Chief technology positions are not new in the federal government writ large. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency\u2019s approach to the role and its placement within the agency\u2019s hierarchy stands out, however, as the NGA\u2019s newly created CTO position reports directly to the director and the deputy director as opposed to the chief information officer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NGA\u2019s new CTO Anthony Vinci recently sat down with C4ISRNET\u2019s Mark Pomerleau to discuss how the position is helping NGA, one of the government\u2019s leaders in technology, tackle agency transformations and become a better adopter of forward-leaning intelligence solutions such as automation and machine learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
C4ISRNET<\/i>:<\/b> What are some of the priorities and projects you\u2019re focused on as CTO?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
VINCI:<\/b> There are two or three big pieces to it for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One is being the chief technology advisor to the director and the deputy director \u2026 [to help us] understand where technology is going, particularly commercial technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, think AI [artificial intelligence], computing, Big Data \u2013 those kinds of forward-leaning technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Secondly, I see [CTO] as a chief evangelist or champion of technology within the agency and then outside of the agency talking about what we can do at NGA with GEOINT [geospatial intelligence] technology, what\u2019s possible, where we\u2019re going and taking that role, which I think you can see a lot in CTO roles in commercial industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then, the third big piece is tackling some of those technology transformations in the agency that actually have nothing to do with technology and that require that cross-cutting approach to implement to adopt and to get into operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are just no possible ways that human beings alone can ingest, digest analyze all the information that is at our fingertips right now, so we have to adopt AI and automation technologies, so I\u2019m really pushing for that \u2026 but it\u2019s not just a technology issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are workforce issues that have to be addressed \u2013 training, recruitment, new work flows, new processes in order to take advantage of those technologies; it\u2019s not just adding an icon to a desktop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s a fundamentally new way to work with technology when you start using \u2026 machine learning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
C4ISRNET<\/i>: Was it your sense this position was created to harness emerging trends in the commercial market to help data analysts and military intelligence to shrink the decision loop against competitors and adversaries?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
VINCI<\/b>: I absolutely think that part of it is driven by that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We have to adopt these technologies because they make us more efficient, more effective as an agency to do the mission that we\u2019ve always had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In order to adopt these new technologies, we have a lot of the pieces already there, but we do need to adopt new ways of thinking about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NGA and every other government agency has always worked with commercial industry \u2026 what\u2019s new here is different types of companies now with different types of technologies, so you need different types of leaders and different approaches by the agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A good example I would bring up is a lot of the technology that\u2019s interesting to us \u2013 computer vison, machine learning, deep learning, artificial intelligence, as a few examples \u2013 moves very quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[To move quickly] you need to bring together a lot of pieces in a way that we traditionally haven\u2019t always done where we could take months or even years of time to adopt technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
C4ISRNET<\/i>: As that evangelist, are you and your team working directly with operators to better understand their needs as you advocate for the adoption of commercial best-of-breed technologies?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
VINCI<\/b>: Absolutely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think to get to that \u2026 you have to start by understanding your customer and designing your solution for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I was discussing with the director in the new role, I said look, I need to go on a listening tour and what I would call almost like a marketing tour with our customers from day one. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been doing and I\u2019ve been on a lot of travel to go out and meet our intelligence community and Defense Department customers, understand what they need and let them understand what\u2019s possible because not everyone is up on every piece of technology out there \u2013 that is another big part of the role \u2013 understating what\u2019s out there \u2026 or what will be out there in the near future and then understanding what people need and problem sets are and trying to make that match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then \u2026 going back into the agency in a cross-cutting way, figuring out how to deliver those capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
C4ISRNET<\/i>: Are there any examples of ways in which you\u2019re looking toward machine learning to solve a particular intelligence or analyst problem?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vinci<\/b>: One example is when we start looking at some of the commercial imagery providers out there that we\u2019re working with, the pure density of their collection [increases].<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you\u2019re talking about that much data, you need new ways to work with it; you can\u2019t just simply look at every image, you have to adopt some form of change detection capability, some sort of object identification capability. I think the best way to get at those kinds of capabilities, what I\u2019m seeing industry do, is deep machine learning \u2026 where the system uses data sets to train the system to get better and better \u2026 at recognizing change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What I\u2019m looking to do is taking advantage of what\u2019s happening in commercial industry more, where they\u2019re developing capabilities we can use towards those mission we have to use and get them adopted, get them in the door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
C4ISRNET<\/i>: What are ways that you\u2019re looking to overcome some of the institutional challenges that exist within government? How are you looking to change the culture or perceptions at NGA to help adopt some of these better practices?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
VINCI<\/b>: I see it happening in a few different ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A big one is process and it seems strange, but we actually need some bureaucracy and process around adoption and around incubation of technology development of demos and prototypes and then turning those \u2026 into operational capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m actually trying to build some bureaucracy and some process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We created an office called the Office of Ventures and Innovation. Its purpose is to help us to set some standards and processes for people to take in new technology during our development from commercial industry, and then test and evaluate it, get it funded, get it in workflows and make it a standard operational product.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Part of it is adding that process into the agency, and we\u2019ve been working on that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another part of it is cultural. It\u2019s creating a more inclusive environment for adoption of technology by reminding people it\u2019s not just something that happens in an IT department, but it\u2019s something everybody can take part in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
C4ISRNET<\/i>: What are some of the areas of achievement you see within the space?<\/b><\/p>\n\n\n\n
VINCI<\/b>: I think we\u2019ve set ourselves some hard goals that we\u2019re trying to achieve, especially when we talk about the five-year time frame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For example, we\u2019ve set a goal for ourselves to automate 75 percent of what we currently do within five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I truly believe that agencies across the government need to have CTOs in strong leadership positions for the same reason that companies have adopted them as direct reports to CEOs. You need someone in these agencies that\u2019s thinking about the future, thinking quickly, bringing some of the new ideas from industry, working closely with chief information officers and chief data officers, taking that champion, evangelist approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most importantly, we need to be working together. What I\u2019d like to see in the near future is other CTOs working together the way that CIOs work together on a regular basis within the intelligence community and the DoD.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Chief Technology Officer Anthony Vinci sits down with C4SIRNET reporter Mark Pomerleau to discuss the new role and his priorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":61634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":16,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[106,109,29,16,32],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3268],"class_list":["post-19827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-brief","category-geoint-newsletters","category-home","category-it-networks","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"OPKTXQOAPNHMZPUPKYURWCP63M","arc_canonical_url":"\/it-networks\/2018\/05\/10\/heres-how-one-agency-is-redefining-the-role-of-cto\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n