IBM Opens Analytics Center in Washington

IBM opened a new analytics center in Washington on Nov. 10 to focus on the federal market.

This, the sixth of IBM's advanced analytics solution centers, is "dedicated to helping federal agencies and other public-sector organizations extract actionable insights from their data," IBM said in a news release.

IBM also said, "The new IBM Analytics Solution Center in Washington, D.C., will draw on the expertise of more than 400 IBM professionals. These will include IBM researchers, experts in advanced software platforms, and consultants with deep industry knowledge in areas such as transportation, social services, public safety, customs and border management, revenue management, defense, logistics, health care and education. IBM also plans to add an additional 100 professionals, through retraining or new hiring, as demand grows."

"Just as analytics is being widely adopted in corporate America to help companies achieve their business goals, there are almost limitless opportunities for the public sector to improve efficiency, effectiveness and overall performance through analytics," Anne Altman, general manager of IBM Global Public Sector, said in a statement. "This center will enable greater collaboration on projects that leverage data in real time to aid in decision making and enhance citizens' lives."

"The new center will be located in IBM's Institute for Electronic Government ... [and] will serve as the hub for collaboration with federal agencies, academia and other institutions in the Washington Metro Area on analytics projects ranging from transportation and social services to defense logistics and homeland security systems," the IBM release said.

Meanwhile, "Among the analytics projects already under way with government agencies, IBM is working with the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) to modernize the planning, programming, budgeting and execution functions within the command. USSOCOM is the combatant command within the Department of Defense that provides special operations forces to defend the U.S. and its interests. The command also plans and synchronizes operations against terrorist networks. The project consists of the design, development and integration of a Special Operations Resource Business Information System, which speeds access to information for the command," IBM said.

In another example given in the release, "IBM, the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) and MedVirginia developed a first-of-a-kind electronic records exchange system to shave the amount of time [required] to receive medical records from weeks to minutes. In addition, IBM worked with SSA to build a predictive model using text analytics to help identify initial disability applications that are likely quick allowances and helped reduce the amount of time for a favorable initial disability determination on these applications from months to weeks."

In addition to the Washington IBM Analytics Solution Center, the release said, "IBM has opened five other analytics solution centers—in New York, Dallas, Berlin, Beijing and Tokyo."