White House senior adviser Jared Kushner welcomes technology company leaders to a summit of the American Technology Council at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, U.S. June 19, 2017.
What is troubling is that this guy is who Trump thinks can lead technology policy, reorganize the federal government, and bring peace to the Middle East. That's in large part due to tech workers' anger toward a president who has attacked USA immigrants (often their colleagues), vowed to gut visa programs such as the H1-B (which are frequently used to employ foreign engineering talent in the US), reneged on U.S. promises in the Paris Agreement to slow climate change (a priority issue to many in California), among other things. Several of the executives complimented Jared Kushner, senior adviser and son-in-law to Trump, and his wife, Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and a senior adviser, for helping to drive the initiative.
Numerous tech executives are eager to get White House help in dealing with regulatory and other policy issues such as visas for highly skilled workers.
President Trump promised "sweeping transformation" in the federal government's use of technology as he welcomed top executives from numerous world's largest tech companies to the White House.
The federal government spends more than $80 billion annually on information technology, employing about 113,000 IT professionals, according to the White House.
The meeting also saw Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in attendance.
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Police say it appears that Martinez Torres was "so enraged over the traffic dispute that it escalated into deadly violence". The teenager had been participating in at a sleepover at a religious institution that authorities did not identify.
White House press secretary Sean Spicer said technology executives came to "help us make a more efficient, effective government".
"While the government is responsible for providing services for citizens, private industry has the luxury of being able to provide truly specialized user experiences, " the White House document said.
The government could save as much as $1 trillion over 10 years by upgrading the government's technology, according to senior administration officials.
"The US should have the most modern government in the world and today it doesn't", Cook said. But the Tech Week agenda is packed too, with issues like modernizing gov tech, cyber-security, and high-skilled immigration. Based on the internet's reaction, it was the first time many people heard his voice - and they were more than happy to pile on the memes.
"This requires a six-month review and a rigorous interagency process to approve any changes that can be made on a government website regardless of how minor they are", he said. IBM was prominent last week during the White House's push for apprenticeships.
For most large tech companies, it's hard if not impossible to sever ties with the White House completely. In a statement the White House said that these withdrawals had not affected the meeting and it will still take place.
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