PENTAGON CITY, Va. – A top Department of Homeland Security official said the federal government has not adequately tapped into the expertise of technology innovators, an inefficiency that could cost lives.
“Many of you out there are the innovators that we frankly have not effectively tapped into, but we should, the government,” said Bill Bryan, DHS acting under secretary for science and technology.
Bryan told more than 600 technology leaders at the 2018 Digital Transformation Summit that “there are bad actors out there who are going to take these technologies that we developed for the good of mankind and use them for nefarious purposes against us.”
However, Bryan had a solution — — joint innovation by the government and the tech industry.
“Having the right solutions in the hands of the security operators and the decision makers can save time, limit property damage and save lives,” he said.
Bryan pointed to examples like the Assistant for Understanding Data through Reasoning, Extraction and synthesis project as well as the Silicon Valley Innovation Program where multi-cloud software is starting to make resource predictions for first responders.
“We can’t be a burden to industry, we have to be a friend,” he said. “Machine learning and artificial intelligence… can drive efficiencies.”