This post is based on an interview with Dr. David Bray. It is part of our series of interviews of OODA Network members. Our objective with these interviews is to provide actionable information of interest to the community, including insights that can help with your own career progression. We also really like highlighting some of the great people that make our continued research and reporting possible.  For the full series see: OODA Expert Network Bio Series.

 Career Progression:  David is the son of a Methodist Minister and a schoolteacher.   He remembers as a child getting the same exact birthday card several years in a row.  It featured a picture of a kid dancing around the lawn with a sprinkler on his head.  The text read: “Son, we have no idea what you are doing, but we are proud of you anyways!!”  He did a great job living up to this early reputation.

When he was a child, his grandfather gave the family a computer.  David loved taking it apart and seeing how it worked.  He taught himself Basic and Assembly and started to realize the power of computer simulations.  During High School, David found some amazing opportunities to practice his craft working on environmental problems. He did a project for the Department of Energy building computer simulations about quarks and how electrons move around. The Navy flew him to the Sea of Cortez to build a simulation on hydrothermal vents, plate tectonics and their impacts on earthquakes in California.  The Institute of Defense Analysis had him build a simulation on how to predict the path of forest fires using wind and foliage data.  Not your typical kid!

He didn’t “normal out” at college, either!  While attending Emory University, he built a simulation on the spread of HIV/AIDS.  The University sent him to Cape Town, South Africa to write an article for the College Newsletter.   They were hoping he would highlight African sports or education.  David had another focus:  he wanted to talk about the dramatic influx of HIV/AIDS, an unintended consequence of the recently acquired apartheid. He saw first-hand how important accurate information could be.  He decided to take a break from his studies and spent the next three years as a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity International, funded by short term simulation projects.  David recommends that all young people take some time off to think about what they want to do: “Pick something, anything!  Step out of the world you are currently in to learn about greater humanity and our shared common identity”.

Because of his experience creating powerful simulations, David early on understood that the “physical world” and the “cyber world” couldn’t be separated.  He says “Humans, the communities they live in, and the coding that describes them, are all co-mingled.”  David took a job working for the Bioterrorism Unit at the Center for Disease Control. He was supposed to present an inter-agency briefing on September 11^th in D.C., which was obviously cancelled.  His unit doubled in size as it took on new threats, including Anthrax, SARS and West Nile Virus. Simulations morphed into algorithms with real-time feeds.  He created models that scoured available data to find global intelligence that could give them a heads up on epidemics.

A mentor told him that to do the type of work he wanted, he needed additional credentials.  He should either obtain a Flag Officer Rank or a PhD. He went back to Emory University and completed his PhD in Information Systems in three years. He describes advanced education as “being broken down and rebuilt in the image of the educational institution.  My brain was completely rewired.   I learned how to process large amounts of data quickly.”

David did post-PhD work with MIT on collective intelligence.  He considers this the third wave of artificial intelligence.  David says: “AI doesn’t replace the human.  It is a duality, blending the worlds between digital and human.”   He spent some time with Harvard University looking at new forms of Leadership needed for a 21^st Century.  David notes “Top-down leadership works well when the organization isn’t rapidly changing.  For a dynamic organization, a ‘team-of-teams’ approach is needed.  Today’s leaders will need to have the ability to look at feedback loops and complex problems with an eye for seeing past the status-quo.”  David used these insights when he worked for the Director of National Intelligence, challenging assumptions and offering alternative options to complex problems.

As a Senior Executive for the Federal Communications Commission, David transformed their expansive collection of budget sapping legacy systems (many invented in the mid-1900s!).  Applying his understanding of leadership in a dynamic world, he moved many things off premise or to cloud services, reducing the overall budget by 30%.

Today, David loves working with Vint Cert as the Executive Director for People Centered Internet .  This international coalition works to develop and lead community projects that make the internet a “global force for good”.   He also really enjoys teaching courses and speaking at events through Singularity University.

Surprises:  David’s father was a Methodist Minister who specialized in healing fragmented churches.  He’s surprised to find himself doing the same type of work: helping people and organizations incorporate the internet in a way that brings the people, groups, organizations together for the global good.

Advice for Decision Makers:  David wants all leaders to “Recognize we are in unprecedented times.  The amount of data that will be generated (through the IoT) in the next five years will be mind boggling.   We will have 10X the number of network devices than the number of humans.  There is no textbook to help us predict the impact on our society.  Everything can be rewritten as good news or as bad news.  We need to think carefully about what we want to hold on to, and what we want to let go.”

Security Improvements: “We increasingly understand that many cybersecurity challenges come back to humans (ex: Phishing emails).”  David says.  “It’s a good thing that we are building more technologies that recognize humans are a challenge.”

Risks in The Near Future: “People may look back at where we are now and discover we were in the middle of a cognitive cold war.” David says.  “We think we understand where the polarization comes from.  But there are forces trying to demonstrate that 1. Open societies are easier to divide than autocracies., and 2.  Activities to respond makes us more like the autocracies.”

Technology of Interest:  David is interested in augmented intelligence: the intersection of AI with Human Actors and IoT.  “A Squad or group of twenty humans and a good machine: I’m interested in how they can improve their performance as they work together.” David says.

Views on Thought Leaders:  Since he was 17 years old, David has benefited from the mentorship of Dr. William Jeffrey, who is now CEO of SRI.

Quick Hits:

• Book Recommendations: The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks.
• Favorite piece of content on OODAloop: David always scans the newsletters to see how cyberspace intersects of humans.  He likes the way OODAloop helps the reader connect Cyber Initiatives with Cyber Artifacts.
• LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/dbray/