Va. Gov. Kaine Opening Keynote for COVITS 2007

Virginia Secretary of Technology Aneesh P. Chopra today announced that Governor Timothy M. Kaine will deliver the Monday morning keynote address that formally opens COVITS 2007. The conference agenda also features keynote speeches by Secretary Chopra, Virginia's Chief Information Officer Lemuel C. Stewart, former Governor Mark R. Warner, Jay McGonigle, Chairman of Corporate Executive Board Co., and Gururaj "Desh" Deshpande, Chairman and Founder of Sycamore Networks Inc. and donor of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT.

COVITS, the Commonwealth of Virginia Innovative Technology Symposium, attracts senior-level executives and decision makers in technology from state and local government, business, and education. Of the 700 attendees expected, more than 300 state, local, and education officials are among those pre-registered to date. The ninth annual conference will be held September 16-18 in Chantilly, Va., supported by sponsors including Northrop Grumman, CGI, Verizon Business, Microsoft, Dominion Resources, Serco, Oracle, GTSI, Cisco, ATS, McAfee, the Southern Universities Research Association, Dell, Virginia's e-Region, CDW-G, NetApp, Dataline Consulting Services, Gateway, Trapeze Networks, EDAC Systems, EMC², CA, Cognos, Agile Technologies, Virginia.gov, Carilion Health System, Computer Aid, BearingPoint, SAS, ESRI, and the Northern Virginia Technology Council with the CHUBB Group. The conference's media partners include Government Technology, Public CIO, Emergency Management, Virginia Review and TechJournal South.

As the Commonwealth of Virginia continues to build on its landmark $2 billion public-private partnership to modernize its IT infrastructure, the COVITS 2007 theme of "Proceeding in Partnership: the Intersection of Innovation and Operational Excellence" focuses on incorporating innovation to drive up performance in government operations. High-level agency officials will chair panel discussions on advancing Virginia's Strategic Plan for IT, on the intersection of federal/state/local priorities within Virginia's $800M IT portfolio, and on the link between IT and Virginia's key research and development initiatives: the role of IT in lowering energy consumption; the value of modeling and simulation to manage large-scale project risk; and transformational technologies that will shape the classrooms, public safety vehicles, and physician clinics of the future.