Gopal Khanna - Minnesota State CIO

Minnesota State CIO

Governor Tim Pawlenty appointed Gopal Khana as the first Chief Information Officer for the State of Minnesota in August 2005. In this role, Khanna developed technology innovations to streamline government and enhance collaboration among business and government entities. The move to move to an outsourced solution shortly before leaving office was questioned by Informationweek. Shortly after his appointment, Khanna was interviewed by Twin Cities Business Magazine and cited many problems he believed were facing Minnesota’s IT infrastructure, including “an aging state government workforce and younger tech-savvy who want faster services”. In order to combat these problems, Khanna instituted the following:

• The Minnesota Information and Telecommunications Technology Systems and Services Master Plan in 2007 which acted as a comprehensive plan for all of Minnesota’s information resources; the three pillars of which were consolidating and improving systems, improving efficiency and functionality of common activities, and increasing the security underlying the state’s electronic capabilities.
• The IT Funding Strategies for 21st Century report (2008) which sought “to inform policy makers of the need to create IT funding strategies that are needed urgently to facilitate and manage” Minnesota’s information priorities. It also advocated for “flexible and creative approaches to funding business and technological change” in order to “supplement traditional funding methods”.
• The Enterprise Security Strategic Plan (2009) outlined methods to control and protect Minnesota’s information assets, and a five year vision with 19 strategic objectives that were grouped into three categories: Improved situational awareness; proactive risk management; and robust crisis and security incident management.
• The Minnesota iGov report (2009) updated implementation and best practices outlined to meet the goals outlined in the Master Plan while taking into account the state’s fiscal challenges. It had 3 main tenets: citizens have expectations of data and services that are secure, accessible in real time, and locally available; information is one of the state’s most important assets; the act of consolidating IT systems is an opportunity to improve fundamental business operations.
• In September 2010, in an effort to deliver technology services as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible, the State of Minnesota’s Office of Enterprise Technology signed a groundbreaking enterprise-wide cloud-computing service agreement with Microsoft - being one of the first states to do so.
• Collaboration initiatives, like those outlined in StateTech Magazine in their Dec 09/Jan 10 issue, worked to “conquer storage woes with storage area networks rollouts, state of the art emergency operations centers, and arraignments conducted via video conferencing” and partner with neighbor states to reduce costs while tackling tough hurdles.

The Department of Revenue did not renew its contract for services from the Office of Enterprise Technology. Quality issues were acknowledged during a State House Legislative hearing. In September 2008 Khanna was elected by other state CIOs to be the President of the National Associoation of State CIOs.