Chris Rasmussen

Mr. Rasmussen is one of the primary architects behind the Unclassified GEOINT Pathfinder initiative, which aims to transform GEOINT into a mostly open source intelligence discipline.

Mr. Rasmussen was a driver behind the initiative that made NGA the first intelligence agency to open source software on GitHub and place apps into iTunes and Google Play.

Mr. Rasmussen’s current role with public-facing collaborative efforts grew from the campaign to maximize internal information sharing within the United States Intelligence Community (IC).

The IC has made tremendous strides over the last several years with the introduction of a wide range of social tools such as wikis, blogs, user tagging services, and social networking services for knowledge management and information sharing. Mr. Rasmussen was instrumental in pioneering this initial push, but argues the IC has reached the limits of automating the digital water cooler and it’s time to apply the process benefits of collaborative platforms to the official voice.

Mr. Rasmussen evangelizes for a move toward a “living intelligence” model where a range of information is mixed together in a transparent common space and the intelligence topic is constantly updated and recognized as official.

Mr. Rasmussen’s classified blog “Need-to-Share not Need-to-Know Guy” is one of the most read and discussed blogs in the IC.

Mr. Rasmussen has received several prestigious awards for innovation and leadership such as the NGA Challenger Award in 2014 for spearheading the GitHub initiative and the Director of National Intelligence “Exceptional Pioneer Award” in 2007 for helping pioneer the Intellipedia movement. He was selected as one of the “Federal 100” by Federal Computer Week in 2008. He’s also a frequent speaker at conferences and events spanning industry, defense, and intelligence circles.

Mr. Rasmussen holds a BA in History and Masters in National Security Studies.