Good morning everyone! Thank you Officer Mouse, Acting District Director Tarango and Acting Field Office Director Enis.

And most of all, thank you to my newly minted, fellow Americans! Our newest citizens, I am honored to be here and share in this special day with all of you.  

I’d like to start with comic book superheroes. All superheroes have an ‘origin story’ which is the back-story that reveals how a character or a group of people came to where they are now. For example, Superman’s origin story is about being an immigrant—from another planet, of course. And let’s not leave out Wonder Woman, she’s also an immigrant. Both came here as outsiders to help fight for peace, justice, and liberty.

The origin story of this country begins with the Native Americans. And now, our shared country is the story of immigrants. For more than 200 years now, we’ve been building our strength as a nation through immigration. Just like a family, as a nation, we’ve had good times and bad. Easier times and harder times. But, through our collective efforts, we have persevered. Thanks to you we will continue to create a diverse nation with a wide variety of ideas, heritage, religion, and even food. 

And there have been questions about the value of immigration. A question of if the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? Every time this has happened, we have decided as a nation that immigration is our superpower. And the results have benefited all of us.

In 2016, Nobel Prizes were given to 6 scientists at American universities, in Chemistry, in Physics, and in Economics. The common thread? All 6 of these scientists were born outside of the United States.

Companies like Intel, YouTube, Google, and Tesla are creating the economy of the future. What do they share? All were founded or co-founded by immigrants. In fact, of the US-based startups that were valued at $1 billion or more in 2016, half were founded or co-founded by immigrants. 

And me. The reason this event is so special for me, is that I’m an immigrant. I was born in New Delhi, India. I immigrated to the United States when I was young. We moved to Boston, where my father was a professor. An immigrant professor who would go on to create a dozen companies. Later in my life, I met the woman who was to be my wife. She too, an immigrant. We have two kids. They are both children of immigrants. And I wouldn’t want to raise them anywhere else. So, this is deeply personal to me.

A little over a year ago, President Obama gave remarks at an event like this. While he is a hard act to follow, he is an excellent act to imitate. I’m going to borrow some of his words here. He said:

The truth is, being an American is hard. Being part of a democratic government is hard. Being a citizen is hard. It is a challenge. It’s supposed to be. There’s no respite from our ideals. All of us are called to live up to our expectations for ourselves -- not just when it’s convenient, but when it’s inconvenient. When it’s tough. When we’re afraid. The tension throughout our history between welcoming or rejecting the stranger, it’s about more than just immigration. It’s about the meaning of America, what kind of country do we want to be. It’s about the capacity of each generation to honor the creed as old as our founding: “E Pluribus Unum” -- that out of many, we are one.

We also have another saying at the White House that comes from our President: #YesWeCan. We say it when things are hard. When things are tough. It’s a rallying cry that we are not scared of the future. That #YesWeCan build the future. 

You have just taken an oath and committed to making this country your home. My nation is now your nation. My children’s nation is now your children’s nation. This is our nation.  You have stepped forward to stand up for the ideals, values, and carry the country forward.  You are each superheroes with your own origin stories. Now, your origin story, my origin story, and the county’s origin story all become our origin story.

Everything we do needs to be infused with the sense of possibility.

When I see the challenges we face, I do not have fear. I have hope. Because I am here, today, with you: fellow citizens with a shared bond forged under the same pledge adding to the rich foundation of this country.  Because together we can.  #YesWeCan. 

Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.

When I was growing up, my friends and I were fortunate to know how to use soldiering irons, circuit boards, and even a bit of duct tape when nothing else worked. We played, experimented, and learned through trial and error. The best part? When I brought my work in, my teachers loved it. And thanks to them it fed my desire to embrace science, engineering, and technology. That learning to play with technology and curiosity has helped me on every step of my journey so far.

That’s why I’m so proud to see people across the country standing up for the innovation and intellectual curiosity that Ahmed has shown.

That includes the President:

Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great.

— President Obama (@POTUS) September 16, 2015

And he's not the only one. Today, Dr. John Holdren -- the President's top science advisor -- reached out to Ahmed and personally invited him to come to join us at the White House Astronomy Night on October 19, where we'll bring together scientists, engineers, and visionaries from astronomy and the space industry, along with students and teachers. They'll share their experiences and spend an evening stargazing from the South Lawn.

We think Ahmed will fit right in.

That's because we think it's really important that kids with a passion for science and technology have the opportunities they need to reach for the stars (sometimes, that's literal). 

It's why the President has prioritized broadening participation in science and technology to a more diverse pool of students.

It's why we host kids from across the country at the White House Science Fair.

It’s why we believe that the National Maker Faire is so important, and why we are a nation of makers.

And it's why we're dedicated to telling the untold stories of some of the brightest minds in our country -- to inspire young people to follow in their footsteps.

Ahmed, you inspire us -- and we can't wait to meet you.

P.S. -- Don’t forget your NASA shirt. I’ll be wearing mine.

And that’s why we want to hear from YOU.

In July, the White House celebrated nine remarkable Champions of Change in Precision Medicine and highlighted the efforts of organizations committed to providing more individuals with easier, more efficient access to their health data.

Hear more about the importance of this initiative from nearly a dozen researchers and advocates here.

Moving precision medicine forward must be a team effort. We need all sectors to work together. We need people to actively engage in research and voluntarily choose to share their data with responsible researchers who are working to understand health and disease. We need healthcare providers to share their insight and help translate new findings into better care. And we need a strong, secure, and nimble infrastructure for health data that protects privacy, ensures security and facilitates new research models. Leaders in healthcare must continue to work with the brightest minds from the technology sector on designing and testing new methods for opening up patient data and allowing individuals to donate their data to research. Over the course of this administration, we’ve seen incredible advances in health technology, including widespread adoption of electronic health records. Yet, there is still more work to do. Too many people are unable to access, share, or move their health data easily.

That’s why we’re looking to a broad range of stakeholders to learn about new or expanded initiatives and programs aimed at enabling new ways to improve health and treat disease – and ways to use this information to inform our precision medicine efforts going forward.

We know of exciting work in each of the key areas listed below, and are looking for additional examples of these types of efforts.  These initiatives could include:

• New approaches for deploying precision medicine into patient care to improve health.
• Exciting new ways to engage patients, participants, and partners in research, and get the word out about PMI, including through the use of novel technologies.
• The deployment of innovative ways of including historically excluded and underserved populations in research.
• The development of robust APIs in electronic health record systems that can support patients accessing their clinical data and donating it for research.
• The creation of workable models of information sharing across organizational boundaries with appropriate privacy and security protections.
• Technology to support the storage and analysis of large amounts of data, with strong security safeguards.
• Novel analytics to help combine diverse data sets with appropriate privacy and security protections to answer precision medicine questions.
• New solutions for security issues in building large research data sets.
• Steps to increase the number of high quality data scientists and technologists working in healthcare.
• The development of grand challenges, competitions, and prizes to foster innovation.

Please share any new activities that support these goals or others that advance precision medicine here by 5 PM ET on September 21, 2015. With support from patients, research participants, researchers, providers, and private sector innovators, we can make precision medicine a reality. We need your creativity, on-the-ground experience, and enthusiasm to realize the promise of delivering individually tailored treatments to patients. Visit the White House Precision Medicine website to share your experience and help with this important initiative. We’re listening.

Stephanie Devaney is Project Manager for the Precision Medicine Initiative.

Share your own story here, or online using the hashtag #ThankATeacher.

I wasn’t a very good student in high school. From being suspended to getting kicked out of my math class, it was a pretty rough ride. But clearly, I ended up doing something right somewhere along the line — and it was thanks to the amazing teachers who went the extra mile for me.

That’s why today — Teacher Appreciation Day — means so much to me.

Because we’ve all had one of those teachers: the ones that know how to look deep into our souls, see that spark of potential, and then nurture that flame.

I was fortunate enough to give a commencement address about one of those teachers who came to my aid — Mr. Knapp — but there are many more.

One of those was my high school physics teacher: Mrs. Minneti. I was an OK student in her class (which is to say that I wasn’t terrible). But she let me hang out in her classroom late in the school day, when I didn’t have much else to do. She was always ready with great insights on how to think about life and the extremely practical nature of what learning meant. You might say she taught me the lessons of science that weren’t in the book. She asked me questions to which I didn’t know the answers — helping me think at a deeper level.

She was my favorite teacher.

One day, Mrs. Minneti asked me if I wanted to borrow some science equipment. It was basic stuff, but it had never occurred to me that I might be able to do my own experiments. I had really gotten into photography and high-speed flash photography — the kind that captured images like drops of water hitting a surface. I decided to see if I could replicate some of those world-famous images. I tried all kids of things and eventually, I was able to build my own lab with the equipment Mrs. Minneti loaned to me.

It took me months, but I was finally able to create the water-drops image (and bear in mind, this was way before digital cameras). It was an incredible feeling of accomplishment. When I showed the image to Mrs. Minneti, her response solidified the confidence that I’d felt. She could have just as easily inadvertently killed the flame by not going the extra mile and helping me — she certainly had a huge volume of work that she had to do, and all the other associated burdens of being an overworked teacher.

Instead, she singlehandedly put me on the track to becoming a scientist.

So today, on Teacher Appreciation Day, I hope you’ll call up your favorite teacher and say thank you. Stop a teacher on their way in and shake their hand and give them a pat on the back.

As for me? Mrs. Minneti, I’m looking forward to giving you a call later today. Thanks for everything you’ve done for me.

There’s lots of talk these days in the tech community about organizations being data-driven.

If you look across all organizations out there, which one has made the biggest change in being data driven? My answer is the U.S. Government. As a data scientist, one thing I can guarantee is that this is the most data-driven President we’ve ever had. Need proof?

This is the President that established Data.gov -- a one stop shop for the data that is produced by the government. And that list of data sets is growing thanks to the President’s Executive Action that made open and machine-readable data the new default for government information. This Administration also created the first set of dashboards at the Federal level to monitor over $70 billion in IT investments. On top of that the President announced in the State of the Union his ambitious plan to bring together big data, data science, and medicine to make precision medicine a reality.

For me, data is deeply personal. When I was a first year graduate student at the University of Maryland, I was interested in studying weather patterns.

Each night I would arrive at the department as everyone was leaving and use every computer to download data from NOAA and the National Weather Service. All night, I would download and process the data and then crash for a few hours before heading to class. 

This went on for months as I tried different ways to process and test the data before patterns began to emerge. That led our research team to discover the weather wasn’t as chaotic as people had believed and that we could improve weather forecasting. Here the thing, if it wasn’t for that open data, none of my research could have taken place. That opportunity literally set the foundation for my career. That work taught me the essential skills to become what we now call a data scientist.

Take a look at the reanalysis of the original NOAA dataset that DJ worked with here.

We have an incredible opportunity to unleash the power of data to create better government, build better services for our citizens, and unlock new economic innovations. Take for example some of the incredible work that the VA is doing in using data to provide better services. Or the potential when we bring NOAA data together with Census data to better understand flood plain impact as populations move. Central to Precision Medicine is data. This promising initiative will leverage advances in genomics, emerging methods for managing and analyzing large data sets while protecting privacy, and health information technology to accelerate biomedical discoveries and save lives.

It’s an honor to have the opportunity to return to public service. But I can’t do it alone. Data science is a team sport. Don’t take my word for it: Listen to the President’s message to the data science community.

If we’re really going to make the world better through data, it’s going to take all of us. So, here’s my call to those of you in the tech and data sectors: We need your help. Come on and join in and help make our country better. Want to know more about what we’re going to be working on? Check out our first memo on this work.

I’d love to hear your ideas and thoughts -- and, if you’re game, if you'd sign up for public service with me, one of the other teams that are recruiting, or the new U.S. Digital Service. To do so, go to whitehouse.gov/USDS.

Dr. DJ Patil is Chief Data Scientist and Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Policy at the White House.

Memorandum: Unleashing the Power of Data to Serve the American People
To: The American People
From: Dr. DJ Patil, Deputy U.S. CTO for Data Policy and Chief Data Scientist
Date: February 20, 2015

Overview: What Is Data Science, and Why Does It Matter?

The data age has arrived. From crowd-sourced product reviews to real-time traffic alerts, “big data” has become a regular part of our daily lives. In 2013, researchers estimated that there were about 4 zettabytes of data worldwide: That’s approximately the total volume of information that would be created if every person in the United States took a digital photo every second of every day for over four months! The vast majority of existing data has been generated in the past few years, and today’s explosive pace of data growth is set to continue. In this setting, data science -- the ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex data sets -- is fundamentally important.

While there is a rich history of companies using data to their competitive advantage, the disproportionate beneficiaries of big data and data science have been Internet technologies like social media, search, and e-commerce. Yet transformative uses of data in other spheres are just around the corner. Precision medicine and other forms of smarter health care delivery, individualized education, and the “Internet of Things” (which refers to devices like cars or thermostats communicating with each other using embedded sensors linked through wired and wireless networks) are just a few of the ways in which innovative data science applications will transform our future.

The Obama administration has embraced the use of data to improve the operation of the U.S. government and the interactions that people have with it. On May 9, 2013, President Obama signed Executive Order 13642, which made open and machine-readable data the new default for government information. Over the past few years, the Administration has launched a number of Open Data Initiatives aimed at scaling up open data efforts across the government, helping make troves of valuable data -- data that taxpayers have already paid for -- easily accessible to anyone. In fact, I used data made available by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to improve numerical methods of weather forecasting as part of my doctoral work. So I know firsthand just how valuable this data can be -- it helped get me through school!

Given the substantial benefits that responsibly and creatively deployed data can provide to us and our nation, it is essential that we work together to push the frontiers of data science. Given the importance this Administration has placed on data, along with the momentum that has been created, now is a unique time to establish a legacy of data supporting the public good. That is why, after a long time in the private sector, I am returning to the federal government as the Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy and Chief Data Scientist.

Organizations are increasingly realizing that in order to maximize their benefit from data, they require dedicated leadership with the relevant skills. Many corporations, local governments, federal agencies, and others have already created such a role, which is usually called the Chief Data Officer (CDO) or the Chief Data Scientist (CDS). The role of an organization’s CDO or CDS is to help their organization acquire, process, and leverage data in a timely fashion to create efficiencies, iterate on and develop new products, and navigate the competitive landscape.

The Role of the First-Ever U.S. Chief Data Scientist

Similarly, my role as the U.S. CDS will be to responsibly source, process, and leverage data in a timely fashion to enable transparency, provide security, and foster innovation for the benefit of the American public, in order to maximize the nation’s return on its investment in data.

So what specifically am I here to do? As I start, I plan to focus on these four activities:

Providing vision on how to provide maximum social return on federal data.

Creating nationwide data policies that enable shared services and forward-leaning practices to advance our nation's leadership in the data age.

Working with agencies to establish best practices for data management and ensure long-term sustainability of databases.

Recruiting and retaining the best minds in data science for public service to address these data science objectives and act as conduits among the government, academia, and industry.

As I work to fulfill these duties across the Administration, I’ll be focusing on several priority areas, including:

Precision medicine. Medical and genomic data provides an incredible opportunity to transition from a “one-size-fits-all” approach to health care towards a truly personalized system, one that takes into account individual differences in people’s genes, environments, and lifestyles in order to optimally prevent and treat disease. We will work through collaborative public and private efforts carried out under the President’s new Precision Medicine Initiative to catalyze a new era of responsible and secure data-based health care.

Usable data products. The President’s Executive Order 13642 on machine-readable data gives us a tremendous opportunity to productively connect unique data sets. The challenge is that open data is necessary, but not always sufficient, to create value and drive innovation. For example, the binary 0s and 1s that allow a computer to generate an MRI are of little use to a patient -- it is the computationally rendered MRI image that communicates the information locked inside of that binary data. We will work to deliver not just raw datasets, but also value-added “data products” that integrate and usefully present information from multiple sources.

Responsible data science. We will work carefully and thoughtfully to ensure data science policy protects privacy and considers societal, ethical, and moral consequences.

Data will continue to transform the way we live and work. I am eager to get started as the first U.S. CDS, and I look forward to providing regular updates on our progress.