Jim Garrettson, founder and CEO of Executive Mosaic, presented chief information officer of the Department of Defense (DoD), his second consecutive Wash100 Award as part of the 2020 selection.
Executive Mosaic recognizes Deasy for prioritizing information technology projects that drive DoD's digital modernization and new tech adoption. He secured his 2019 Wash100 Award for promoting and developing artificial intelligence capabilities and spearheading cloud adoption efforts for the department, which have continued heading into 2020.
In October 2019, DoD awarded Microsoft the 10-year, $10B Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing contract, which Deasy said marks a step in the implementation of the department’s digital modernization strategy in support of the National Defense Strategy.
“What’s really unique is the variety of the 14 early adopters allows us to test various principles on JEDI from the tactical edge all the way to the top secret — needing to use the cross-domain,” Deasy said at the AFCEA NOVA Air Force IT Day. “So we’re going to learn fairly quickly what it takes to actually now go from the strategic vision to the ability to stand it up and to bring it to life.”
Along with cloud, cybersecurity and 5G capabilities, Deasy has helped advance artificial intelligence. Calendar year 2019 marks the launch of the Pentagon’s AI strategy, which Deasy said supports every facet of the National Defense Strategy.
He noted the department’s AI strategy focuses on increasing agility and speed and that the performance of AI program will depend on the department’s relationships with external and internal partners. “Interagency, industry, our allies and the academic community will all play a vital role in executing our AI strategy,” he added.
DoD’s Joint AI Center is planning to incorporate algorithmic processing into combat operations as part of its Joint Warfighting initiative. “We are ready to start our first lethality project next year in the joint war fighter targeting space,” Deasy said in an interview in December 2019.
Executive Mosaic congratulates the Pentagon and Dana Deasy for his 2020 Wash100 Award selection. His role with DoD and determination to lead the GovCon sector into the future make Deasy one of the most influential names in the industry.
About Wash100
The Wash100 Award, now in its seventh year, recognizes the most influential executives in the GovCon industry as selected by the Executive Mosaic team in tandem with online nominations from the GovCon community. Representing the best of the private and public sector, the winners demonstrate superior leadership, innovation, reliability, achievement and vision.
Visit the Wash100 site to learn about the other 99 winners of the 2020 Wash100 Award. On the site, you can submit your 10 votes for the GovCon executives of consequence that you believe will have the most significant impact in 2020.
