--- Miami CDO Cheriene Floyd shares how Generative AI is shifting the way cities think about their data.

--- A Chief Data Officer’s role in cities is to turn data into a strategic asset, enabling insights that can be leveraged for resident impact. How is this responsibility changing in the age of generative AI?

--- We’re joined today by Cheriene Floyd to discuss the shift in how CDOs are making data work for their residents. Floyd discusses her path from serving as a strategic planning and performance manager in the City of Miami to becoming the city’s first Chief Data Officer. During her ten years of service as a CDO, she has come to view the role as upholding three key pillars: data governance, analytics, and capacity-building, helping departments connect the dots between disparate datasets to see the bigger picture.

--- As AI changes our relationship to data, it further highlights the adage, “garbage in, garbage out.” Floyd discusses how broad awareness of this truth has manifested in greater buy-in among city staff to leverage data to solve problems, while private sector AI adoption has shifted residents’ expectations when seeking public services. Consequently, the task of shepherding public data becomes even more important, and she offers recommendations from her own experiences to meet these challenges.

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--- How can data storytelling improve health outcomes and save lives? The Lung Health Dashboard offers one example.

--- Today’s episode explores how effective data storytelling connects the public with life-saving research, using the Lung Health Dashboard as an example. This project a collaboration between GovEx and the Johns Hopkins BREATHE Center, which promotes the science and medicine of lung health by interfacing with the community. The dashboard seeks to overcome the challenges of data communication through dynamic, “scrollytelling” visuals to provide research findings to viewers in a relatable perspective.

--- We’re joined by Meredith McCormack, Director of the Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine Division of Johns Hopkins Medicine and Director of the BREATHE Center; Kirsten Koehler, a professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Deputy Director of the BREATHE Center; and Mary Conway Vaughan, Deputy Director of Research and Analytics here at GovEx.

--- Learn more about the BREATHE Center --- View the Lung Health Dashboard --- Learn more about GovEx --- Fill out our listener survey

--- According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, transportation accounts for 28% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. For short trips, flying is much more carbon-intensive than rail or bus travel. At Johns Hopkins, faculty members travel the most of all affiliate types, producing more than double the emissions of administrative employees and staff.

--- The Johns Hopkins University Office of Climate and Sustainability, through its Campus as a Living Lab initiative - a program that supports sustainability innovation - partnered with GovEx to build a tool to help address this problem. Using interactive visualizations with comparable statistics across all Johns Hopkins divisions, users can compare the emissions data of different methods of transportation, enabling them to make more environmentally-friendly choices as they conduct their business.

--- We sit down with four contributors to the project to discuss how the tool was built and how cities can use it as a model to support their own climate change initiatives: Sara Betran de Lis, Director of Research and Analytics at GovEx; Heather Bree, Data Visualization and D3 Developer at GovEx; Debi Denney, Assistant Director of Johns Hopkins Office of Climate & Sustainability; and Rose Weeks, Senior Research Associate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, working with the Campus as a Living Lab Program at the Office of Climate & Sustainability.

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--- The GovExperts is a Data Points mini-series spotlighting the brilliant minds at GovEx who are shaping the future of public sector data work. Today we’re talking to Dr. Bertran de Lis, GovEx’s Director of Research and Analytics, about her path from astrophysics to data science, what it means for cities to adopt a “Data-Driven Culture,” and her groundbreaking work on the Coronavirus Resource Center and the new City Data Explorer.

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--- In this episode, we celebrate Women’s History Month by talking to some of the women who made history by leading the development of the Coronavirus Resource Center, or “CRC.” Launched in January 2020, the CRC became the indispensable source for data about COVID-19 for government officials, academics, journalists, and the public, surpassing 2.5 billion website views before winding down last year.

--- Our history-making guests include: Dr. Lauren Gardner, Alton and Sandra Cleveland Professor in the Department of Civil and Systems Engineering at Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering, Beth Blauer, Associate Vice Provost for Public Sector Innovation at Johns Hopkins University and founder of GovEx, Dr. Sara Bertran de Lis, Director of Research and Analytics at GovEx, and Mary Conway Vaughan, Deputy Director of Research and Analytics at GovEx. --- We discuss the origins and ongoing relevance of public-facing data dashboards like the CRC, look at some of the challenges involved in capturing and reporting public data, and unpack if and how the fact that women led most facets of this project impacted the project. We will also hear about how these women balanced their essential work with the uncertainty and chaos that COVID-19 brought to all of our lives.

--- Learn more at govex.jhu.edu --- Fill out our listener survey!

--- In this episode, we discuss City AI Connect, a global learning community and digital platform for cities to trial and advance the usage of generative artificial intelligence to improve public services.

--- Generative AI, powered by advanced machine learning algorithms, has the potential to analyze vast amounts of data to predict trends, helping cities improve emergency response, mitigate severe weather events, and target resources for infrastructure enhancements. The technologies might also be harnessed to design creative solutions that could transform government delivery by reducing processing delays, eliminating cumbersome paperwork, and expanding multi-language access to reach many more residents with vital, public services.

--- To maximize the potential and expand the availability of generative artificial intelligence learning for local governments, City AI Connect might offer locals officials a single destination to ideate, develop, and test new utilizations with peers across cities. Through social networking features, digital forums, virtual events, and a repository of blueprints and resources, city leaders might have the opportunity to exchange strategies and work with data and technology experts brought together by Bloomberg Philanthropies and the Center for Government Excellence at Johns Hopkins University to accelerate implementation in their city halls.

--- We're joined by Beth Blauer, Associate Vice Provost for Public Sector Innovation at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of GovEx; Mary Conway Vaughan, Deputy Director of Research and Analytics at GovEx; and Denise Reidl, the Chief Innovation Officer for the City of South Bend, Indiana.

--- City AI Connect --- "Gen AI: Get Ready!" Webinar (City AI Connect Members Only) --- Fill out our listener survey!