ChatGPT Fundamentals and Use Cases 

In this workshop students will learn about ChatGPT to learn how to solve real-world government challenges and improve the citizen experience. The course will cover history, key concepts and the fundamentals of ChatGPT. As this is such a vast topic, following a general overview, the course will specialize in the most common use case applications – perhaps the most relevant and immediately accessible aspect of AI. 

Outline:

·      What is it?

·      What it isn’t?

·      How is it being used today?

·      How will it be used in the future?

·      How can gov’t use it?

·      What are the risks?

·      Cybersecurity concerns?

 

Specific pre-requisites: None 

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Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Fraud Deterrence

In this training program, you’ll learn how AI and machine learning can play a significant role in fighting financial crime by providing advanced tools and techniques for detection, prevention, and investigation. You gain an understanding of several ways AI and machine learning can help in combat fraud.

 

Outline: 

• Fraud detection: How AI algorithms can analyze large volumes of financial data in real-time to identify patterns, anomalies, and suspicious transactions that may indicate fraud. How machine learning models can be trained on historical data to recognize fraudulent patterns and improve accuracy over time by analyzing vast amounts of data, including transaction records, customer information, and external data sources. 

• Risk assessment: How AI-powered systems can assess the risk associated with customers, accounts, or transactions by considering factors such as transaction history, customer behavior, geographic data, and social network analysis.

• Behavior analysis: How AI algorithms can create customer profiles based on their behavior patterns, allowing for the detection of deviations from normal behavior. Unusual activities or deviations can be fraud indicators, and machine learning models can automatically flag such activities for investigation.

• Network analysis: How machine learning algorithms can analyze complex networks of financial transactions to uncover hidden relationships, identify money laundering schemes, and expose criminal networks. By examining transactional data and identifying suspicious connections, AI can assist investigators in tracing illicit activities.

• Regulatory compliance: How AI systems can monitor transactions, identify potential compliance violations, generate reports, and ensure adherence to relevant laws and regulations.

• Cybersecurity: How AI-powered algorithms can enhance cybersecurity measures by detecting and preventing unauthorized access, identifying potential vulnerabilities, and mitigating risks related to cybercrime. Machine learning models can learn from historical cyberattack data and identify emerging threats.

• Investigative support: How AI and machine learning can assist investigators by automating data analysis, conducting link analysis, and providing predictive insights.

 

Technical: Moderate. Students should be comfortable with the basic principles of databases and AI.

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Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) for CX – Customer Experience Improvements.

Learn how AI can transform your customer experience processes.

Constituents are spending more and more time interacting with government across social media, websites, and other online channels.  In this course, you’ll explore ways to take advantage of information about your customer interactions. You’ll learn how to gather customer data and take quick actions based on deeper insights.

 

Outline:

• Practical applications of AI that can support your department’s AI evolution

• Introduction to AI-driven platforms that can optimize the CX.

• How to build the required infrastructure to implement AI within your organization.

• How AI can be used to measure the CX and support the end-to-end customer journey.

• How to leverage and customize existing AI Technology.

 

Technical: Moderate. Students should be comfortable with the basic principles of databases and AI.

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Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Predictive Data Analysis and Root Cause Trend Analysis.  

Learn how AI is being applied to data analytics to allow businesses to understand products they should offer or effective ways to market to their target audience. In 2023, the strategy is clear – the path to innovation combines both AI and data analytics/data science for truly transformative effects.  Learn how AI is being used for Data Analytics, Predictive Analysis, and how to use Machine Language strategies to better understand your data.

 

Outline

• Find new insights: Where the human eye falls short, artificial intelligence can fill in the gaps. Learn how to find insights and patterns in large datasets at scale and at speed. Today, AI-powered tools can answer any questions you have about your website data. It can also recommend actions based on opportunities it finds in your analytics.

• Predict outcomes: With AI systems, you can learn how to use analytics data to predict outcomes and plot successful courses of action. By analyzing data from hundreds of sources, these AI-powered tools can offer predictions about processes or methods that work and those that do not. AI systems can go even further, diving deep into data about your customers and offering predictions about product development, consumer preferences, and marketing channels.

• Unify customer data and analytics: With AI, learn how data can be unified across platforms quickly and effectively, allowing you to view all of your customer data in one place. Learn how AI can unify data across different sources – even hard-to-track ones like call data.

 

Technical: Moderate. Students should be comfortable with the basic principles of databases and AI.

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ITSM Awareness Training

IT Service Management (ITSM) Overview is intended to provide IT executives, managers, and practitioners with an introduction into the practice of ITSM. Increasingly, organizations are expecting their IT providers to focus first and foremost on providing customer value and to conduct their operation according to generally accepted best practices. This session covers the Terminology and concepts of ITSM.

 

Outline:

• What is ITSM, including its history, the various frameworks, and processes

• ITSM Benefits

• ITSM implementation, including organizational challenges, defining practices and processes, and selecting and implementing tools

• ITSM governance and continual improvement

• Common ITSM myths and challenges

Specific pre-requisites: None 

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Understanding IT Governance Overview

This course will provide an understanding of, and an appreciation for good IT Governance. It will also present an approach and methodology for implementing IT Governance in your organization.

 

Outline:

• To convey the importance and benefits of good IT governance

• To provide an overview of IT governance methodologies and frameworks

• To clarify the differences between governance and management, and the relationships between management and governance frameworks

• To refresh your overall knowledge of the ITIL® architecture

• To show the overall relationships between ITIL®, applicable ISO standards, CobiT, COSO, SOX and Lean IT

• To identify the strengths and weaknesses of these disciplines/standards

• To review the basics of ISO 20000, its architecture, and the certification process

• To review the basics of CobiT and its architecture, including CobiT 5

• To identify the potential significance of ISO 38500 to IT governance

• To provide insight into how to plan, develop and deploy IT Service Management and Governance coherently, and demonstrate the significance of an ITSM Practice towards that end

• To provide an understanding of IT Governance prerequisites

• To identify Governance roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities

• To show how a task-driven, evidence-based approach can make governance integral to day-to-day operations.

 

Specific pre-requisites: None 

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Effective Business Process Design 

This course will introduce techniques and methodologies that will enable you to design processes that are robust and meet the requirements of your program. You gain a fundamental understanding of how your work design can be improved for business efficiencies. Learn strategies to overcome bottlenecks with problem-solving techniques to drive strategic process improvement and solve organizational issues.

 

Outline:

• To provide a refresher on Project Management methodologies

• To understand processes and the concept of the Managed Process Environment

• To learn how to Stage for Success

• To learn how to structure the project and build the team.

• How processes are designed using a Straw-model starting point

• To learn how to manage the team and the process design project.

• To learn the techniques of planning and conducting workshops

• To learn how to deal with conflict.

• To learn how to help the team take ownership of the process.

• To learn how to facilitate and administer for optimal effectiveness.

• To how to design a basic process flow.

 

Specific pre-requisites: None 

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Introduction to IoT and Government Use Cases

The Internet of Things is transforming our physical world into a complex and dynamic system of connected devices on an unprecedented scale. Advances in technology are making possible a more widespread adoption of IoT, from pill-shaped micro-cameras that can pinpoint thousands of images within the body, to smart sensors that can assess crop conditions on a farm, to the smart facility devices that are becoming increasingly popular. But what are the building blocks of IoT? And what are the underlying technologies that drive the IoT revolution?

 

Outline:

• Concepts and Definitions of The Internet of Things (IOT).

• History of IOT .

• Requirements, Functionalists and structure of IOT.

• IOT enabling technologies.

• IOT Architecture.

• Major component of IOT(Hardware & Software).

• IOT communication and networking protocols, Role of wired and wireless communication.

• IOT services and applications.

• IOT Standards , Connectivity

• Securing IOT

• Management of IoT 

Specific pre-requisites: None 

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Digital Credentials and Digital Identities

Digital credentials referred to as "digital identity". This isn't the case. Identity verification is just one way that digital credentials can be used. The idea of digital identity is not new, but most discussion about the subject is not actionable or practical. The question is: What level of digital identity do you need to have in order to use certain services? How do we do this in a way that promotes compliance and satisfies the expectations of regulators and law enforcement? Learn the differences between digital identity and credentials in this course and the considerations you need to understand as your department movers to adopt digital credentials with digital identity.

 

Outline:

• Learn about how demand has surfaced to use the mobile devices to replace physical identification cards such as government issued driver’s licenses with a digital equivalent. 

• Review Standards for new digital credentials are emerging that can support both greater individual control of identity attributes and immediate validation with issuing sources. 

• Understand potential for both improved usability and convenience for the end user and stronger assurance in identity for organizations. 

• Understand international standard ISO/IEC 18013-5, use of mobile driver’s licenses (mDL) in attended mode, and ISO/IEC 18013-7, use of mDLs in unattended (online) modes.

• Learn about common frameworks for digital credentialling and identity.

• Learn about federation and orchestration strategies.

 

Technical: Moderate. Students should be comfortable with the basic principles of identity management.

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Blockchain Fundamentals and Use Cases 

In this workshop students will gain hands-on experience actually building a simple Blockchain to solve a business problem for government. Participants will learn the key concepts and theory behind Blockchain, when to use it and when to avoid it, explore examples of existing projects and learn about the different types of Blockchain, the product landscape and how to get started. This will help users learn if Blockchain is right for their department and provide the tools needed to identify use cases and get started with the technology if the right business needs are identified. The workshop will be balanced between theory and the practical and will engage technical and non-technical students. 

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Blockchain is traditionally a very jargon-filled and theory intensive topic. This workshop aims to simplify and be hands-on with exercises (both technical and non-technical) to help solidify key concepts and break down complex topics into easier to understand, bite size modules. 

By the end of the course, students will be able to meet the following objectives: 

• The history of Blockchain: how it came about and why it is important

• The fundamentals of how Blockchain works

• The key benefits of Blockchain

• The potential pitfalls and risks involved in Blockchain

• Understanding the difference between Bitcoin and Blockchain

• Real world applications of Blockchain

• How Blockchain can be leveraged within government

• The Blockchain product landscape including commercial and open-source offerings; and

• How to solve a business challenge using Blockchain 

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Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Fundamentals and Use Cases 

In this workshop students will design, build, test and deploy an AI solution to solve a realworld government challenge and improve the citizen experience. The course will cover history, key concepts and the fundamentals of ML and AI. As this is such a vast topic, following a general overview, the course will specialize in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Chatbot applications – perhaps the most relevant and immediately accessible aspect of AI & ML. 

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AI and ML is a vast jargon-filled and theory intensive topic. This workshop aims to simplify and be hands-on with exercises (both technical and non-technical) to help solidify key concepts and break down complex topics into easier to understand, bite size modules. 

By the end of the course, students will be able to meet the following objectives: 

• Introduction to AI & ML

• Key terms and definitions

• Different classes of solutions

• The key benefits of AI & ML

• The potential pitfalls and risks involved in AI and ML

• Understanding the difference between AI and ML

• Real world applications of AI and ML

• How AI and ML can be leveraged within government

• The AI and ML product landscape including commercial and open-source offerings

• Natural Language Processing (NLP) Introduction and Fundamentals

• Chatbots and Intelligent Assistants

• Cloud Services for AI and ML

• How to solve a business challenge using AI & ML 

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Innovation for Leaders 

This course explores one of the most frequently used buzzwords – ‘innovation’, what it means, why it’s important, and how it can help. During this course, students will learn from several case studies of cutting-edge and game changing projects and ideas in the private and public sector. We will study what made them successful and ‘innovative’ and how these techniques can be applied to students’ current projects and roles. The course also provides hands-on activities including using some of the latest cloud technologies in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (no programming experience required!) to help understand the art of the possible!  

By the end of the course, students will be able to meet the following objectives: 

Outline: 

• Defining Innovation

• Barriers to innovation

• Implementing Innovation – Key Tools

• Knowing what’s possible

• Communicating Innovation

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Intro to Cloud application development & APIs (semi-technical) 

This course covers the fundamentals of cloud computing and how to deploy high-performance, scalable web applications on Microsoft Azure.  

• Students will learn and gain hands-on experience of:

• Cloud APIs

• Natural Language Processing

• Image Processing

• Storage

• Virtual Machines

• Serverless application hosting (Web Apps)

• Function applications (Function Apps)

• Low / no-code alternatives (Logic Apps)

• Database hosting

• Cognitive Search

Students will also receive overviews of comparable services on Amazon’s AWS and Google Cloud Platform, where applicable. 

Specific pre-requisites: None 

Technical: Moderate. Students should have a basic understanding of web services and a conceptual understanding of an API. A coding background is not required. 

 

Low code/No code automation and application design, development and implementation (semi-technical) 

This course covers the latest advances in low or no-code application development using the power of Cloud computing apps. Students will learn the power of modular application development that does not require any software license or special tools and is instead pay-per-execution. Students will build real-world, no/low-code executable applications through guided exercises and hands-on labs. 

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Specific pre-requisites: None 

Technical: Moderate. Students should have a basic understanding of web services and a conceptual understanding of an API. A coding background is not required. 

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Advanced Natural Language Processing (technical) 

This course goes beyond the basics of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and will teach students how to leverage Cloud Machine Learning APIs and services to: 

• Analyze and categorize text and documents

• Build a working, more advanced Chatbot

• Build custom word clouds and other analytics from unstructured documents

Students will learn through a series of guided activities and hands-on labs with a focus on building real, working results. 

Specific pre-requisites: GitHub account, a code editor (e.g. Visual Studio Code), an API tool such as Postman. 

Technical: High. Students should be comfortable with web application development (e.g. consuming APIs) in either Node.js, Python, .NET or alternative. 

 

Advanced Document Processing and Automation (technical) 

This course goes beyond the basics of document and image classification and will teach students how to leverage Cloud Machine Learning APIs and services to: 

• Build a custom Machine-learning model for a set of specific forms and documents

• Explore models and application frameworks for verifying supporting documents

• Use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to further improve and enhance automation

Students will learn through a series of guided activities and hands-on labs with a focus on building real, working results. 

Specific pre-requisites: GitHub account, a code editor (e.g. Visual Studio Code), an API tool such as Postman. 

Technical: High. Students should be comfortable with web application development (e.g. consuming APIs) in either Node.js, Python, .NET or alternative. 

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Robotic Process Automation Fundamentals and Use Cases (semi-technical) 

This course introduces key concepts of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and where RPA is being used right now in California government and beyond and explores other relevant use cases. During this course, students will solve real-world problems by building working RPA flows through a series of guided exercises and hands-on labs. The course will also explore where Cloud APIs such as Natural Language Processing and Image Processing can be used to further enhance and improve RPA flows. 

The primary platforms used will be Power Automate (licenses will be provided for use on the course) but the course will also inform the students of alternatives where applicable. 

Specific pre-requisites: GitHub account, a code editor (e.g. Visual Studio Code), an API tool such as Postman. 

Technical: High. Students should be comfortable with web application development (e.g. consuming APIs) in either Node.js, Python, .NET or alternative. 

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Digital Credentials and Smart Contracts on the Blockchain for Government (semitechnical) 

This course explores advanced Blockchain concepts and Smart Contract development on the Ethereum Network using Solidity. It will also cover the Blockcerts open standard for issuing and verifying credentials using the Blockchain.  In this course, students will: 

• Issue real-world, verifiable credentials to themselves and others

• Create and deploy several Smart Contracts including an identity verification contract, a voting contract and a payment contract

Specific pre-requisites: None 

Technical: Moderate. Students should be comfortable with the basic principles of logic and programming and Blockchain (a refresher of the basics will be provided). Knowledge of JavaScript is not required but very helpful.