With the rapid and often unpredictable rate of change in the world, government agencies are transforming into data-driven organizations in order to continue to respond to those changes. At the upcoming AI in Government event on April 21, 2022, three Chief Data Officers of different states in the US will each share their insights into how data is driving their decision-making and agency change.
Newly named to the Chief Data Officer position, the interim CDO of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Marcus Thornton, shares his insights into not only how data is driving the agency forward with all their needs, but also highlights the needs for data sharing among different agencies and state organizations. In this Forbes interview, Marcus shares some insights into how he’s seeing AI, data, and automation impacting the state.
Q: What are some innovative ways you’re leveraging data and AI to benefit your agency?
Marcus Thornton: The Covid-19 pandemic brought many challenges and required the Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics to leverage data for actionable intelligence. We are currently using AI in some of our automations to compile vaccination related statistics. Additionally, we use AI to help predict vulnerable areas of low vaccination rates.
Q: How are you leveraging automation at all to help on your journey to AI?
Marcus Thornton: Automation truly allows our internal processes to be executed in a more efficient manner, particularly as it relates to the movement of data between systems or sources. We rely on these processes for speed and the accurate curation of datasets. Automation allows more time to focus on the science of the actual dataset and what it represents.
Q: How do you identify which problem area(s) to start with for your automation and cognitive technology projects?
Marcus Thornton: It can vary but typically it starts with identifying areas of inefficiency or repetitiveness and determining how that process, job, or procedure can be executed better. We partner with many state agencies with diverse challenges and needs to address. Our focus is to try to become a service provider that delivers accurate data in an efficient way. That could mean automating a report or an entire process.
Q: What are some of the unique opportunities the public sector has when it comes to data and AI?
Marcus Thornton: The public sector has the opportunity to truly embrace AI and machine learning as a means to leverage data for actionable intelligence while making sound decisions to benefit all parts of their line of business. There is also an opportunity for the public sector to embrace the concept and practical application of data sharing and data governance.
Q: What are some use cases you can share where you successfully have applied AI?
Marcus Thornton: As part of the Covid-19 vaccination response, the Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics consolidated data from various REDCap surveys, Google forms, Salesforce systems, and others as a baseline for the vaccination pre-registration form and building dashboards. Bots were created to complete these forms on a daily basis to compile the data needed to support the dashboards. These dashboards are now being used to display various vaccination registration, and vaccination statistics by region and locality.
Q: Can you share some of the challenges when it comes to AI and ML in the public sector?
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Marcus Thornton: Most of the challenges we see are related to agencies and organizations having a hesitancy to change existing processes that have been in place for quite some time. There is a comfort level for them in knowing that a process could be improved but as long as it works then the status quo is acceptable. There are also technology challenges. Some agencies and organizations in the public sector have varying degrees of technology talent. Depending on how mature an agency or organization is can certainly impact how far they are willing to go to implement AI and Machine Learning.
Q: How do analytics, automation, and AI work together at your agency?
Marcus Thornton: For the Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics, our main focus is data and intelligence. We have developed an ecosystem that allows us to bring in multiple datasets from a variety of sources. Since we work with many different agencies and organizations there is always a layer of analysis and curation that comes with each dataset that gets absorbed. After the analysis and curation stage, we leverage AI and automation for the data movement, the data curation, and any reporting or visualizations that are associated with that dataset(s).
Q: How are you navigating privacy, trust, and security concerns around the use of AI?
Marcus Thornton: There is an enhanced focus on for us to always protect data. Particularly all personally identifiable information (PII) data. We take steps to classify data based on its sensitivity. AI allows us to use automation to identify things such as PII. It’s all part of building confidence into our partners and letting them know that our primary focus will always be securing data along with implementing the policies and procedures of monitoring who has access to a particular dataset(s).
Q: What are you doing to develop an AI ready workforce?
Marcus Thornton: That is an ambitious goal for Virginia because of the many different agencies and initiatives already in place. Our goal is to continue to show how AI and ML enhances our way of delivering actionable intelligence to the public. If we can continue to show the success stories of AI and ML we firmly believe others will embrace the idea of an AI ready workforce.
Q: What AI technologies are you most looking forward to in the coming years?
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Marcus Thornton: Since at this point we work with so many PDF’s I look forward to seeing some advanced capabilities with reading and interpreting different text documents.
Marcus Thorton will be sharing his insights along with other state CDOs including Patrick McLoughlin, CDO Maryland and Ravi Krishnan, CDO, North Dakota at the upcoming AI in Government event on April 21, 2022.