Data Analytics & GEOINT

USGIF is once again bringing together data analysis thought leaders for a day of presentations and discussions in a Data Analytics Forum April 25, in Herndon, Va. This year’s agenda includes speakers from IBM, DigitalGlobe, Oracle, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, CIA, and many more.

The Foundation hosted its first data analytics event in 2014, and analytic capabilities have since continued to expand to help absorb the tidal wave of data facing the Intelligence Community. The April forum will discuss challenges and success stories related to how geospatial intelligence can be derived from and enhanced by data analytics.

“Too often, gaining insight into the toughest analytic problems is limited by traditional methods and a tiny subset of applications focused on your customer or organization,” said Gabe Chang, federal CTO architect with IBM, who will moderate lightning talks at the event. “This agenda brings views from sister agencies, industry, and other bright minds that cut across government and commercial clients to share their possible, never-before-considered angles on your problems.”

Chang added the forum is about connecting a diverse group of professionals using analytics to unlock the hidden value in their data.

Patrick Biltgen, technical director of analytics at Vencore, will moderate a panel on anticipatory analytics at the forum.

“In the GEOINT Community, we like to think we’ve always had big data because we work with large files, but those files usually contain a sparse number of observations,” Biltgen said. “Other industries have developed analytics to work with crushing volumes of high-speed transactional data and that’s the way GEOINT is headed … the GEOINT Community is beginning an analytic transformation that brings data analytics into everything we do. This forum is about understanding how we can adapt our tradecraft to integrate new techniques.”

Scott Jachimski, director of data science for national agencies with Booz Allen Hamilton, looks forward to getting government and industry together to discuss government’s challenges and industry’s potential solutions related to data analysis. Jachimski will moderate a panel on deep learning.

“I’m excited to bring so many smart and talented panelists together to help explain and talk about a very sophisticated topic in a way that we can all understand how it will impact our missions,” Jachimski said. “Embracing data in a way that enables computers to do more sophisticated analytics and lets our workforce focus on deeper analysis is extremely important to our government clients.”

Jachimski said analysts, technologists, and decision-makers from both inside and outside the government should find interest in the event.

Click here for more information and to register for the Data Analytics Forum.