Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Upcoming Event

Best Places to Work in Virginia

Hamburger Menu Hamburger Menu

Tag: artificial intelligence

Excella names VP of strategic growth

Arlington County-based software and information technology management company Excella announced Wednesday it has named Christina Seiden as vice president of strategic growth. In her new role, she will focus on expanding Excella’s business into new markets.

Seiden was most recently senior vice president of operations at Reston-based software company NCI Information Systems Inc. There she led sales and service delivery for agile and analytics products.

With more than 20 years of experience, Seiden has also worked with information technology company CGI, UNICOM Government Inc., Raytheon Technical Services Co., Unisys Corp. and Deloitte. She earned her bachelor’s degree in legal studies and business administration from William Woods University. 

Founded in 2002, Excella offers artificial intelligence products to federal agency, corporation and nonprofit clients. In mid-May, Excella was awarded a contract worth up to $20 billion from the National Institutes of Health Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC).

 

Subscribe to Virginia Business.

Get our daily e-newsletter.

HHS contracts Herndon company for COVID-19 modeling

Herndon-based artificial intelligence company GeoSpark Analytics Inc. announced Tuesday it has been awarded a five-year, multimillion-dollar contract to provide COVID-19 and infectious disease modeling for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

An exact contract amount was not disclosed. 

“If we’ve learned anything at all about COVID-19, it’s that it affects everything from health to travel to supply chain resiliency to the economy,” GeoSpark Analytics COO John Goolgasian said in a statement. “We are proud that our small group of killer developers, data scientists and mad mathematicians created an AI-driven platform that we like to say provides a FICO score of threat and risk for nearly every point on the globe and is your weather app for operations and planning.” 

HHS contracted GeoSpark Analytics, founded in 2017, to use its current Hyperion AI engine and its COVID-19 risk model. GeoSpark Analytics will also develop new AI-driven disease outbreak models as part of the contract. 

“Closing our first multiyear contract is a major milestone for our young company,” GeoSpark Analytics President Amanda Brownfield said in a statement. “When I joined in March, we knew we needed to expand our leadership team, add new capabilities and processes to capitalize on our momentum, all while remaining true to our reputation of being obsessively focused on our people, customers and providing technology that is intuitive, powerful and insightful. This new contract is a direct result of that work.” 

Since March, the company has closed on five enterprise-level contracts and hired eight employees. The company employs approximately 23 people, including executive leaders, data scientists, product managers and business developers.

 

Subscribe to Virginia Business.

Get our daily e-newsletter.

Reston tech company names AI senior director

Reston-based government technology company Octo Consulting Group announced Tuesday that it has named Rob Albritton as the senior director of its AI Center for Excellence. 

Albritton most recently worked as a machine learning engineer at McLean-based The Mitre Corp., a nonprofit that conducts research for government agencies. In his new role, he will lead AI development and strategy and will develop the company’s AI Center for Intelligence.

A U.S. Air Force veteran, Albritton has received the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center Award for Achievement in Technology Transfer, the Counter Improvised Explosive Device Technology Award, the Department of the Army Commander’s Award for Civilian Service and the Support to U.S. Special Operations Command and Joint Personnel Recovery Agency Award.

Albritton earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland and his master’s degree in business administration from the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He also holds a master’s degree from the National Intelligence University, a federally funded research university in Bethesda, Maryland.

Founded in 2006, Octo specializes in information technology consulting for the federal government. Some of its clients include the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the General Services Administration.

 

Subscribe to Virginia Business.

Get our daily e-newsletter.