theDifference

Yesterday, the CDAO concluded its RAI in Defense Forum at the Hyatt Regency in Reston, VA. The 3-day event, held October 28-30, brought together defense leaders, AI experts, policymakers, and global innovators to focus on Responsible AI (RAI) advancements aligned with U.S. values and international partnerships. Anchored by CDAO Radha Plumb’s inspiring kickoff and a rousing recorded address by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, the invitation-only conference featured workshops, plenary sessions, and numerous networking opportunities for engagement and collaboration. The CDAO is pleased to have hosted this pivotal gathering. Learn more about the RAI in Defense Forum and the DoD’s efforts to examine RAI in the context of international military cooperation:

We’re building on great momentum following last week’s Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) in Dayton, OH, with the DAF Digital Transformation Office (DTO), the Digital Acceleration Task Force (DATF), and our partners at theDifference. This two-day session was packed with collaborative discussions, forward-looking planning, and even an opportunity to build DMM-themed board games! A huge thank you to the DTO, DATF, and theDifference teams for their enthusiasm and commitment. We’re excited to continue working together to drive digital transformation and innovation forward. #DTO #DigitalTransformation #Innovation

Sometimes it's hard to make clear and intelligible what "exactly" we do when facilitating. What is so different in the processes and tools we use. Why is it so powerful and fun to work together in a collaborative way meanwhile achieving excellent results. How and when to integrate AI tools in this process... Aligning stakeholders around supply chain improvements and the development of global goods and guidance and cohesive technical assistance. Thanks for the opportunity to work with you guys!! theDifference Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance Betty Dhamers

Last week we had the pleasure of running the Mercury Project Solutions Summit at the University of Nairobi. Amazing to see a group of ~100 behavioral scientists and practitioners collaborating to merge research with real-world opportunities to drive vaccination coverage. Highlights for theDifference team included integrating Kenyan students onto our facilitation team, developing and utilizing an AI Chatbot to accelerate understanding of key research, and learning from the discussion between Deepa Risal Pokharel Abdul El-Sayed, MD, DPhil Viknesh Sounderajah and Gerry Gimaiyo from The Rockefeller Foundation. There's no silver bullet, but making the space for some of the smartest researchers in the world to wrestle these problems alongside implementers, program designers, and health communicators is a promising way to advance the field. It's a true honor to be in service to these efforts. Thank you to Heather Elisabeth Lanthorn and everyone from Social Science Research Council and Institute for Development Studies-UoN for hosting us. Tessa Manahan, great agenda design leadership. Anyone interested in knowing more about how the scenarios were designed, the convening was run, or the AI bot was developed and integrated, please reach out directly. Happy to share. Fantastic work taking place through the #MercuryProject here: https://lnkd.in/e-G72TGi

This is clearly THE most exciting time to be a Knowledge Worker. Here's why I believe this to be true, and why we're moving quickly at theDifference to leverage digital tools that enable us to generate greater impact.

What an incredible experience at the Home Base Inaugural Brain Health Summit: Promoting HealthSpan through Collaboration and Innovation. We’ve been sifting through so many fantastic photos and can’t wait to share them soon. The feedback has been phenomenal—some attendees said it was the best summit they’d ever been to! Highlights included: - TED Talk style presentations - Engaging whiteboard sessions - Dynamic MC theDifference - Industry partner involvement - Unmatched networking opportunities (many made more connections in 2 days than in 2 years!) We also explored the exciting future of digital health, with artificial intelligence already driving groundbreaking collaborations. This summit is just the beginning—the real work starts now! A huge thank you to the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, Wounded Warrior Project, and Axsome Therapeutics, Inc. for their support in making this event a reality. We can’t wait for Brain Health Summit 2.0! Thank you to the Bunker Hill Pipe Band, Boston Fire Department Color Guard, and SPC Amy Fichera from the 215th Army Band of Massachusetts Army National Guard. Thank you to Rawle Andrews Jr., Esq. Amy Porfiri Angela Jones Maureen Van Niel, MD, Ruth Scott Erin Fletcher, PsyD John Eaton Ashley Ross Sharon Sturiano Rocco Maurizio Fava Jordan Smoller Jack Hammond Ross Zafonte Joe Bonvie, PsyD, ABPP, CMPC Brian Kehner Tom Kehner Nicholas Vandre Eric Goralnick, MD, MS Frank Larkin and many others for the resounding success of the Summit. #BrainHealth #Collaboration #Innovation #DigitalHealth #AI #Veterans #MilitaryHealth #HomeBase #MilitaryMedicine #VeteranHealth #HealthSpan

theDifference is proud to have supported the AI Cyber Challenge Semifinal Competition experience at DEF CON 32. We had the privilege of working closely with the DARPA and ARPA-H teams as well as our partners at Kudu Dynamics, Tag Team Productions and Gag Lag and the many other amazing teams involved. Together, we created a vision and then developed and built it into an immersive, interactive competition environment. By our count, well over 14,000 people went through our experience. They had rich discussions with our many docents and interacted with the hours and reams of educational content and competition information. They engaged heavily with our interactive stories that highlighted the stakes of advancing cybersecurity tools to operate at the scale required to secure our critical infrastructure. It was a pleasure to bring the experience to DEF CON 32, and we are so grateful for the collaboration and flexibility from their core team and amazing volunteers! Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), Kudu Dynamics LLC, Strategic Engineering Solutions, Cromulence, The Linux Foundation, Undaunted Development LLC, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Rhapsode Consulting LLC, DEF CON, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, theDifference, Systems Planning & Analysis, Blue Sky Innovators

SpaceWERX never fails to fill a room with some of the best minds in #defensetech! It was a great week discussing satellites 🛰️ and sustainable space maneuvers (SSM) at THE BR-DGE in LA. Another example of productive collaboration between government, industry, and academia as we look forward to the launch of the SSM Challenge! AFWERX Collaboration.Ai theDifference