“The Department of Veterans Affairs has laid out a blueprint for advancing artificial intelligence development through a program of data curation and collaboration between private and public research institutions, presented by AI Director Gil Alterovitz at ACT-IAC’s Artificial Intelligence Automation Forum Tuesday.”
“With the VA’s nascent AI department founded in May 2019 and Alterovitz appointed director just two months later, the agency has already made considerable strides in applying AI to diagnostics and medical care…”
“The collaboration between the VA and DeepMind appears to be a template the VA is intent on following to advance its AI research. Sharing newfound applications of AI and machine learning between the federal government and private sector allows for the consilience of best practices, creating a knowledge base that would be unfeasible were the two spheres to work in isolation, Alterovitz said.”
“There were some initial challenges in fostering private-public collaboration, especially through the availability of viable data sets. This has led to fostering data sharing and curation a priority at the VA, a project that remains an area of ongoing development…”
“The development of AI-able data and test applications have been organized under a program of tech sprints overseen by the VA, a project supported by the recent allocation of a Government Innovation Award…” Read the full article here.
Source: Advancing AI Through Collaborative Sprints at VA – By Adam Patterson, January 29, 2020. GovernmentCIO.
