Speakers

Colonel Nathan P. Diller is the Director of AFWERX and the Chief Commercialization Officer for the Department of the Air Force. He leads the strategy and execution of approximately $1 billion per year across the Air Force and Space Force through AFVentures, Spark, Prime, SpaceWERX, the Small Business Innovation Research, and the Small Business Technology Transfer programs.

Col Diller received his commission from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2000. After simultaneous master’s degrees at Harvard and MIT, he attended Euro-NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training and flew F-16s for two Combat Air Force assignments, becoming an instructor pilot. He was selected for the French Test Pilot school and then completed his first test tour at Edwards AFB, supporting B-1, B-2, F-16, F-22 and F-35 flight test and instructing at the Test Pilot School. He served as an Executive Officer to the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board and as a Defense Advanced Research Project Agency Service Chiefs Fellow. Upon completing a program management tour at the Space and Missile Center, he commanded the 586th Flight Test Squadron, supervising classified joint, interagency, and international flight test.

Col Diller attended the Eisenhower School, completing the Senior Acquisition Course and was assigned as the Air and Space Branch Chief in the Joint Staff J8. He then became the Assistant Director of Aeronautics at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and served at the Office of the Secretary of Defense Strategic Capabilities Office and the Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office. Col Diller is a member of the Acquisition Corps and is certified as a Level III Program Manager and Test professional. He is a senior pilot with over 2,700 hours in more than 50 aircraft.

Ms. Gant-Curtis is currently leading the effort to stand up the new VA Office of Information and Technology (OIT) Innovation Unit in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. Through using her extensive leadership and program management experience, gained from over 35 years in the federal government, she is accelerating the implementation of innovations across VA that include breakthrough emerging technologies to improve the lives of Veterans.

Prior to this role, Ms. Gant-Curtis was the information technology program manager with the Department of Defense (DoD) Transition Assistance Program. She represented the DoD and VA IT subworking group chairs on the White House DoD-VA Veterans Employment Initiative Task Force.

Ms. Gant-Curtis has held several positions in the Department of Veterans Affairs. She was an information technology project manager and Deputy Portfolio Program Manager to the former VA Chief Technology Officer, Acting Deputy IT Comptroller for the VA’s centralized IT organization, Director, VA Payroll/HR System, a Manager at the VA Shared Service Center in Topeka, Kansas, and a Fiscal Accounts Supervisor at the Atlanta VA Medical Center.

In 2021, Ms. Gant-Curtis received the VA Under Secretary for Health Robert L. Jesse Award for Excellence in Innovation becoming the first OIT, and non-Veterans Health Administration (VHA), employee to receive this prestigious recognition. She was also selected as FCW and GovExec Federal 100 winner for her achievements with accelerating the adoption of innovative solutions in VA by removing barriers to successful exploration and implementation of emerging technologies.

Ms. Gant-Curtis has a Bachelor of Business Administration and a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Public Administration from Strayer University in Washington DC. She also holds a Masters Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University in Washington DC.

Brian K. Smith brings more than 25 years of professional experience in the public and private sectors to the role of Director of the Department of Performance Management & Innovation for the City of Minneapolis. His background includes non-profit management, county government, for-profit business development, policy consultation, fundraising, business development, lobbying and reform efforts in juvenile justice, human services, health, transportation, and education.

Smith also currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Fortis Capital, a non-profit lending corporation engaged in economic development finance with an emphasis on providing access to debt capital for businesses owned by persons of color and located in marginalized communities.

This May, The Creative Bureaucracy Festival named Smith as one of three of its 2022 The Creative Bureaucracy Festival Award unsung heroes award in Berlin, Germany for his leadership on public safety work. His co-honorees included Mykhailo Federov, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, and Kotchakorn Voraakhom, a Thai landscape architect and urban planner. Smith is also the recipient of Pollen Midwest 50 over 50 award this October for his work on public safety and other system change initiatives 

Before joining the City, Brian owned and served as president of the Institute on Culture and Policy, a policy consulting firm dedicated to eliminating racial and ethnic disparities through systems change and community engagement. While maintaining his leadership role with the Institute on Culture and Policy, Brian also served as the State of Minnesota’s coordinator for the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative for five years.

Gina Obiri (she/her) is a Program Manager in the Department of Performance Management & Innovation (DPMI) at the City of Minneapolis and currently serves on the Minnesota Crime Victims Reparations Board. Since joining DPMI, Gina has been leading the development of unarmed public safety alternatives in Minneapolis, one of which is the new Behavioral Crisis Response that sends teams of mental health providers to emergency mental health 911 calls. A central focus of her work is prioritizing the needs of Black and brown communities who continue to be harmed by systemic racism in government services. Prior to joining the City, Gina worked for the Minnesota Office of Justice Programs and the Saint Paul - Ramsey County Public Health Department. Gina holds a Master of Public Health degree, specializing in policy and administration, from the University of Minnesota and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Carleton College.

Pamela Wright became NARA’s first Chief Innovation Officer in December 2012. She leads staff responsible for agency-wide projects and programs in the following areas: innovation, digitization, web, social media, online description, and online public engagement. Ms. Wright previously served as the agency's Chief Digital Access Strategist (2009–2011), where she pulled together the web, social media, and online catalog staff into an award-winning integrated team for improved online public access, and as the manager of the Archival Research Catalog (2005–2008), where she led staff responsible for developing and implementing policies, processes, systems and standards relating to the description of records. She served as the agency representative to the White House Open Government Working Group from 2010-2017 and serves on advisory boards for the Digital Public Library of America and Library and Archives Canada.

Ms. Wright began her work at the National Archives as an archivist in the Initial Processing and Declassification unit in 2001 and holds undergraduate degrees in history and English from the University of Montana, as well as a graduate certificate in project management from the George Washington University. Prior to her work at the Archives, Ms. Wright was a staff historian for a private consulting firm, conducting research at local, state and federal facilities across the country.

Martin O'Malley served as mayor of Baltimore from 1999 to 2006 and governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015. His data-driven system of performance management for Baltimore, known as Citistat, earned an Innovations in American Government Award.

O'Malley was a Democratic candidate for president in 2016; during his presidential run, Washingtonian magazine called him "probably the best manager in elected office today." During his time in office, he co-chaired mayoral and gubernatorial national task forces on homeland security.

Today O'Malley is a senior adviser on smart governance and also advises a number of technology companies. He lectures widely on topics including climate change, health care, the environment, education and smart cities. He is the author of Smarter Government: How to Govern for Results in the Information Age, published in 2019.

Anil is a technology executive with a record of delivering technology and digital transformation, shaping opportunities bringing alliance partners and firm’s capabilities, and establishing trusted relationships that result in follow on wins. He has 20 years of experience in IT consulting in CPG, Retail, Insurance, Banking, Travel and Transportation, and Public-Sector markets. Anil engages and enables business and IT executives in re-imagining business operations and interactions with customers using digital solutions proven and emerging. He guides clients in developing conceptual and operating models, business cases, and transformation plans and in supporting the clients through implementation efforts.

Michelle Rudnicki serves as the president of NetApp US Public Sector, Inc. In this key leadership role, Michelle is responsible for leading NetApp’s U.S. Public Sector team to achieve strategic, financial, operational, and business objectives as they relate to NetApp's Public Sector customers and channels. She is instrumental in defining and navigating the Public Sector go-to-market strategy and structure and engaging the broader NetApp team with this critical market segment.

Previously, Michelle was the general manager for the sales and delivery of Virtustream’s Public Sector business. In this capacity, she was responsible for setting the strategy and priorities for Virtustream Public Sector, and for working with service delivery and product management to ensure customer success and that cloud services met the security and compliance needs of Public Sector organizations. Michelle led an experienced team to apply proven, repeatable processes to help Public Sector organizations navigate the complexities of a digital transformation.  

Prior to that, Michelle was vice president of Industry Solutions Sales, IBM North America Public Sector. In this role, she and her team worked with Public Sector clients to transform the way that they interacted with their clients, citizens, and patients through the progression of their digital services with the use of technology such as analytics, cognitive computing, mobile, and cloud. Her other roles included: VP for Cloud Computing for IBM Federal and IBM North America where she assisted clients during the early adoption of cloud; VP of IBM Federal Smarter Planet Initiatives where she worked across IBM’s U.S. Federal organization to create solutions in the areas of cloud, analytics, security, Smarter Cities and sustainability; and VP of Systems Technology Sales for IBM Federal where she implemented technology that underpinned applications across Federal Civilian, DoD and Intelligence programs. 

Michelle serves on the board of the YSA. 

She holds a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Rochester.

Aaron Boyd is an award-winning journalist currently serving as senior editor for technology and events at Nextgov. He primarily covers federal government IT contracting and cybersecurity issues affecting both civilian and defense agencies. As a lifelong nerd and policy wonk, he feels right at home covering the intersection of technology and policy in the nation’s capital.

Alisha Powell Gillis is the senior editor at Route Fifty where she is responsible for programming live and online events content, moderating panel discussions, soliciting, editing and writing analytical pieces and overseeing the annual Navigator Awards program. Before joining Route Fifty, Alisha was the director for community impact at the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) where she worked to connect urban public libraries to critical issues in state and local government and led event programming. Prior to ULC, Alisha served the nation's governors for nearly a decade at the National Governors Association where she specialized in homeland security, emergency management and cybersecurity issues. Alisha holds a master's degree in global security studies from Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor's degree in political science from Hofstra University.

Edward Graham is a technology reporter for Nextgov, where he reports on national security technologies and policies, the Department of Veterans Affairs and election security issues. He received his master’s degree in Journalism and Public Affairs from American University in 2016.

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Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of THE NAKED FUTURE: WHAT HAPPENS IN A WORLD THAT ANTICIPATES YOUR EVERY MOVE? (CURRENT, 2014). Previously, Tucker was deputy editor for The Futurist for nine years. Tucker has written about emerging technology in Slate, The Sun, MIT Technology Review, Wilson Quarterly, The American Legion Magazine, BBC News Magazine, Utne Reader, and elsewhere.

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