NASA
The US space agency is part way through a digital transformation that it hopes will thrust it towards the future . Its chief data officer talks about why that matters
NASA is a young federal agency with fewer than 100 birthdays under its belt . That modernity ought to be a launchpad fit for digital transformation . But the organisation that first put a man on the moon and has continued to lead space exploration in the intervening 60-odd years is travelling light when it comes to legacy tech baggage .
Ron Thompson is NASA ’ s chief data officer and deputy digital transformation officer . He explains that , while NASA is a relatively ‘ new ’ agency , many of its operational and organisational models were passed down from existing agencies at its inception . “ The way the agency works is really routing physical paper artifacts , for different activities and a lot of that culture was based around routing mail ,” Thompson explains . “ It ’ s mail codes how the organisations operate and how systems are designed to support the agency ”
It ’ s little surprise then that Thompson is an advocate for changing cultural and workforce norms in order to usher in a digital transformation programme . “ It ’ s really looking at the enterprise and working holistically , finding areas of opportunity to share and breaking down those mail code barriers and the system barriers that were in place based on those mail codes , interoperability is the name of the game .”
The digital transformation team Thompson is part of is “ small but mighty ”, more akin to a university than a big federal agency such as the Department of Defense .