Special Report: Is US Chief Information Officer (CIO) Vivek Kundra a Phony?

[anigbrowl]

Source: John Dvorak's blog (LBN-compliant)

This is the sort of question you might ask after trying to actually verify his supposed MS in Information Technology from the University of Maryland, College Park campus. The registrar has no record of it. In fact the current University of Maryland grad department doesn’t even show this degree as being commonly available to anyone. A search of his college records shows no attendance after he received his BS degree in Psychology on 12/20/98. In fact his last day of school 12/19/98 wrapped up the six years it took Kundra to obtain his undergraduate degree.

I have already queried the White House concerning this and have heard nothing back. While researching this seemingly bogus degree, a number of interesting and questionable facts appeared, most in regard to Kundra’s bio. The most ridiculous is his assertion that he was formerly a CEO of Creostar. While records for this company are hard to come by a small Dun & Bradstreet service did turn up the following information: there was indeed a Creostar in Arlington, VA. It was founded in 2004 with the contact being Vivek Kundra. The last record for the company (online) showed sales of $67,000 with one employee – apparently Kundra, the CEO.

(snip)

Most revealing is a bio of Kundra that was redacted from the Washington, DC municipal site. Luckily it was archived by the web sweeper Archive.org. In that bio Kundra added even more icing to his University of Maryland career saying he “served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland, teaching classes on emerging and disruptive technologies.”

Calls to the University said there was no such teacher at the school. It’s now difficult to find this attribution as it may have drawn too much attention to the actual facts. He pulled it.

Read more: http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/08/12/special-report-is-us-chief-information-officer-cio-vivek-kundra-a-phony/

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This hasn't been reported in mainstream media yet. I normally wouldn't consider linking to a blog for LBN, but John C. Dvorak is the premier technology journalist in the US and has been an authority on the world of computing since the 1980s. He is generally apolitical, though this doesn't stop him from being irreverent; you can have confidence in the honesty of his reporting.

[earthboundmisfit]

1. Used to read John Dvorak's column in InfoWorld

Always right-on, from what I could tell (am very glad to have the blog link)

[anigbrowl]

2. Per this source, Kundra's credentials appear to be confirmed

http://gigaom.com/2009/08/12/dvorak-raises-doubts-about-us-cio-vivek-kundra/

http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/08/on_kundras_college_records.php << this one may be overloaded temporarily

[geek tragedy]

3. Untrue and thus unrec'd

It will be very interesting to see how many gleefully latch on to this.

[dixiegrrrrl]

4. Send that to Rachel?????

[panAmerican]

5. Self-delete

:(

[geek tragedy]

6. Um, smear FAIL

http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/08/on_kundras_college_records.php

[panAmerican]

7. *I* did not smear him.

Dvorak's blog was complete w/ screenshots.

[geek tragedy]

8. No, you're just overeager to peddle the smears.

Who needs Freepers?

[panAmerican]

9. Oh please. Get a life

I was wrong & I deleted my post. Why are you stalking only my post?

[Igel]

10. Smear fail.

But his rep takes a hit. UMUC is not what you think when you hear "University of Maryland." Not by any stretch of the imagination. UMBC is better, I'd wager.

High credentials, indeed. MS from a primarily on-line college that aims to capitalize on UMCP's cred, and CEO of a barely started-up.