The Role of Open Source Information in U.S. National Security

When: Thursday, March 21, 7:30pm (Social time begins at 7:00pm)

Where: Skidaway Community Church, 50 Diamond Causeway

Kristin Wood, Former Fellow on the Intelligence Project at Harvard University Kennedy School Belfer Center and former Chief of Innovation and Technology at the CIA Open Source Center

With enormous amounts of data commercially available today, it’s not just the intelligence community that has access to information that can be vital to our national security.   Information about what governments and private individuals are doing is in the hands of private companies via satellites and social media, and it is growing.  Could effective use of such data help make us more secure?  Should our government have an entity to evaluate this “open-source data” to inform our decision making on national security issues?  What should be the relationship between government and the private sector when it comes to the information that is gathered?  How can key data be protected?  One of America’s leading and most thoughtful experts on these crucial questions, Kristin Wood, will help us decipher the issues and will offer recommendations.  A 20-year veteran of the CIA, recent fellow at Harvard University and now the CEO of her own tech startup, Kristin will provide her insights on using private sector open and commercial data to help meet our country’s international challenges.