver apps like ringtones, music, and games. The former McKinsey consultant started his firm nine years ago and points out that, despite all the “noise” around smart phones, the reality is that it’s still 80% mass market phones. They’ve just helped client Cricket strategize on how to differentiate itself, based on which the new age mobile carrier’s just launched widgets on its handsets. (Cricket’s MyHomeScreen initiative uses mPortal’s software And yes, he’s the same DP Venkatesh you’ve read about in these pages who’s president of Tie-DC, the group of exceptional entrepreneurs of the region.
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| Cal Ripken-like |
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How about this for a good streak: Reston-based Calnet, No. 144 on last year’s Inc. 500, won an FAA contact in late May to provide National Service Desk and Desk Side Support Services worldwide and then won an Information Operations Advisory Task Force (IOATF) contract worth up to $450M with the Army earlier this month. We recently met up with CEO Kaleem Shah, who founded the $100M, 650-person company that specializes in IT, intelligence analysis, and language services for INSCOM, JIEDDO, State Department, and Intelligence community, (plus Army and FAA).
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Kaleem came to the US from India in the mid-80s, earning a Master’s in computer engineering from Clemson and an MBA in International Finance from GW; he started Calnet in ’89 and watched it grow first on the commercial side and shifting more to the government market after 9/11. We asked him what he does for fun and he was succinct: “To me, Calnet is like oxygen, and we both need each other to survive.” He, of course, does find time for his two kids, though their place on the periodic table is less clear.
Where should we visit next? Send ideas to techstories@bisnow.com
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This newsletter is a journalistic news source which accepts no payment for featured interviews. It is supported by conventional advertisers clearly identified in the right hand column. You have been selected to receive it either through prior contact or professional association. If you have received it in error, please accept our apologies and unsubscribe below. © 2009, Bisnow on Business, Inc., 1323 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036. All rights reserved.
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