Aneesh Chopra

The exponential growth of data throughout the economy holds both promise and peril. As the first U.S. chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra played a pivotal role in the government’s decision to open up more data for commercial use, regulate interoperability standards to boost competition, and invest in breakthrough technologies to address the growing cybersecurity threat. While seemingly at odds—reaping the economic benefits of open collaboration while minimizing the risks of cyber-attacks—Chopra worked to advance technical and business model solutions to meet these challenges through an open innovation strategy.

Drawing on his expertise balancing the economic benefits of greater collaboration with the potential costs of rising cybersecurity threats, Chopra:

• Informs organizations how to advance their own growth strategies
• Shares ideas on how the private sector and government can work together in order to identify common threats, without undermining privacy
• Addresses the current challenges in our legal framework and the options available to mitigate cybersecurity threats
• Identifies what each individual and organization can do to make our networks more secure and reliable while reaping the economic gains from the greater use of data

From President Obama’s first full day in office to President Trump’s new Office of American Innovation, the United States has directed resources to foster a more open, innovative government. Aneesh Chopra served as the nation’s first chief technology officer and his legacy of private-sector collaboration, including his work with health and workforce data, continues to offer growth opportunities throughout the economy. His 2014 book, Innovative State: How New Technologies Can Transform Government, describes the “impatient convening” role that government should play: opening up data and encouraging its use, convening the private sector in the design and adoption of standards, and fostering an ecosystem of entrepreneurs and innovators to join in solving problems.

In this enlightening presentation, Chopra explores:

• Future possibilities for data innovation to improve key growth markets, including health care, energy, and education
• How public data and private-sector analytic techniques can improve matchmaking between employers, job seekers, and training programs
• Insights on how organizations can apply similar approaches to develop new products and deploy innovative services to meet growing customer demands

As the debate over the future of the Affordable Care Act rages in Washington, one set of reforms continues unabated: the movement to transform the way we deliver health care. As the first U.S. chief technology officer, Aneesh Chopra worked to align payment reform with advances in health IT and to shift to open more government-held health data—changes that are ushering in a golden era of IT-fueled care delivery innovation.

In this presentation, Chopra:

• Reviews recent efforts to open up data across electronic health records, payers, and the government to foster a growing ecosystem of tech-enabled services that are tackling waste and boosting care quality
• Explains how these efforts have helped consumers take a more active role in navigating the health-care delivery system and making better decisions at each step of their care journey
• Offers health-care organizations a pragmatic path to building the necessary foundation for organizing, enriching, and (securely) sharing patient health data, including taking full advantage of the emerging “health internet”
• Identifies the efforts worth advancing even in this period of policy uncertainty

From large-scale breaches that expose sensitive customer data, to AI-powered algorithms that discriminate how they are served, or business models that target them based on information they did not authorize for use, board members are raising important governance questions to balance growth and responsibility. This conversation will focus on how to maximize the value of “big data” while protecting customer privacy, securing customer data, and establishing ethical guardrails to instill trust in the wake of FB/Cambridge Analytica absent regulatory certainty.