“The Food and Drug Administration is giving employees a chance to learn data skills through hands-on projects, with less emphasis on traditional classrooms and coursework.”
“The FDA is launching a data modernization action plan focused in part on developing data skills within the existing FDA workforce and recruiting new hires with these in-demand skills.”
“FDA Chief Data Officer Ram Iyer, speaking Oct. 21 at an ACT-IAC event, said the data strategy looks to improve data capacity through “driver projects,” which add value to the agency but also help the workforce develop data skills through these hands-on tasks.”
“’Let’s say an example is a supply chain project: We should deliver the supply chain needs and forecasting for the agency. But we should also take this as an opportunity to improve our master data management, or data cataloging or pulling external data into the system. If you don’t do that, then we are just becoming an episodic organization that maybe just develops use cases and use cases, and then we are not learning anything from that.'”
“The strategy also focuses on data practices, which provide a reusable framework for how the agency should curate, use and share key data sets across multiple projects.”
“The data modernization strategy builds off momentum from a technology modernization plan the FDA launched in September 2019. Last month, the FDA also reorganized its IT, data and cybersecurity office to create the Office of Digital Transformation, which reports directly to the FDA commissioner…” Read the full article here.
Source: FDA takes hands-on approach to upskill workforce under data modernization action plan – By Jory Heckman, October 26, 2021. Federal News Network.
