ODNI Set to Release Data Strategy
In about a month, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the leader of the nation’s intelligence organizations, will release its comprehensive data strategy, the ODNI’s Intelligence Community Chief Data Officer Lori Wade reported.
The policy will include succinct one-year milestones to speed up data governance and usage improvements.
The data strategy will be “a lever” that the ODNI officials will pull on to advance digital priorities, said Wade, who is also the assistant director of National Intelligence for Data and Partnership Interoperability in the ODNI. Wade spoke today at AFCEA and INSA’s Intelligence and National Security Summit 2022, being held September 15-16 at the Gaylord Convention Center, Maryland.
“We're going to set the strategic focus areas in one-year action plans and be very deliberative about how we're going to that in this first year,” she said. “And how we're going to focus on end-to-end data management to enable and reduce the time of data flow from collection to actual insight.”
Part of the focus of the effort will be to unite data flows and usage across the intelligence community where possible, as well as to harness artificial intelligence (AI), Wade stated. “We’ll deliver interoperable capabilities and analytics at scale and speed,” she shared. “We are going to ensure data is AI-ready to [work] with both humans and machines. This is important, right, because this is bringing people together and getting data quickly.”
The strategy will also aim at establishing new approaches to partnerships, “as the IC works together across our partners.”
Wade noted that the plan will be uniquely constructed with the intelligence-based warfighter in mind, “to accelerate that digital data acumen and tradecraft across the IC.”
We're going to set the strategic focus areas in one-year action plans and be very deliberative about how we're going to that in this first year. And how we're going to focus on end-to-end data management to enable and reduce the time of data flow from collection to actual insight.
LTG Susan Lawrence (C), USA (Ret.), President & CEO of AFCEA International @AFCEA @INSAlliance: the rate of change is only going to increase as we move further into a near-peer environment. #IntelSummit22 pic.twitter.com/L265kZDYee
— Kimberly Underwood (@Kunderwood_SGNL) September 15, 2022
When implementing the data strategy, the chief data officer will rely on the intelligence community’s Chief Data Officer Council.
“It is made up [chief data officers] from the 18 IC elements to include our DoD partners,” she said. “I chair that, so we're going to use that to make sure that we're driving governance, collaboration, action, decision, and measure this against the milestones that we lay out in our one-year action plans.”
With the new intelligence community’s private sector framework, Wade will be working with federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial and private sector partners to examine how to increase data integration and collaboration.
“I think is very important that I work with closely with the IC CIO, the IC CISO and our AIM [Augmenting Intelligence Using Machines] program director to be able to bring that broad coalition together so that we can share priorities, allocate resources, and even have a discussion about how resources should be allocated to build up that ecosystem,” she emphasized. “And look at where we have not been able to move the needle. That's where we need to accelerate, and we may need to do trade off decisions about how we're putting in dollars and resources.
Lori Wade (l) IC Chief Data Officer, Assistant DNI for Data and Partnership Interoperability @ODNIgov @AFCEA @INSAlliance: We will be rolling out our Intelligence Community data strategy soon, and even the strategy itself will be classified. #intelsummit22 pic.twitter.com/Y7C3sDS3Q5
— Kimberly Underwood (@Kunderwood_SGNL) September 15, 2022
The ODNI’s budget process will support the data strategy implementation, the chief data officer mentioned.
“We just went through the strategic investment efforts, and I can tell you next year will be more data driven, just because we raise the data acumen a little more.
In addition, Wade added that a zero-trust architecture is critical to advancing their data operations. “We need access control,” she said. “Those things have got to be implemented.”
Dr. Kelly Fletcher, Department of Defense, principal deputy Chief Information Officer @DeptofDefense @AFCEA @INSAlliance: we have to shore up the tech debt that we have immediately, and that includes data #intelsummit22 pic.twitter.com/Spexnan2g7
— Kimberly Underwood (@Kunderwood_SGNL) September 15, 2022
