A member of the Senior Executive Service and FEMA’s Chief Technology
Officer (CTO), Mr. Ted Okada is responsible for leading the technology
strategy and direction for a wide variety of mission, business and enterprise
systems, providing guidance, advisory services as well as investment and
change management planning. Under his leadership, he has aspired to
drive FEMA towards the ethos of an “expeditionary start-up organization”
by leveraging a broad range of continuous improvement initiatives
involving open data, geospatial technologies, cyber security, as well as a
whole community approach to interoperable communications in the event
of a disaster.
Mr. Okada is the creator and executive sponsor of OpenFEMA—a project that ensures FEMA is
providing timely, usable, and accurate information to constituents to enhance and promote a transparent
and collaborative culture within FEMA. This growing open source and digital nature of informationsharing and communications were opened up for use by the media, non-profits, and universities
immediately after the Hurricanes Sandy, Harvey, Irma, and Maria disasters that resulted in a number of
outcomes benefitting storm survivors. It has also led to a unified strategy to reduce complexity in FEMA
systems built around simplified web services, built on the same OpenFEMA foundation.
Mr. Okada has been with FEMA since March 2012 and previously served as the Senior Advisor for
Technology for the FEMA Administrator. He has over thirty previous years in international relief and
development with a decade in internet services architecture and two technology start-ups. He served as
the Director of U.S. Global Public Private Partnerships as well as Director of the Humanitarian Systems
Group, both positions at Microsoft. In this position, Mr. Okada developed solutions to the world’s most
vexing and least served humanitarian problems. He supported and developed programs in Uganda,
Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Haiti, DR Congo, Albania, Dominican Republic, Kosovo,
Pakistan, Guatemala and the Philippines. With a background in child survival, community health
systems, food security, agricultural extension, and emergency management, Mr. Okada also managed
advocacy programs for refugees during the 1980’s and worked on landmark citizenship legislation.
While at Microsoft, Mr. Okada led his team in response to the Kashmir Pakistan earthquake in 2005,
humanitarian efforts in Afghanistan, and was part of the rapid deployment team that assisted the city of
Galveston during Hurricane Ike. He is also lead inventor with former colleagues at Microsoft’s Concept
Development Labs on a 2009 US patent filing related to mesh networks in disasters.
Mr. Okada is a 1982 graduate of Northwestern University with a B.A. in Mathematical Methods in the
Social Sciences and Economics, studying under the late Michael Dacey and Nobel Laureate, Dale
Mortensen. Mr. Okada volunteers at Burke Fire Station 14 in Fairfax County, Virginia, and is a licensed
Extra Class Amateur Radio Operator. While reachable through email, Mr. Okada typically listens on the
Maritime Mobile and National Hurricane Nets at 14.300 and 14.325 Mhz.