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'How Government Built This - Strengthening and Empowering Our People & Culture’ – Coalition Building Enabled by Emerging Tech

Welcome to “How Government Built This,” a podcast and blog post series developed by the Department of the Treasury’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation (FIT) in collaboration with the American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council (ACT-IAC). This series will spotlight trailblazers exploring the intersection of innovation and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access or DEIA across government. Resources and links mentioned in each podcast will also be available at actiac.org/thebuzz.

Coalition Team

Todd Hager, Vice President, Macro Solutions

What new and exciting things is the Emerging Technology Community of Interest (COI) doing today to incorporate culture, people, and DEIA into emerging technology design and development?

Todd said that ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology COI is one of the first COIs to incorporate working groups to engage volunteers to learn more about emerging technologies. With the working groups, Todd said this opened the door for organizations to directly engage with emerging technologies and share more information on emerging technologies with the government.

Todd stated that the working groups also support engagement from small and disadvantaged businesses who offer emerging technology products and solutions and offer several opportunities for these organizations to further engage with government. Todd said this helps to amplify the voices of small businesses and share information with government on new technologies available across the market today.

How does the ecosystem with ACT-IAC support small businesses?

Todd said that he works for a small business that is woman-owned and ACT-IAC has served as a forum where his organization can engage with government. Todd also said that small businesses are often more willing to work in more innovative areas and take risks to bring new technologies to life.

Todd noted that while small businesses face challenges with i) competition and ii) gaining past performance criteria, ACT-IAC provides a forum for building team relationships and meeting organizations they would not have known of otherwise.

Insights from Public and Private Organizations on Coalition Building

Jasmine Faubert, Senior Principal Systems Engineer, MITRE

At ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology Accelerator’s monthly meeting hosted on March 29, 2023, Jasmine gave insights on how blockchain enabled a coalition of public and private organizations to focus on people throughout the grant making process.

During the meeting Jasmine said that the initiative started with the human problem to be solved, not the technology. Jasmine said that distributed ledger technology can quickly address challenges about administrative burden and transparency, but the initiative focused more on “solution adoption challenges,” which focus on data access, integrity, and use.

By aligning the initiative to this bigger picture approach, Jasmine stated that the team worked to balance where i) people and ii) technology integrated across the model. With this balance, Jasmine said that the team focused on ensuring organizations have control over when their data is gathered, that once the data is gathered it is protected, and that only the right people see that data as it moves through the grant chain.

Jasmine said that this required paying attention to both sides of the coin, making the information available faster and more complete, while protecting the rights and integrity of the people whose information it is.

Renee Wynn, Chief Executive Officer, RP Wynn Consulting LLC, and former National Aeronautics and Space Administration Chief Information Officer

At ACT-IAC’s IoT Use Case Summit held on December 6, 2022, hosted by the Emerging Technology COI’s Internet of Things (IoT) Working Group and the Emerging Technology Accelerator, Renee spoke about public and private collaboration.

Renee said there is a big opportunity to work with vendors and contractors across government to bring IoT technologies to government that are aligned to the mission while keeping a close eye on security. Renee said there is great work being done on Mars when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and IoT with the rovers there to help to with new discoveries and bring actionable data back down to earth for the benefit of humanity.

Cindy Good, Director, FIT, Bureau of Fiscal Service, Department of Treasury

How is ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology Challenge informed by the COI’s Emerging Tech Days, Use Case Summits, and other innovation focused events and what is the Challenge team working on?

Cindy said that over the last four years the Emerging Technology COI has worked with several government agencies to implement open innovative activities to determine how best to source ideas and solutions across the public sector.

Cindy stated that these activities are conducted with the intent to increase collaboration between the COI, government, industry, and academia. The collaboration has great results for better understanding the different solutions available across the industry and how these solutions can solve real government problems.

Cindy gave a few examples of these activities including:

  • a Shark Tank hosted in 2020 that identified how emerging technologies can streamline the acquisition lifecycle,
  • an ideation event hosted in 2021 to hear from acquisition professionals on the challenges they face throughout the acquisition lifecycle, and
  • in 2022 the COI held the first Use Case Summit to assess emerging technology use cases and better understand the full development lifecycle by seeing real, on the ground examples.

Cindy said the goal with the Challenge is to continue the momentum with a focus on co-creation. Cindy outlined that the Challenge is designed to build a collaborative and inclusive innovative ecosystem which supports academia, federal agencies of all sizes, and industry organizations, both large and small, with a focus on small businesses. Cindy highlighted the four key objectives of the Challenge include:

  1. Encouraging public and private collaboration and integrating government-wide federal acquisition feedback and principles across emerging technology initiatives.
  2. Establishing a knowledge base of trending problem statements, emerging technology use cases, and potential “concepts” for application to agency mission objectives. Through establishment of this knowledge base, federal agencies can use the Challenge’s interoperable structure for sustainable cross-agency collaboration and co-creation.
  3. Incorporating security, ethics, and DEIA best practices and principles throughout the Challenge structure, requirements, and knowledge base.
  4. Instituting interoperable structures and communications across emerging technology initiatives led by public and private collaboration, which allow and encourage federal agencies to explore and experiment with different projects and prototypes.

What are the results of the Challenge’s roundtables thus far and what kind of information and data is the team gathering for the Challenge?

Cindy said that this is the part of the Challenge she is most excited about, gathering feedback from the greater community to further validate and refine the team’s assumptions. Cindy stated that a lot is learned from the roundtables allowing the team to pivot the approach for the Challenge. Cindy said that two roundtables were finished thus far focused on small businesses and non-traditional organizations and on incubators.

Cindy stated there were over 35 representatives in attendance for the small business roundtable Only four of those representatives were providing emerging technologies products and services to the government.

Cindy said this shows great interest from these organizations for providing emerging technology products and services to government. Cindy also said this shows there is more the Emerging Technology COI can do to truly create pathways for small businesses to engage with the emerging technology ecosystem.

Cindy said several agencies participated in the incubator roundtable, and it provided great feedback for how government can work together for these initiatives. Cindy said that the conversation made a compelling case for sharing best practices and resources across government to continue exploring emerging technology in an efficient way.

Cindy said that the roundtables received great feedback. The roundtables are i) helping to define use cases, ii) providing more information on public and private resources, iii) providing more information on how to factor security into development, and iv) increasing transparency and collaboration around open innovation.

Going forward, Cindy shared that the Challenge team will incorporate all this feedback into the Challenge design and be informed by peer and gap analysis. Cindy said that when the design is ready, the Challenge team plans to share the approach with potential participants for feedback. The feedback will focus on assessing the Challenge design as a collaborative opportunity with public and private organizations.

How is the Challenge incorporating ethics and DEIA to empower organizations and participants? Also, how will the Challenge focus on agency’s mission objectives?

Cindy said that these areas are at the core of the Challenge. Through the previous open innovation activities including the Emerging Technology Days and Use Case Summits, the Challenge team received great feedback on DEIA and how to incorporate best practices and principles across the events.

Cindy also said that this is how the Challenge team identified the cultural and process gap across the emerging technology ecosystem. Cindy stated that the Challenge team plans to incorporate DEIA best practices and principles into the identifying the Challenge panel who will assess the concept submissions for the Challenge.

Cindy stated that the Challenge will include ethics and DEIA considerations in the Challenge’s assessments of the concept submissions during the judging process. Following the completion of the Challenge, Cindy said that a white paper will be developed which outlines the results of these assessments and how agencies can leverage the Challenge approach and structure going forward.

For agency mission objectives, Cindy noted that the Challenge will focus on problem statements that are mission oriented. Cindy highlighted that this is important for ensuring any proposed emerging technology concepts or solutions align to the problem statement.

Cindy also said that this will provide clarity on connecting the mission to the problem statement and inform the application of a new approach or technology to addressing the problem. Cindy said that this an area of interest to the small businesses and the incubators, which the Challenge team is hoping to address.

Insights from Public and Private Organizations on Coalition Building

Sabina Sokol, U.S. Ambassador, Girls in Quantum, and Resource Management, and Education Advisor, ACT-IAC Quantum Knowledge Group

At ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology Accelerator’s monthly meeting hosted on January 18, 2023, Sabina spoke about the benefits of collaboration, coalition building, and knowledge sharing across the quantum sector to help drive innovation.

Sabina said that emerging technology is an area where it’s okay not to have all the answers. There are many unknowns providing room for creativity, unique contributions, and more individual freedom.

Sabina mentioned that working with organizations like Girls and Quantum and ACT-IAC allows for diving deeper into these areas for further exploration. Sabina said that joining a community where there are opportunities to learn more, to build relationships, and to be at the forefront of emerging technology provides value to those who participate.

Dan Hopkins, Vice President, Applied AI, Worldwide Public Sector, Eightfold

At ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology Accelerator monthly meeting hosted on December 14, 2022, Dan spoke about how AI capabilities can address equity through matching candidates’ skill sets with the right job roles. This helps organizations with building robust and interesting careers for employees.

Dan said that emerging technologies can make it easier to be able to learn from and use existing data. To incorporate equity, stakeholders across the talent acquisition continuum from job applicants to hiring managers need to have the most up to date data available to make the best possible decisions. Dan said that this information can help applicants better decide what roles they should apply to, while keywords presuppose that applicants know what they are looking for.

Amora Upton, RN Informatics Integrator for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Accelerator Emerging Technology Literacy Project Lead and Accelerator AI Liaison

Jessica Tavasti Davis, Chief of Staff of Federal Civilian Sales for Microsoft, and Accelerator Quantum Liaison

Frederic de Vaulx, CEO, Prometheus Computing, and Accelerator Blockchain Liaison

What emerging technologies do the liaisons cover and what have the liaisons collaborated on since the Accelerator was created?

Jessica said that DEIA is central to innovation which is the crux of emerging technology. Jessica stated that the liaisons were created with the Accelerator to ensure DEIA perspectives are included across all Emerging Technology COI working groups. Jessica said that the working groups cover technologies such as Blockchain, AI, IoT, DevSecOps, and Quantum.

What white papers are in development across the working groups and what is the experience as a liaison?

Amora said that when she started as a volunteer with the AI working group, she felt as though she didn’t belong there because it seemed like a place for technologists and data scientists. Amora said the more she got involved, the more she realized she needed to be there, not just for herself, but for her patients who need someone there to speak up for them. Amora stated that as a liaison she’s been writing several white papers and she’s had a great experience with the working group.

What are the goals and responsibilities of the liaisons and how are the liaisons empowering the working groups and projects across the COI to engage in public and private collaboration, and integrate DEIA considerations across their initiatives and activities?

Jessica said that as volunteers innovate throughout the working groups, the groups must be inclusive of all voices and perspectives. Jessica stated that her pathway to the Quantum knowledge group was through the Accelerator. Jessica said that the roles and responsibilities of the liaisons include:

  • Participate as a contributing member.
  • Ensure all projects and initiatives include a DEIA perspective.
  • Share updates with the Emerging Technology COI leadership team about ongoing projects and initiatives.
  • Seek volunteers and support from the Accelerator for these projects.
  • Advocate for DEIA across the COI.

How are the liaisons sharing information with each other and across the working groups to incorporate ethics and DEIA considerations?

Amora said liaisons have focused on sharing information with communities external to ACT-IAC to increase their awareness of the great work conducted with the COI. During the recent Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference, Amora said she moderated several panels, and most were focused on healthy equity or emerging technology. Amora said that many attendees are already using emerging technology in some form and are focused on participating in public private partnerships.

Amora stated that during events like the HIMSS conference, she shares information about ACT-IAC to encourage collaboration and increase awareness around what is possible with ACT-IAC and emerging technology.

One example Amora provided was at the HIMSS conference, she met with a community dedicated to African American healthcare professionals who discussed hitting ceilings with their careers. Amora said she shared information with them on how they can collaborate with ACT-IAC to provide value in areas where they are not heard and to build relationships with other volunteers having the same challenges.

How do you see the liaisons developing overtime and what exciting activities are taking place across the COI today?

Fred said that future equity and DEIA are important for incorporating across the life of the working groups. Fred stated that having the liaisons, topics around equity covered, continued collaboration across the working groups, and support from the COI leadership team to empower volunteers will help to ensure that these aspects are in the deliverables produced by the working groups.

Fred stated that the COI’s white papers should consider how technology can impact culture, equity, and DEIA. Fred said that when the working groups are promoting events for the technologies, the liaisons serve to ensure the presenters are equally represented. Fred also said that the technologies can be used to promote and elevate different elements of culture, equity, and DEIA.

Amora is focused on working with future leaders and bringing in organizations who may not have worked with ACT-IAC before. Amora provided an example of OhioX, a technology organization that meets across Ohio to bring technologies of all types together. These are great opportunities to collaborate and see what else is out there when it comes to emerging technology. Amora said that she plans for the liaisons to continue to help build these collaborative partnerships.

Jessica said that she would love to see the liaisons have a leadership role within each of the working groups like the Quantum knowledge group. Jessica said that as technologies continue to develop, so does including DEIA in everything that we do.

References

Last modified 05/10/23