Data-driven outcomes in public sector workplaces

Good afternoon, everyone. Y'all can respond. It's ok. It looks like we're gonna have a dynamic conversation. I'm gonna start again.

Hi, everyone. Y'all can say, "Hey." Ok, perfect. Glad to have you all here. I am Patricia Cesaire. I lead the inclusion diversity and equity customer engagement efforts here globally at AWS. That essentially means how we go to market, partner and collaborate with customers and our partners around their inclusion, diversity and equity goals, um their vision, their mission and our collective um focus and that can be anything from community engagement to social impact um to thought leadership uh which is why we're here today.

And so excited to introduce you to uh our star panelists today uh who are going to speak about their work across their organization with a customer and sharing insights around success stories specific to um leveraging AWS services. And of course, uh more on their own strategy internally what they do to make their customers um not only understand the value of the work that they do but solve for them.

And so without further ado, I will introduce you to just make sure our slides are working. Um William Lash. Uh, feel free to introduce yourself, Will.

William: Hello everyone. My name is William Lash. I'm a graduate of the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, better known as A&T. I also have a master's in system engineering from George Mason University. I'm a member of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity incorporated. Um, I've ascertained several certifications, pretty much alphabet soup - PMP, CSM, Black Belt, PM, IP, MP. Um TB, M so on and so forth.

Um, I've graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10K Small Business program. Um in addition, actually next week, I'll be going to Harvard University in the um emerging leaders program. So I have two days to go home, pack up and do this all over again. I'm really excited about that.

Um in addition to that, you know, as a CEO, my um focus is really laying out the strategic vision of the company, helping out with um the culture, um the values and how we achieve those business long term goals. And with that being said, and I talk about culture, one of my biggest focus is ensuring that I actually don't call anyone employees but use "team members" because regardless of what your role is, what your title is, you still have to be able to just step in and make sure we get the job done.

So with that being said, I'll turn it over to Jide.

Jide: Thank you, William. Um first of all, it's such a pleasure being here uh today. Um my name is Jide Awe. I am the uh director of technology at Chirality Capital Consulting.

Um a little bit about myself, similar to William. Um actually, where we met, I also attended North Carolina A&T University. I am a computer scientist, um started off as a developer. Um didn't like it this much. Um I transitioned into being a business analyst um doing uh gathering requirements for software development uh projects. Um then it kind of worked my way up to being a, a project manager, program manager. Um and now uh at an executive at a small business consulting firm.

Um so through that time, have about 20 years of experience um through my journey, um I've been able to obtain an MBA from Johns Hopkins uh Carey Business School. Um similar to William alphabet soup here, um uh PMP certified and also AWS certified. I'm a Solution Architect Professional.

Um I've worked both in both private and public sectors um doing enterprise implementations. Um you know, as of late a lot of business transformation and uh digitalization. Um and getting into my role at, at Chirality as director, um I'm focused on laying the foundation for our tech arm. We are focused on identifying the best technology for our staff members as we call team members and also our clients.

Um and also my focus as of recent is AWS strategic initiatives um focusing on cloud migrations, scalable data driven solutions and uh data management and governance. And in addition to all that, you still manage to pull off a very successful double birthday party last week for twins.

Jide: Yes. Um so fun fact about me, I have twins. Uh they just turned nine years old. Um when they were younger, we, I was able to get away with uh doing a party together. Now. they have their very distinct personalities. I have a boy and girl. so I have to do two of everything now.

Um so I did one birthday party at American Doll and then Laser Tag. Um so it was a fun weekend.

I have another fun fact. So as great as he is, I have three children - one third grader, one 12 year old, and one 16 year old. All boys, a lot of energy to say the very least and it's never a dull second. So although his isn't bad, I have to say mine is a little bit more challenging.

Interestingly enough. Um and, and apologies I called uh it's it's William, right? For today's purposes. But interestingly enough, you have uh some, some interesting facts about your name as it relates to your family. You mentioned to me on a call while we were prepping for this session. I just thought it would be noteworthy to share.

William: No, sure. So my father, he was very confident in who he is as a man. Um his name was Willie Lash. Um he named my brother Willie. So that's another Will. Um I named my son William Lash the second just to make things interesting. I have a cousin. I just found out his name is Will Lash.

Um so there are actually 12 William Lashes all throughout the um the east coast. Funny enough, I'm not sure it was in the west, but just on the east coast.

So are there any William Lashes here in the conference at AWS this week that we should also be aware of? I'm looking right now out here. Are, are, are there any anything? Ok. I don't believe so.

Patricia: And I'd love for you to share a little bit more insight before we jump into um the success story with uh one of your core customers, Department of Justice, a little bit more on Chirality um Consulting, the Chirality Capital Consulting specifically.

Um you know, your organizational composition. I'm curious about the name of the origin of it, meaning if it is there is significance there and a bit more about the customers that you serve Jide.

Do you mind? Um I give a little pop quiz, you know what chirality stands for and then I'll go about for the overview of who we are.

Ok. I think I could pass this, this quick exam. And guys let me know if you all think he did a good job or not because I've said this a million times. I really want to make sure he got this slow knot if you understand after this. Ok.

Jide: So the term chirality is actually Greek and it means hand. Um and the term also references uh mirror image. So as you can see, you know, our hands are the same but yet different.

Um at Chirality, uh we strive to get as intimate with our client um understanding their business, um their processes, our processes, excuse me, uh their culture to the point that Chirality and our client are almost indistinguishable.

Patricia: Good job. How do you guys think you did? Ok. All right. It's bonus time guys. So I need to know if he did a good job. All right. All right.

You know, with, with that being said, so um like I said, Chirality Capital Consulting, we've been around for approximately seven years. Uh we focus on three different areas. The initial one being strategy. So we help our clients out with mission vision goals, strategic projects, things of that nature.

The next one is business transformation. So we do anything from PM&O work, project management work, lean six, agile. Uh we even have a couple of DENI contracts that we're dealing with right now. Um the last arm is more um I would say it uh specifically DevOps engineering and of course, data analytics and that's what we're talking about more as we go throughout today.

We are a, a certified we have various contract vehicles. Um, we also have facilities clearance, um uh different, I would say clients are mostly Department of Defense. So anywhere from um, Army Air Force Navy, um, more alphabet soup DHR AD MOCK O US DPNR, that office of the secretary of defense. In addition to that, we also have Department of Transportation. Um, and of course, Department of Justice.

Yep. And so I would love to hear a little bit more about the customer that we're talking about today. Department of Justice. Um JJ walk us a little bit uh through your relationship with the DOJ, we'll, we'll use that for the purposes today. This is the acronym um and what we can better understand about what you were looking to solve for with them.

Sure. So, um in addition to uh my head um as being director of technology, um I also client face um specifically as the, the program manager um for our client uh Department of Justice, um some may know, some may not know but uh the Department of Justice um host or uh retain um federal inmates.

Um uh so as part of that service, uh the Department of Justice is governed by federal law to render medical and behavioral health services to all federal inmates. Um so currently there are about 100 and 50,000 inmates in over 100 and 22 institutions um across the US.

Um uh primary care is provided by staff physicians um and advanced practice by medical professionals um similar to the hospitals and doctors that we use. Um uh this arm of the Department of Justice. Their annual budget is roughly about $1.3 billion.

Um and that's a strong data point there because the magnitude of those costs um where it's continuing to grow per capita on a per capita basis. Um and it has made it a very important uh consideration for congress um where they've been reflecting on the continuous cause, an increase um across the health care industry na nationwide.

Um and I think, yeah, I think that that's about it.

OK. So your customers at the Department of Justice, the DOJ were challenged uh with some specific inefficiencies and it was uh specific to their data integration and collection processes and systems. Would you walk us through those specific challenges and how they impacted their organization, but also the greater community specifically, uh the health care and patient services are absolutely.

Um so not unique to DOJ, I'll kind of speak broadly about um challenges across uh many government agencies. Um they essentially lack decision support, infrastructure, uh decision support, infrastructure, being the ability to uh obtain information um efficiently and quickly and act on that information and make decisions um for the organization.

Um and that's typically across many government agencies. Um governments agencies are naturally decentralized organizations where a lot of the, the departments um don't really speak to each other as efficiently and as effectively um for operational purposes.

Um in addition to that in, in referencing data, um there's this inability to connect operational people and financial data to business outcomes.

Um where, you know, it's really um the focus is really just getting processes completed um and not really focusing on how it's happening or the impact of um some of these results. And then also, you know, referencing moving toward government leaders, they believe the ability to integrate um you know, uh data um and real time information um is one of the main issues that they face, right?

Um and they lack the ability to make these real time decisions. They also do more with, with a limited budget. And as we all know, with covid, um if this also accel accelerated and showed, you know, some of the constraints that, you know, government agencies have.

So i just wanted to kinda lay that that foundation there. Um now moving on to DOJ um and their challenges with data integration and data collection processes.

Um the leadership wanted to know and understand their high cost centers, right? So executives um within DOJ weren't able to confidently uh articulate why costs uh were increasing. So i start with one use case.

Um so as a result of the increased cost for health care services, uh congress requested that the DOJ provide data and information on why these costs were rising.

Um don't laugh at this but this is reality. Um a lot of the information that they needed was actually stored in spreadsheets on local machines. Um and on shared drives, um you would assume at this rate, um you know, this data would be uh integrated to where they can quickly develop a report. But as, but because this data was so uh disparate and it lacked integration, it took them maybe 2 to 3 months before they can actually respond to congress um for their request.

Um so that's one use case. Another use case is um legacy systems um and legacy systems, they lack the ability to integrate.

Um one of the pain points, for example, was their e hr system that they used to uh manage the inmate uh health care records. Um that system lacked integration with um what we call the inmate management system um which uh created silos where you weren't able to see a holistic view of the inmates.

So physicians would only see their health information, but they weren't able to kind of get more of the demographic and behavioral information that would help them or enable them to provide a better diagnosis.

Um so, you know, those were some of the the challenges there. It's interesting and what were some of the? Oh, sorry, i was william, i was curious to know if there, if there were specific um data points around those deficits in terms of the impact on the inmate patient population and and what we should better understand about the conditions that were um a part of those deficits around um their care based on the gap uh with legacy system to actually automating it eventually. Right?

I'm actually gonna take it from a different perspective, guys. Um like i said, i'm not as knowledgeable as my, as my friends are nearly as technical, but i'm, i'm more looking at from the inmates perspective.

Um a lot of times used to people being very reactionary. You think about what happened with covid. Um one of the things that we've seen um is because of them being reactionary, they're not able to actually fully understand how data works across the board or the different challenges that they're actually having.

So by then they may do that and i'm gonna pull some example right now. Um among inmates with uh persistent medical problems, approximately 14% of federal inmates, 20% of state inmates and 60% of local jail inmates did not receive the medical examinations while incarcerated and mind you, that's going from a mental health perspective and medical perspective.

And about two thirds of the prison inmates and less than half of jail inmates who have previously been treated with psychiatric medication had uh was were not able to get the right medication needed for their mental conditions.

So think about that guys, i mean, like, really take time out to think about that, that those are the individuals who are there and then think about what they have to go through, what their families have to go through. If they're fortunate enough to actually re-enter into society, how can we expect them to actually be able to acclimate, you know, a certain way?

So, although, you know, we're looking at it from a data and system perspective, i'm talking about more for the greater good and the greater community. So we will have to take time out to really fix these issues.

One of the things i know we're gonna talk about this later, we try to do as a solution is versus being reactionary. We try to tell them, let's stop refrain, refocus and then instead of being reactionary, um how do we respond? And that's much different.

You know, it's much different as you stated earlier, having spreadsheets everywhere, not even knowing how to capture data correctly across the board. They're just looking at it from that perspective. Our goal and objective is to really make sure that we help our clients understand. Once again, let's stop being so reactionary because it's, it's different than just not receiving your spreadsheet is how do we help out, you know, the the greater community, how do we help out them, their families, you know, just people that are just trying to be re acclimated back into society.

And so once again, guys, i call it the four hours instead of being reactionary, wanna refrain, refocus and respond. All right. So their structural impact you've outlined. Uh quite well. Thank you, William. And there's also of course, the broader impact in terms of what the rising inmate health care costs correlate to specific deficits.

And i would love to better understand what it would have cost. The DOJ um were they not to solve the deficits that you were able to highlight for us um around both their technological um and data challenges specifically?

So walk us through some of these data points that we're looking at here specific to those deficits and then help us better understand uh what it would have cost uh your customer here to not solve for them.

Yeah, so we wanna add some additional context, right? So um i referenced the 1.3 billion budget. Um and as you see here, um between 2009 and 2016, the costs were rising.

Um and as a result, the auditing arm of the government um OIG and GAO uh initiated a study um within uh DOJ to, to really understand why they weren't able to collect the data efficiently and also to understand why the costs were increasing.

Um and the result of this study was very interesting. Um and this is something that they weren't aware of again because the data wasn't, uh data wasn't integrated data silos legacy systems. The inmate population was aging, hence the rise in cost.

So i think as we all aware, as we age, our health in some cases may worsen. Um, and in the, in the case of the inmates, they were being diagnosed with diabetes with cancer. A lot of these core morbidities that, um, require more, uh, uh, direct, um, help from physicians or through medications.

Um, so over time, as again, inmates are getting older, these costs were rising. Um, so that was one of the, the major, um, findings that we had, um, through this study and which actually initiated the work that we came in to do uh for DOJ.

Um um a, a few other things that, you know, would have caused the DOJ if they didn't solve for the des was um the inability to, to detect fraud. So, because all of these processes were manual, um there were times where um physicians would resubmit claims and you have individuals manually going through these claims. You know, there's the, the, the, the, the opportunity for human error.

Um and so, so that's one another, a aspect of it was that they weren't able to launch a co cost avoidance initiatives, right? So when you're starting to see uh patterns, um you tend to try to respond and um and fix those issues, they weren't able to do that.

Um so obviously, as a result, the cost just continue to increase. Um so i, i kind of pause there and see maybe william, you had any additional thoughts on, um you know, what could have happened if you know, d aj doj never, you pretty much summed up.

I think the bigger thing is that we know that throughout all these different things, it still impacts the taxpayer at the end of the day. And that's the thing. We definitely have to make sure that we take a look at. And so that's why we're working so hard for, with our customer to make sure we're able to resolve some of these issues.

Absolutely. So multi multiple layers of inefficiencies, right? Um and, and, and, and you were basically contending with the best way to approach this on a, on a systems and processes level. Um but also you were also uh thinking about ways to really make an impact for the customer and the greater good as you mentioned systemically.

Um and how this affects the broader society that we live in. It, it really resonated with me um when we had this discussion that a lot of what you took on in your mindset and approach um echoed what we believe in um from a leadership principle perspective here at aws.

And so we've got uh several that you might be familiar with here uh at amazon and particularly with chirality. I thought that you took on an approach that we get really excited here at aws around specifically thinking big.

Um we do think that when you think small, you get small results, right? So it's a self fulfilling prophecy, right? But we believe that leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. And i'm really excited to share with you what some of those results look like on behalf of the DOJ um today, thanks to chirality taking on this mindset and making it actionable because they're really impressive results.

But you definitely took on the approach of thinking differently about how to solve for this problem. And you were looking for more than one way to solve for it based on the specific use cases and pain points of the customer does that resonate with you as well. And if so tell me more about your organizational approach, your mindset, the culture at chirality that we should keep in mind when you walk us through some of those win results in a few minutes.

Got you. Yeah, i'll, i'll start it off and then i'll pass it to gay and then i have something to say after that.

Um so here at chirality, we definitely have the mindset, you know, of thinking big uh especially as a small business, you know, that's something that we have to, we have to take on many different arms and we have four different principles

I think that align to that specifically. Um the first one is um always strive for the best. Um never give up. You are responsible to excel, not just equal study, hard, work, hard to reach your goals.

Now, I start up with always strive for the best. Um and anything that we do for our customer, we try to make sure we do the very best at it. Um regardless of what it is and what that means to me is just being flexible. One thing that we talk to our team members about is, hey, would I have to get a cup of coffee or speak to a four star general? I need to be willing to do that, be ready to um to take it to that next level, whatever it is that they need.

Um the next one is never give up. Um I'll say specifically, you know, once again as a small business, that's something that we have to learn, you know. Um I would say we can use the term issues but very reluctant to use that. We just think those are just opportunities, you know, um different child, trust me, small businesses, they come up all the time. We have to think about, ok, what is the best way to go about doing that, you know, don't put any limits on yourself. Let's try to figure out how we can make this happen regardless of what it is. And we always just have to have that mindset until we actually able to ascertain the goals we're looking to do.

Um the next one you're responsible to excel, not just equal um within um I'll say our team members once again, we wanna strive to be the very best, you know, we have to, you know, we have to excel for our customers regardless of what it is and what i tell them is it's on you. It's like we wanna help you become the best version of yourself. That's something we always say. But you have to come to me and tell me what do you need, you know, we're willing to give training or to talk to, but we wanna help you do that. But at the end of the day, it's really up to you. So um whatever it takes to make that happen, i want to do that.

And the last part is like i said, study hard, work hard and reach your goals. Um there's a verse that states um that where there's no vision, the people perish. So we may need to make sure, ok, what is the goal that you wanna ascertain? So we take a time out or take a step back of working with our customers. If you remember the definition that gd said, you know, we're basically the mirror image of them.

Um i've worked for companies in the past where it's just all about, hey, here's this product that we sell. Hey, you need to take this. Whereas now our focus is let's figure out what solution that you all need. How can we be with you all to work in tandem to help resolve whatever issues you all have whatever the the technical solution is, which in this case, which is a very good one with amazon and aws. You know, that's one that we've seen that works out really well with that being said, we have to work in tandem with them to help them reach whatever goal that they have set fit.

Um, i don't know anything. Yeah. So, you know, thanks for the foundation. So based on that, uh, those, those principles that philosophy, um it was my, my job to now apply that to um this project with doj.

Um so in understanding um all the facets of the issue, um rising costs, um lack of ability to quickly respond to congressional inquiries. Um you know, again, data silos, as you guys continue to hear, lack of data integration.

Um uh my, my thought was ok, you know, what is the best solution um that we can provide for, for, for the client? Um and, and having that mindset, you know, we, we thought about or excuse me, ii, i thought about the, the grand vision of what it could look like.

Um and uh with the, with the thought that if we can't get to that and maybe reach a little bit under, it's still gonna be a very uh efficient um and scalable solution, which i'll, i'll get to, um you know, further in, in our, in our discussion. Um but thinking big and aligning with amazon, you know, as, as a partner, um definitely worked well for us given where uh amazon aws was and stood within the uh the industry.

Um and in partnering with them and, and working with the engineers, they really help us uh develop uh if you will a think big uh solution real fast before we jump forward, just digress very quickly. Uh we about thinking big even they'll say as being from the dc area, we see within our football team, you know, to see the commanders, you know, they start off winning, winning six, i believe. But now they're thinking big and, and guys, i truly believe and if you all are with me, they're gonna make it to the super bowl, you know, and they consider you to go down the path that they're going.

So if you are with me, not your head in the agreement here. Ok. Ok. My apologies, sir. Are we to stay focused? Go go ahead patricia. Now, let's see how far this goes. We can discuss this after the session. But i will say is, it's a, it's, it's profound when we see that our partners have an approach that um we are are steadfast on with respect to our customers and that you take it on with yours as well.

So in addition to um you know, your own set of core uh leadership principles and your method, there were some key mechanisms but also solutions that you leverage in terms of aws services. I'd like for you to educate us on how uh you utilize those services how they were deployed on behalf of the customer based on the use cases that you um sort of uh provided for us at the onset of this discussion. So just walk us through this a bit. How did you get uh to those specific results that we're gonna touch on momentarily?

Absolutely. Um so before i, i get to the portion of explaining how we utilize the aws as amazon services, um i, i wanna talk about the approach. So the approach that we had was focusing on, um if you will, the current state um environment, right?

Um looking at uh understanding what they already had in place, right? Kinda like the a is assessment, um looking at their systems, uh you know, and looking at their data sources, i'm looking at uh you know, how their, their staff count.

Um we also conducted a lot of interviews um to really get uh direct feedback from the individuals uh that, that we consider the, the end user. Um so, so kind of going back to, you know, chirality, we really wanted to get intimate with understanding um what the day to day processes were um understanding their pain points.

Um so that i, i, so that we were, we were, we were capable of developing uh a target state um that, you know, was a sustainable and scalable solution. Um we also identified use cases um speaking to leadership and trying to understand, ok, you know, what keeps you up at night? What are the type, what is the type of information and data that you need to make better decisions for the organizations? How do you conduct strategic planning?

Um so, not only from a technical perspective, will we also focus on the functional um perspective? Because, you know, amazon red shift ec2 ebs, those, those are tools um but those tools are only as good as you know, some of the, the processes and the culture um that's within the, the organization.

Um so ultimately, um in looking at their infrastructure um and taking a step back in working with government uh clients, you know, there are a lot of uh constraints um and regulations around how you handle uh government information.

Um there's ppi i um specifically in this case, ph i um my personal health information because of the inmates uh you know, health record. Um you know, we can't just throw it um on the public cloud, you know.

Um so we really had to take a look at their data center. Um and, and see what workloads instances, databases and things of that nature, we could um uh upload into um some, you know, some of these amazon uh solutions.

Um so, let's see, i will start with um two. So ec2 um enabled uh the client to create as many virtual machines as they want it. Um the limitation there was having a physical data center you only have, so much space, you know, obviously, um so helping them leverage to develop or to uh have more space um with uh with their infrastructures and, and their computing um was definitely aaa big win for them.

Um and then moving on to um amazon ebs. So there's a requirement to uh maintain uh health records for up to 15 years. Um so, as you can imagine, doj being around for such a long time, the amount of inmates that were going through um the system, etcetera.

Um they were they incurred extremely large uh large costs uh for their storage. Um so in, in leveraging uh ebs, you know, block storage, um we help them save on their storage costs um where, you know, we'll get to the data point where it it was aaa huge win for them.

Um ebs has strong availability, um strong security compliance and auditing capabilities, um its performance, fast storage. Um it supported data at rest and, and data and transmission. Um also encryption.

Um so, so leveraging uh ebs was, was a huge win. Um so then kind of moving on to red shift. Um that combined with ec2 was a key solution um to help develop the, the data warehouse um for uh for doj um the specific solution there was um they were able to uh create a data warehouse of the costs for the core morbidities.

Um so we also helped them develop dashboards to where they could quickly understand their, their individuals that had diabetes or individuals that had um you know, different forms of cancer. Were those projected costs g day or were they actual costs based on the state of the patient's health care needs?

So it's actually kind of both because we were able to enable predictive analytics with them where they took stock of the current data. Um and then with the analytics engine, it was able to kind of predict uh cost uh moving forward.

Um so kind of go back to the data warehouse. Um we went through the process of deidentify data um because we can't uh put inmates information in the cloud. So we were able to develop a mechanism where there's a local key um that uh was allocated to an inmate and then um that that information was moved to um the database um and was able to tie it back to the inmate.

Um and then again, this was enabling them to have quicker access to information and make uh decisions. Um based on that, like for example, if they're noticing an increased cost or i'm sorry, an increased diagnosis of diabetes, they're not, can project how much insulin they would need to um uh acquire.

Um so, you know, these three a w aws services were, were very key invited in, in enabling um the solution. Um and you know, it, it came very handy especially during covid where the information was needed real time.

Um, it also helped, uh, um feed information for strategic and tactical approaches for the security guards, you know, which prisons has the most cases. Um, uh, what area, you know, um, you know, was in, affected the, you know, the was impacted the most. So with that information, they were not able to deploy their resources much more effectively.

Um versus um uh what we saw when we first came in where none of the data was integrated, none of that information was readily available. Um so just a few examples of how um these aws services impacted um the business real time.

Thanks for outlining that. It's quite a bit of detail. I'm curious to know what the scope of time was um from when you launched the project um to when you deployed the services. And of course, we're gonna get to, when you started to measure the results. Can you give us a better sense of the, this project was initiated um in 2018.

Um so between 2018 and 2021 we were able to fully stand up um and implement a solution. Um so right now, we still support doj um but more from a um operation and maintenance perspective and also, you know, looking at ways to continue to implement enhancements.

Um and also um you know, find other areas um where uh efficiencies could be had. It's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. So i would love to also better understand how you actually were able to measure success.

Um and when you're thinking about this from a, a program management standpoint, i'm sure you have some initial performance metrics that you're tracking would love to better understand that from you.

Um so as you see here, um this was the, the, the, the data point that i was referencing with um their storage cost. Um this was so kind of going back to what we stand for at, at chirality. And i'm sure similar to uh amazon where there's this customer ob ob obsession.

We coming in, we understood that this was a major uh pain point, their storage costs. Um so this is where we put a lot of our attention and work closely with um our amazon uh engineers to really understand how, how we could efficiently and effectively um solve this issue with the constraints that we had around um not being allowed to upload um personal uh pi i uh data um into, into the cloud

William (CEO): Um so, you know, from uh from an implementation standpoint, this solution was um this, this data point um stood out um effectively. Yeah, i, i'll say um i actually look at it from a different perspective. Um i like to at least initially understand what the customer views as good. Um like what are some of the, the challenges that they see? And then what is good in like from their perspective, you know, looking at that taking in, like i said, taking that step back and looking at through that lens, once again, talk about being chirality cairo that mirror image of working with them, you know, from there and actually i wanna hold them accountable as well. So once they define initially what does good look like we start to put different approaches. So once again, whether it is utilizing different process or business transformation um approaches or frameworks, whether that is utilizing aws, you know, the the various um i say um technologies they have, you know, we started to really work with them to understand. Ok. Are we actually moving the needle?

Um for companies i worked with previously, we would make different decks, different products, you know, all these different things and they, they really care about that. No, that didn't make any change whatsoever. So for me, at the end of the day, do we actually make some change now work with the government that can be challenging because i mean, there's different uh for lack of return various types of red tape that you have to deal with. However, i believe once again you're establishing that initial understanding of what good looks like with them and they're able to see progress, not just documents, not just decks, you know, but actually true progress being made. And one of the things that i've, that we've done and it may seem very simplistic guys. You'll be surprised we actually have uh bare men quarterly meetings with them, but just speaking to the customer just listening to them, you know, it was so funny for our dot client and i know we're talking about doj, we, our dot client, we said, hey, can we just talk to you guys? You know, once a month, you know, just understand what challenges you all are dealing with. Hey, are we actually making change? And they said, wow, nobody else has taken the time to do that.

Hey, guys, i'm not a rocket scientist by a long shot. You know, i'm not that smart. Just ask my kids, they'll gladly tell you, you know, but, but something that simple, just listen to your customer and actually taking time out to follow up and meet with them, they help define success. But once again, because lessons learned, i asked them upfront, what do they deem as what good looks like? And therefore i hold them accountable. They hold me accountable and we're working in tandem. Yeah.

GJ: And, and to kind of add to that. Um i remember early early in my career doing performance review time. Um that was the opportunity to receive feedback um from your manager. I, i always was uh kind of went into that session, kind of anxious um thinking, you know, or fearful of, you know, what, what would be said of my performance. Um but then i think at one point in time, a manager noticed, you know, my, my demeanor and um it was a female, she said feedback is a gift. Um and that resonated with me. So, you know, i now incorporate that into how i interact with our client at doj constantly looking for that feedback. Hey, how are we doing? You know, what do you guys think about, you know, the, the, the work that we're doing, are we on the right track?

Um so, and, and kind of going back to the question, i think that's also a way that we measure success, right? Really understanding um how we've cultivated the relationship with our client over a period of time. Um and really using that as a, as a measuring stick um for success. Yes, the metrics and the numbers do matter specifically here, you know, they were glad they were glad they were able to do that for them. But um there's also the intangible um component of um you know, measuring of sex success, excuse me. Um you know, when it comes to uh implementing these um large uh large scale solutions, cutting their costs by almost 50% is also a really strong tangible result as well.

Patricia: So it's interesting, it's not where things were, were left. You also had some additional results um on behalf of the customer, i'd love for you to take us through um the specifics around. Um you know, how it impacted the inmate population that you had mentioned earlier, the specific, uh, systemic and, um, technological results actually had a strong impact on, um, their conditions as well. Take us through that. I'd love to hear from both your perspectives.

GJ: Yeah, absolutely. So, uh, kind of walk us back to, um, the beginning where, uh, the, the costs, uh, were, uh, rising, um, exorbitantly, um, which triggered congress to, um, send in, uh, their auditing arm to, to study and find out what was going on. Um then that triggered us coming in and conducting the um the, the, the study, the work um the as is the, the current state, the target state um uh uh implementation or solution. Um you know, understanding the, the lack of data integration, understanding um the data silos and understanding just um you know, essentially that this is the business needed to be transformed. Um, you know, so, uh and, and i, and i mentioned the timeline, this took about almost 3334 years.

Um you know, taking that phase approach and really um being very meticulous in how we addressed um all the issues. Um uh one of the major pain points again was for our clients specifically was not being able to confidently and effectively respond to con con congressional request. Um so, the decision support um uh solution was, was key to us and which is what's reflected here in this um in this number where um not only do we help leadership, improve their timing in efficiency in responding to um congressional requests. Um we were also able to help the physicians now because their infrastructure was um uh a bit outdated. And there is a lot of uh a lot of legacy systems to, to manage and uh to really understand.

We, we learned another pain point from the physicians was that when they are in front of the inmate. Um for example, they have uh the physicians utilize maybe an ipad or um some of these uh patient management systems. And also the, the e hr um uh they, they, they, they, they complained of just the the sluggishness of the systems and, and the applications. So, you know, in understanding the legacy system and the constraints of the, you know, local data centers and things of that nature, um we really focused on leveraging um the, the cloud infrastructure, specifically ec2 and red shift to really help speed that up.

Um so in, in leveraging those solutions, um you know, the aws regions and, you know, you know, some of the the edge computing capabilities, we were able to uh um incorporate that to improve their uh decision decision support. So this number here, you know, was another highlight for our client where over 50% improvement in being able to respond to uh requests. Um i would say closer to 70%. Can we say that 70% you know, nearly 70% horn too no, it's, it's, it's, it's impressive metric.

Patricia: Um and i, i've come to better understand your organization, but i'd love to have you share william a little bit more about the composition of your teams and how you build a culture um around driving results, but also also of inclusion of wellness. Um and, and help us understand what, how that speaks to results that you deliver on behalf of your customer. And i bring this up specifically because we are integrated human beings and organizations and results don't just come from the work itself. It comes from building um a cultural environment that drives human beings to be motivated to care about causes greater than themselves. Um and then certainly to deliver results, but i'd love to hear your perspective on that as ceo and, and certainly gj if you have thoughts um around how you've been a part of that, right? And how you've been across the team, seeing the this leadership perspective. I'd love to hear from both of you as well.

William: Yeah, um sure. No, that's appreciate that. So, um i started from the company perspective before i was just a number. I just remember, you know, working, working for companies in just a number, you know, no one really cared about who i was. Um even it was to the extent that and i'll just be transparent, someone was being put above me that was not as qualified as i was. And with that being said, i was like, you know what? Although at that point i had two kids, you know, and i said, all right, let me try to go off on my own. Let me see what i can do. And i can tell you i had as much hair as the gentleman right there had initially and then you can see what happens when you start your own business. But i said, i really want to make a difference, you know,

Um i wanna be the person who can make, who can decide, ok, where funding goes, how our approach can be to help out our client to help out our customer. Um how we can actually give back, you know, because we have a uh philanthropic arm as well because i just truly believe that, you know, if you give, it always comes back, guys, i truly believe in that. And so, um you know, just started off, um like i said, gd and myself both went to north carolina a and t together and started pulling, you know, just the people i used to work with in the past and then started coming together and said, ok, hey, here's the vision, you know, like, like i said before, uh where is no vision? The people perish? Like here's where i want us to go. You know, we're a small business now, you know, but we're working with great partners like, like amazon, you know, hopefully we'll be able to continue to grow, but, but here's where i want us to go forward, you know, long term. And as i stated before, how can i help you become the best version of yourself? So i asked each one of our team members, how can we do that? And honestly, i don't hire anybody unless they're willing to be a true team member, not just something that someone writes down, but they're really truly willing to get their, their hands dirty. You know, as i stated before, hey, i have gotten coffee before, you know, i have taken out the trash because we need to hurry to get something done. But i have been over in kuwait and qatar and jordan and spoken to four star generals about the various issues that, you know, that they were having. So just being able to have that mindset and honestly just believing in my people, like for me, you know, as i'm speaking, i'm talking about it, you know, from a strategic standpoint, you know, gay is making sure that we reach the 70% you know, um reduction. I, i'm, i'm not doing that. I will start off, you know, laying out the initial foundation, do the strategy and bring it together. But with having great people around working with you, i realize, like we say, thinking big, there's nothing that you can't ascertain. And so, you know, that's just something, you know, just my belief and like i said, working with you know, patricia, you know, appreciate you guys taking time out of your schedules to be here, but working with great people and being at a conference such as this, i mean, i've learned so much just being here going to different sessions. So, you know, just having that confused mindset to keep learning, keep growing, keep progressing, working with good people. Um you know, and just instilling that, you know, throughout, i just know great things will happen. So, yeah.

GJ: And you know, so i'll take it more so from the team that helped implement the solution. Um you know, this is ad e i session and definitely wanna, you know, plug diversity here. Um so i'm nigerian um nigerian descent. Um we have one of our uh db a s uh is from iran. Um another one of our consultants is vietnamese. Um so, you know, just to name a few. Um but, you know, i think that really lends itself to how we were able to kind of one establish um some common ground where, you know, all come from, you know, immigrant back, immigrant, excuse me, immigrant backgrounds to some degree and kind of have, you know, similar stories and, and how we were raised and some of the challenges we face. So that helped us kind of kind of build that uh team camaraderie. And then secondly, you know, us coming from diverse backgrounds, um you know, obviously lends itself to also have unique ideas um you know, and unique experiences that we were able to bring um to the, to the team where we were brainstorming. Um and really trying to understand, you know, how can we best serve his client. So, you know, diversity also, you know, played a aaa big part in um you know, what we did on the back end um to really develop and, and, and deliver uh this solution um which was obviously credit to doj was also very welcomed as they also promote um a, a diverse uh en environment.

Patricia: Really impressive. I have to say, um i'm aware that this is your first time speaking at re invent. And i want to acknowledge uh that you really took us through a robust and comprehensive success story that speaks to how you approach your customer work with uh strategic diligence. Certainly. Um but a broader mindset around um how to be innovative, how to be inclusive and how to be impactful. So i want to take this moment to acknowledge you both certainly for your leadership and your insights and your expertise. And i will say these gentlemen will be around uh for the next five minutes to answer any questions that you all might have. But i wanted to thank you for your time and engagement here today as well. Um and feel free to reach out to any of us um uh via email or linkedin. Um we are, we are generally as busy as you are but happy to connect. Uh so thanks again for your time today and look forward to connecting with you outside. Uh we'll be right outside this, uh, this room here um for any questions that you might have for the next few minutes. All right. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you all very much, really appreciate it.