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Bridging Federal Data for AI-Ready Discovery

We combine mission-focused leadership, a culture of ingenuity, and commercial-grade technology to help agencies move from idea to impact faster — without sacrificing rigor, security, or trust.

Background

Federal data supports public services, national security, economic policy, infrastructure, and scientific research. But relevant information is often spread across systems with different formats, schemas, terminology, and access methods.

Critical minerals illustrate the challenge. Understanding a mineral’s supply chain or local effects may require connecting production and trade data with facility locations, environmental conditions, infrastructure, workforce information, and federal policy. Those sources rarely fit together neatly.

Challenge

Co-led by LMI, the UVA School of Data Science, and the UVA National Security Institute, this challenge asks teams to build a discovery and retrieval capability focused on critical minerals. The capability should help users find, query, and connect public federal data without requiring detailed knowledge of each source’s interface. It should preserve context, provenance, data quality, and limitations, and support analysis that goes beyond an existing search or retrieval application.

Objective

Teams should demonstrate how a system can identify relevant sources, discover their schemas and terminology, translate user questions into source-specific requests, and reconcile differences across data. They should also show how connecting independent sources can support new analysis or decision-making.

Teams may choose a mineral, supply-chain stage, region, or decision problem, along with their data sources, models, tools, and technical approach. Options may include LLMs, AI agents, MCP, knowledge graphs, or conventional data engineering. We are looking for original approaches and capabilities; a focused, working demonstration is encouraged.

Speed to Mission: Delivering Capabilities for Operators in the Field

Delivering real-time, mission-ready capabilities to front line operators enables Department of Homeland Security (DHS) components to outpace emerging risks, strengthen interagency coordination, and turn intelligence into decisive action when timeliness matter most.

The Future of Event Security: Intelligence, Integration, and Impact

National Special Security Events (NSSEs) like the World Cup and Olympics represent more than international spectacle; they are national security priorities where operational success is measured in public safety, efficiency, and international perception.

Illustrative Questions

Which critical-mineral supply chains are most concentrated across extraction, processing, trade, and recycling?

2_ Prioritize high-impact modernization paths.

Choose a small number of mission-critical systems where modernization unlocks mission and efficiency ROI.

3_ Adopt an incremental rollout plan.

Start with quick wins so you can deliver value early and build confidence.

4_ Modernization ends when deployment ends.

Ensure modernization is mission-led and every technical decision has a mission rationale.

5_Invest in people and process.

Training, agile practices, DevSecOps tooling, and cultural change are core to sustainable modernization.

6_ Measure success.

Track KPIs: threat reduction (security), cost savings (efficiency), and mission outcomes (impact).

Making modernization real: technology with a purpose

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Modernization isn’t about chasing the next tool or platform, it’s about evolving faster than the problems you’re solving. The pace of change is relentless. Threats, data, and requirements evolve faster than traditional development cycles can keep up. The answer isn’t a five-year IT overhaul, it’s adopting technology that’s modular, rapid, and easy to update as missions and risks shift.

Four principles separate success from shelfware.

Technology partnerships: leverage, don’t invent

The commercial sector is moving too fast for agencies to reinvent the wheel every time a new capability is needed. Instead, partner with trusted technologists who are solving problems at commercial speed and scale.

Aligning commercial capabilities with government-specific needs allows agencies to move faster without sacrificing rigor. These partnerships accelerate learning curves, reduce duplication, and bring in innovation, while ensuring solutions are fit for federal environments.

Modular tools: evolve with the mission

Modernization shouldn’t mean locking into another generation of legacy. Too often, agencies design bespoke systems that are already outdated by the time they launch. Instead, adopt flexible COTS or near-COTS platforms fit for federal constraints.

Technology needs to be modular and easy to update. Quick wins create momentum, validate impact, and free up resources for the next leap forward, enabling the technology to evolve alongside the mission. Modernization should be treated as a living process, not a “big bang” deployment.

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Deep mission context: center your tech on real operations

Implementing technology for technology’s sake is an expensive mistake. Tools that look brilliant in a demo collapse under real-world conditions if they weren’t built for the mission they’re meant to serve. Every architecture decision, workflow design, or integration point should answer one question: How does this move the mission forward?

True modernization requires domain fluency, and agencies need partners who understand both. Mission operations, constraints, and risk tolerances vary across defense, intelligence, health, and civilian agencies. When modernization is grounded in real-world mission context, it stops being an IT project and becomes a force multiplier.

Cultural and process change: modernization isn’t finished at “go-live”

Technology alone doesn’t guarantee results. Modernization shifts not just systems, but mindsets. Agile methods, continuous delivery, DevSecOps practices, data governance, and workforce upskilling are equally critical. Even the most elegant architecture fails if people revert to old habits.

Sustainable modernization embeds new processes and behaviors across the agency, ensuring capabilities evolve with mission needs and persist after the initial deployment. Consider: If your CIO is the only one driving modernization, it won’t last. Technology alone can’t transform a mission — culture, operations, and leadership alignment must move in lockstep.