Recently, Oracle government sector experts participated in a day-long virtual summit, “Data-Driven Government: Doing it Right.” The summit brought together government executives, industry subject matter experts (SMEs), and Oracle experts for an in-depth discussion on data. The government executives ranged from Department of Defense (DoD) to US government civilian agencies.

When dealing with DoD data, you’re primarily dealing with war fighter data, such as intelligence, supply chain and logistics, and cyber security data, the data needs to be accurate, timely, and complete to help decide to support a mission. With US government civilian agencies, you’re dealing with citizen data, primarily personal identifiable information (PII).

Whether you’re a DoD or a civilian agency, you’re dealing with common challenges in the following areas:

  • Collecting the data

  • Making the data accessible

  • Understanding the data

  • Standardizing the data

  • Making the data interoperable through linking, sharing, and dissemination

  • Securing the data

The DoD has released a memo on the five DoD data decrees, listing these challenges as mentioned by the keynote speaker, David Spirk, chief data officer of the Department of Defense. At the summit, the panel of experts addressed these common challenges of integrating, analyzing, and developing data through a series of in-depth discussions.

Integrating your data

On the “Integrating Your Data” panel discussion, Dorothy Aronson, chief information officer and chief data officer of the National Science Foundation, stressed the importance of a data inventory and the common format and content of the data that everyone must agree on. Aronson cites the way Massachusetts Institute of Technology is presented in data. It can be represented by MIT, M.I.T, or Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Countries abbreviations are also represented in multiple ways. To do it right, coding and standardizations must be shared. New systems need standardizations in their designs and existing systems can be improved to meet the standardizations.

Analyzing your data

A common theme throughout the summit was the use of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI). ML and AI are starting the play a huge role for a data-driven government. Whether you’re a trained data analyst, a soldier in the field, or an ordinary citizen, the data must be accessible, consumable, and understood by everyone, no matter the level of training and type of usage. Data needs to be accessible in various ways by a legacy tool such as Excel, a chatbot that has been programmed with machine learning, or artificial intelligence that’s accessible by speaking into your phone. The key to doing it right is to make the data easily accessible by various people with varying skillsets.

Developing your data

In the “Developing Your Data” panel session, experts discussed how to develop talent from within the workforce. You can have a vast amount of data, but if you are not able to manage, share, prepare, or secure the data, the data becomes useless

In developing your data, training is essential. Training can come in the form of online learning or through special programs from within the US government, such as the Presidential Innovation Fellow program. As mentioned by Dr. Payman Sadegh, chief data officer and presidential innovation fellow at GSA. The panelist agreed that AI is a trend that they’re seeing in both industry and government. AI can assist with performing human functions in both data operations and DevOps.

Are you doing it right?

Data is a commodity. Whether you’re in the DoD supporting the war fighter, a civilian agency providing citizen services, or a systems integrator supporting the US government, you’re surrounded by data. Knowing how to integrate your data, analyze your data, and develop your data are key, not only for existing systems but for future systems. You can look at Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) as the engine for your data. OCI not only allows you to store and retrieve your data, but it provides you with tools to integrate, analyze, and develop your data, including chatbots, ML, and AI capabilities.

Want to know more? The only way to know if Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is right for you is to try it. You can select the Oracle Cloud Free Tier or a 30-day free trial in our commercial regions, which includes US$300 in credits to get you started with a range of services, including compute, storage, and networking.

To watch all the panelist sessions, see the following links:

  • Opening remarks: Patrick Mungovan, SVP of NA Gov and EDU at Oracle

  • Opening government keynote: David Spirk, chief data officer at the Department of Defense

  • Panel: Integrating your data

    • Dorothy Aronson, chief information officer and chief data officer of the National Science Foundation

    • Perryn B. Ashmore, industry executive for US Federal Government at Oracle

    • Scott Stegemann, principal data architect at Mythics

  • Panel: Analyzing your data

    • Patrick Abram, director of the analytics group at BIAS

    • Samir Mohanty, government mission modernization and business value architect at Oracle

    • Tom Sasala, chief data officer for the Department of the Navy

  • Panel: Developing your data

    • Ted Coyle, government mission modernization and business value architect at Oracl

    • Arvind Iyengar, technology innovation principal director for Accenture Federal Services

    • Dr. Payman Sadegh, chief data officer and presidential innovation fellow for the General Services Administration