And now from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics, the Act Spiles, with your host, David Axelrod.

When I was working in the White House I met a fellow named Anish Chopra who is an expert on technology, in particular in the health career, but generally in making systems more efficient by using technology and using the internet.

And I became an apostle of reform in the government, of using the internet to provide data to people to make government services more accessible to people.

One of the most interesting guys that I met when I was in Washington, and I sat down with them the other day to have a conversation about where we were, where we are today, and where we're going to be tomorrow.

And Anish Chopra, my old colleague from White House Days, the guy who brought the US government into the 21st century, when it comes to technology as the Chief Technology Officer for the government.

Yes, sir, and I thank you for the chance to be with you today. It was great to work with you all those years.

Yeah, I, you know, it's kind of stunning when you think about it that you were the Chief Technology Officer for the government and that there wasn't any before you.

I want to talk in a minute about what you found when you showed up there and what you left there.

I also want to talk about your, your race for Lieutenant Governor, your foray into elective policy to politics.

From policy to politics.

But tell me a little bit about how you became who you are.

Yeah.

Tell me about your family and their journey and how you wound up not at this table, but at this point in life.

Well, thanks, David. I, you know, many Indian American families came post 1965 when Lyndon Johnson opened up the immigration rules and like my, my parents were like many others, they came with graduate degrees to sort of live a better life.

And what was exciting about that time was the perception in our family was that you could do anything, you know, it didn't matter that my mom and dad grew up in a bit of a difficult environment.

But dad literally was a refugee at the age of two. It had nothing when they had to leave what was then the Pakistan side of the Indian border when the country was divided.

But the idea was if you learned a lot, studied hard, you could actually make it in this country.

And so my passion, you know, growing up and as I thought about the world around me, let me just stop you for a second.

Yeah.

Because it's all this discussion now about immigrants.

Oh, it's so sad.

I'm the son of an immigrant too.

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