When GDIT released Seeds of Change, our first-ever research study on emerging technology in government, we were thrilled at the eager participation of more than 425 agency leaders who, together, helped us present a panoramic view of the current state and future direction of technology adoption across the U.S. Federal government.

As the report took shape and was published it was exciting to see the reception it received from leaders across federal agencies. In this video a couple of those leaders joined us to talk about their agencies embrace of emerging technologies, Dimitri Kusnezov, Ph.D, Under Secretary for the Science and Technology Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security, and Spence Spencer, System Configuration & Delivery Automation Division at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

“Emerging technologies are at a remarkable point in time, and it’s not just one thing; we have dozens of things happening simultaneously,” Kusnezov said. “These collections of things provide both remarkable opportunity but also give you pause in terms of how we think about protecting the homeland, our people, and our values in the context of a world changing so fast.”

He’s right. The increasing pace of change, combined with the convergence of new technologies that actually accelerate one another, makes this an exceptional period of time, and gives agencies much to consider and plan for when it comes to adopting these technologies and creating cultures and workplaces that can embrace and use them.

On that point in particular, Spence pointed out the importance of culture in technology implementations saying, “I would say the culture is the most important facet of emerging tech … If you think back to March 2020, as one example, overnight we went from being prohibited from teleworking to being told we had to telework. It was 19 months before I saw the inside of my office again, but the team adapted quickly, and we didn’t miss a step.”

He went on to talk about cultivating culture during that time and how those lessons learned are helping ease new technology implementations and driving flexibility and agility across teams.

Check out more of what these leaders had to say – on culture, implementation, priorities and evaluating emerging technologies.