NTT DATA’s Shamlan Siddiqi on Six Focus Areas of Government IT Modernization

Shamlan Siddiqi, chief technology officer of NTT DATA’s public sector business, has said the federal government should advance information technology modernization in order to meet the needs and expectations of citizens.

Siddiqi wrote in a whitepaper that IT modernization is now a necessity and government agencies should plan for that modernization effort by focusing on six areas: data and intelligence; customer experience; internet of things; intelligent automation; cybersecurity; and IT optimization.

Agencies should harness large amounts of data in order to generate insights and leverage machine learning and other artificial intelligence-related trends to “harness the power of data using pattern matching and classification,” he noted.

Siddiqi also called on agencies to consider several technologies as part of their IoT programs such as sensors; near-field communication and radio frequency identification; low-power networks; event stream or signal processing; and device-level cybersecurity.

He stressed that agencies could improve customer experience through the use of self-service and omnichannel platforms and “sustained engagement of citizens."

“Each customer experience should combine form (desirability), fit (relevance) and function (usability), as these three elements are critical to engaging the citizenry,” he added.