Ep. 72 How Federal Leaders can get Value From Data Management

May 25, 2023

(Today’s interview was conducted at the Caboose Brewery in lovely downtown Vienna, VA. Not far from Mae-East).

What good is a cloud full of data if you can’t manage it?

With all this hype about artificial intelligence, one key component that is getting left behind is the quality of the data that is used. To use a biblical reference, if you build your house on sand, chances are it will not survive the next storm.

Talend is a company that has a focus on data integration and management. In today’s interview with Tom Scurlock gives listeners an overview of how this can be applied to large federal systems.

We know that federal agencies are taking advantage of the cost savings of the hybrid cloud. The new challenges start with making sure you know where all the data is located. A new term is starting to be bandied about called “dark data.”

"we manage data, and more specifically, we deal with data quality and data governance, and the movement of data"

Tom Scurlock, Talend Tweet

For example, an agency may collect, process, and store data. This information may have to be stored for compliance purposes, it could be duplicated, or it may possess key findings that are needed when a data set is constructed to assist in an AI project. Tom suggests that a flexible platform may help large organizations produce actionable findings.

During the interview, Tom Scurlock mentions the AI Bill of Rights. This is a starting point for the building of a policy on the safe and ethical rules for using artificial intelligence. Despite all the dazzling capability of Chat GPT, it is apparent that there can be algorithmic discrimination patterns in developing large learning models.

People don’t know what happens to the business information that is the basis for Chat GPT. The role of data privacy, especially when it comes to medical records, is included in this proposed document.

This preliminary AI Bill of Rights can’t be implemented unless organizations know where their data resides, who has access to it, and where federal compliance mandates must be applied.

If you enjoyed this article, you may want to listen to Ep. 66 Identity Verification for Federal Agencies.