A Six Month Update on How We’ve Been Using Data, and How it Benefits All Americans

[Commentary] As I’ve had a chance to explore the different areas we’re working on across the government, it’s clear that this is the most data-driven Administration we’ve ever had. So, what does a data-driven government look like? It’s a connected organization that responsibly gathers, processes, leverages, and releases data in a timely fashion to enable transparency, create efficiencies, ensure security, and foster innovation to benefit the nation. Looking across the entire federal government, there is an incredible opportunity to increase our ability to be the most data-driven government in the world. And it starts with the mission of the US Chief Data Scientist: Support the President and the Administration in responsibly unleashing the power of data for the benefit of the American public and maximize the nation’s return on its investment in data. My team is helping federal departments and agencies as they work to ensure: (1) they are using data to benefit all Americans; and (2) they are using the data available responsibly. Good data science and technology must benefit all Americans. A few data projects the administration has been working on in the past half-year:

• The Precision Medicine Initiative, a National Institutes of Health-led program whose mission is tailoring treatment to specific patients, "people’s individual variations in genes, environment and lifestyle," according to NIH.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sharing data about weather and the environment with Google, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon and the Open Cloud Consortium.
• The Police Data Initiative involves a development "sprint" during which volunteers work with law enforcement to build technology to improve community trust and internal accountability. So far, PDI has worked with 26 jurisdictions.

[Dr DJ Patil is the US Chief Data Scientist]