Obama's first Indian-American CTO starts new venture

Indian-American Aneesh Chopra, who was appointed by President Barack Obama as America's first chief technology officer, has co-founded a data and analytics company aimed at healthcare, education and energy sectors.

Chopra, 41, who stepped down from his White House job to run an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of Virginia, co-founded Hunch Analytics based in Arlington, a Washington suburb in neighbouring Virginia, last October.

Details about the company are scarce beyond what's stated on its website and on social networks, according to the Washington Post, which first reported the story.

The Post said Chopra declined to comment for the story, saying in an e-mail to the newspaper that Hunch Analytics is still in "stealth mode".

The new company "empowers leaders in industries such as healthcare and education to utilise newly liberated data sets for faster, fact-based decisions about their organisation", according to the start-up's website.

"Our proprietary algorithms and decision-engines are built by mashing up public and private databases to help organisations optimise productivity and profitability," the site states.

Privately funded by "prominent investors in the data analytics space", Hunch "applies a unique blend of expertise to big data solutions", it says.

"With our commitment to quality, we employ top data scientists and mathematicians to help leaders in regulated industries optimise their organisations with confidence," the site added.

As America's first chief technology officer from May 2009 to February 2012, Chopra oversaw a number of White House initiatives designed to improve the government's policies on such issues as access to government data and broadband internet, the Post said.

Chopra stepped down to run for lieutenant governor in Virginia, where he previously served as the secretary of technology under then governor Tim Kaine.

He lost the Democratic party primary to Ralph Northam in June 2013.