Page 32 - FCW, November, December 2018

Public Sector Innovations
PROJECT: Human Capital IT Modernization
Office of Personnel Management
Eyeing a workforce
management future
The government’s approach to workforce management has been stuck in the past, which exacerbates an already cumbersome hiring process and makes it difficult for talented individuals to transition in and
out of government jobs. But the Office of Personnel Management’s Human Resources Line of Business is working to change that.
OPM is developing a software-as-a- service talent management solution and
an employee digital record that promise to improve agencies’ use of analytics, artificial intelligence and robotic process automation to better manage their workforces.
The SaaS tool will establish a federal integrated business framework that will create federal data standards and ultimately a human capital data exchange.
The employee digital record will form the basis of a single, secure data exchange among agencies in a cloud-based environment. The goal is to make all agencies’ employee data consistent and interoperable from the first stages of the hiring process until an employee leaves the government. Agencies will be able to analyze performance metrics, planning and trend data to aid in their decision- making.
Together, those efforts can help the government more cohesively manage its workforce.
PROJECT: Intelligent Grants Automation
Department of Health and Human Services
Turning to machine learning
for better ROI
To ensure that the $770 billion in grant money that federal agencies distribute each year is put to good use, GrantSolutions.gov
is replacing manual processes with machine learning and artificial intelligence.
An automation tool on the Department of Health and Human Services website
now brings together data from multiple sources so that agencies can decide where to invest their grant money. The site uses
a series of machine learning algorithms to analyze and identify patterns that can help predict potential behaviors and outcomes. For example, it might show, with 96 percent accuracy, that an applicant will have negative financial audit findings in the next year.
The tool synthesizes what could be hundreds of pages of information into a paragraph-long summary, said Michael Curtis, GrantSolutions’ executive director. And it can flag applications that require more in-depth review by a human analyst. As a result, a federal grant-maker can decide whether to proceed with an award at a glance.
“We want to know [whether we are] getting the output that we needed from those grants and [whether] those outputs are delivering the outcomes we want,” Curtis said. “Because 1,500 programs partner with us, the AI gives us insight into which programs are delivering the output and then [whether they are] delivering the tactical, economic savings and the strategic impact, such as saving lives.”
Without the use of AI, it would take grant- makers weeks to compile the information they need to decide on awards, said David Martens, GrantSolutions’ director of strategic initiatives.
“When they’re doing tens of thousands of these grant investments a year, they don’t really have that kind of time,” he said. “So they have two choices: They can spend a
lot of time trying to gather the information, which means other grants they’re working on don’t get the attention, or they don’t spend the time and they end up making an investment in a place that may not be the right place.”
He added that “this is where machine learning is really an assistive tool for humans.”
PROJECT: International Trade Blockchain Proof of Concept Customs and Border Protection
A better way to track trade?
Customs and Border Protection is looking for more efficient ways to track goods coming into the United States, and blockchain
could be part of the answer. During a live three-week test in September, CBP officials saw firsthand how the distributed ledger technology could improve the certificate process for goods coming in via North American Free Trade Agreement and Central America Free Trade Agreement partners.
The proof of concept was developed with CBP’s trade partners on the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee. Through the NAFTA and CAFTA agreements, partners have agreed to supply certificate data upfront. That information is then compared to CBP’s legacy system and a separate blockchain-based system designed by the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate.
“With the proof of concept, we are not just checking if the system works,” said Vincent Annunziato, director of CBP’s Business Transformation and Innovation Division. “We are looking at a complete legal, regulatory, technical and operational framework that needs to be put around moving into this new technology.”
A key consideration is interoperability. The companies involved use different types of software for blockchain implementations, so the project is testing how the frameworks communicate with one another.
Annunziato said blockchain technology could reduce the need for documentation requests and cut down on the amount of direct communication. However, “this is just initial testing to determine if it works and if blockchain is useful,” he added. “We need to have specific use cases that work properly with the technology before you start investing in it.”
32 November/December 2018 FCW.COM