Speaker Details
Chief Technologist at Booz Allen Hamilton,
Kathleen Featheringham
Kathleen Featheringham is a Chief Technologist at Booz Allen Hamilton, specializing in analytics and strategy. She is a leader of highly-technical cross-functional teams supporting clients with their transformation and adoption to a data driven organization leveraging artificial intelligence and data science. She is the functional lead of Booz Allen’s industry leading Analytics University which includes the award-winning Data Science Foundational Program. Ms. Featheringham holds a M.S. in Intelligence Analysis from Mercyhurst College and a B.S. in Business Administration from Georgetown University. Additionally, she is a certified Advanced Change Management Practitioner, Georgetown University.
Featheringham’s
Tech Talk
2:20 PM | Track #3
AI Adoption—Understanding the Challenges and Some Practical Solutions
History has shown that society is initially reticent to trust and adopt new technologies (e.g., the steam engine, factory automation, etc.). While organizations are excited about AI’s promise and potential, AI has also sparked this recurring fear of new technologies with feelings of being replaced. Nevertheless, history repeatedly proves that humans can and do adapt as new and transformative technologies are adopted. While most early adopters agree that AI has the potential to transform the workplace over time, there are common adoption challenges that organizations face that developers, designers, engineers, and data scientists should understand. There are many who get so caught up in the hype and eager to realize the benefits that they fail to consider the necessary steps they should take today to prepare for successful adoption. Others are grappling with leadership pressure to deliver against unrealistic expectations. Thinking through these challenges can be overwhelming—it’s important to understand that in addition to the technical challenges the human aspect needs to be understood and planned for to get to successful adoption. Most don’t quite know how to get started. However, there are lessons learned and implementable solutions that can support technical staff to navigate the journey to creating a data driven organization where their solutions are successfully implemented and adding real value.