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Doraiswamy Rajagopal |
Bringing Experience and Adaptability to IRS
Modernization
Doraiswamy Rajagopal
June 2005
As Doraiswamy Rajagopal (it's pronounced "Raj-a GOP-al," although
most refer to him as simply "Raj") prepared himself for a career
in electronics engineering, one lesson he discovered early on was
that much of what he learned in this field might have to be unlearned
later on.
That lesson was reinforced by one of Rajagopal's professors at
the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India, where Raj was
working on a Master's degree in computer science.
"I was assigned a hardware circuitry project," Rajagopal says.
"My advisor told me, 'You have to keep in mind how the industry
is going. Right now, it's 80 percent hardware and 20 percent software.
But before you graduate, it's going to be 20 percent hardware and
80 percent software. And within five years, it will be 100 percent
software running on 0 percent hardware.' That humorous quote sticks
in my mind—how he was able to predict how quickly things would
change."
Rajagopal learned the lesson well. Now, six years into his career
at MITRE, it's his turn to dispense advice on the quickly evolving
world of high tech—not only to a group of students (he is
a co-instructor in the MITRE-Johns Hopkins Masters program in Systems
Engineering and an adjunct faculty member at the University of Maryland
University College)—but to no less than the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS), which is facing a congressional mandate to process
80 percent of its returns electronically by 2007.
A systems engineering practice leader in MITRE's Center for Enterprise
Modernization (CEM), Rajagopal helped position the IRS to introduce
eXtensible Markup Language (XML) into its technological architecture.
Last year, the IRS started accepting business tax returns in XML,
which is the industry standard for data sharing. The new process
has helped reduce the amount of time needed to process corporate
returns, and the IRS eventually plans to accept all tax returns,
including individual returns, in XML.
"Raj provides a rare combination of technical depth, business
judgment, and initiative to this CEM program," says Frank Maginnis,
a CEM chief engineer. "His leadership has been instrumental in developing
international XML standards for tax administration. He brings keen
insight to every task he tackles."
Rajagopal has nearly a quarter century of technical and managerial
experience, and he has drawn on nearly all of it in working with
the IRS. He knows the agency well, having worked on IRS projects
prior to joining MITRE. His initial work with the IRS came in the
agency's Electronic Tax Administration, which helps the IRS keep
pace in the federal government's push toward doing more business
electronically. Not long after MITRE became the IRS's federally
funded research and development center in 1998, Rajagopal joined
the company.
"When MITRE won the IRS contract, I wanted to continue FFRDC work,
and I also wanted to continue developing my expertise with the IRS,"
Rajagopal says.
In 2004, Rajagopal received the Emerald Honors for Research Science
Career Achievement Award, sponsored by USBE & Information
Technology, Hispanic Engineering and Technology,and Science
Spectrum magazines. It was a career achievement award, honoring
Rajagopal's entire body of work, but he gives MITRE a large share
of the credit.
"Timewise, MITRE is about one-fifth of my career," Rajagopal says.
"But in terms of impact and liking the work, I'd say it's probably
half (the award). This is where I get an opportunity to deliver
the impact... XML is a good example of giving the customers advice,
which they used to implement new systems. At MITRE, I get to participate
in making the kind of contributions that have a lasting impact in
a public environment."
—by W. Russell Woolard
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