Former Microsoft executive served as Bill Gates’ assistant in the past, and now Steven VanRoekel has been named as the next chief information officer for the federal government.  In 2009, VanRoekel joined the Obama administration as managing director of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

VanRoekel, 41, said he would use his new role as chief information officer to introduce new technologies to improve government service as well as focus on cutting costs in an age of austerity.  VanRoekel, who worked at Microsoft from 1994 to 2009, replaces Vivek Kundra, who is stepping down as federal chief information officer to take up a fellowship at HarvardUniversity. As CIO, VanRoekel will direct policy and strategic planning for government information technology and will be responsible for the $80 billion in annual federal technology spending. At Microsoft, VanRoekel was an assistant to Bill Gates and the senior director of theUSsoftware giant’s Windows Server and Tools Division.

“The productivity gap between where the private sector has gone over the last two decades and where government has gone is ever-widening,” VanRoekel told reporters at the White House on Thursday, attributing this largely to the government’s slow uptake and lack of spending on new technology. This “can be done in a way that actually saves money, saves resources and everything else,” he said.

“We’re trying to make sure that the pace of innovation in the private sector can be applied to the model that is government,” VanRoekel said.

Earlier this year, President Barack Obama selected Twitter’s chief Dick Costolo among other Web leaders to join his National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee.

Another hope is that citizen participation through social media and other technology projects will provide some support. While at the FCC, VanRoekel created an iPhone app that allowed ordinary users to submit the information needed to build a website called broadbandmap.gov, which maps Internet connectivity across the country.

Cybersecurity will also be a top priority for VanRoekel. Increased hacking has raised concerns as some government departments shift to Google mail — a well-known example of a “cloud” service.

Google said in June that hackers based in China gained access to hundreds of Gmail accounts, including some belonging to seniorU.S.government officials and military personnel.  U.S. authorities said no official government e-mail systems were breached, but it was unclear whether any of the victims had been forwarding their work e-mails to Gmail accounts.

Jack Lew, director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, said in a blog post welcoming VanRoekel that information technology “is at the center of our efforts to save money, eliminate waste, and do more with less.”

“Steve is the right person to continue our efforts to make the government more efficient and more responsive to theAmericapeople,” Lew said. “Under his leadership, I am confident that we will continue to build on the remarkable gains that we have made in changing the way the federal government manages IT.”