Representatives from several unique arms of the U.S. government sat on a panel at Supernova today to update attendees on where we, as a nation, stand in technology policy and open government, a year and a half into this Administration.

Danny Sepulveda of the Office of Senator Kerry says that the Administration is creating broadband opportunity via stimulus grants, broadband policy, and spectrum access.  He finds that although there are challenges to open government because of the varying interests of Members of Congress and the White House, he believes the key to success is working together to establish and implement joint principles of an open government.

Tom Power of NTIA is highly involved in broadband opportunities under the stimulus programs of the Recovery Act.  He says that NTIA works toward funding projects that can sustain themselves and will also help with broadband adoption, noting that access can’t be solved with infrastructure alone.  Power also mentioned the Broadband Match program, the agency’s online collaboration portal that helps connect grantees.

Beth Noveck is the U.S. Deputy C.T.O. and leads the White House’s Open Government Initiative.  Noveck believes the open government concept goes beyond government transparency, to applications, collaboration, and the economy.   She believes the key to success with open government is to combine traditional ways of working with new options. Noveck also assured the audience that privacy and national security are considered before the release of data.

The panel concluded in agreement on not only the challenge of laws that were created before the Internet age, but also that although we’ve come a long way, we still have a long way to go.

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