Speakers

Adelaide O'Brien is Research Vice President for IDC Government Insights responsible for Government Digital Transformation Strategies. Ms. O'Brien assists clients in understanding the full scope of efforts needed for digital transformation, and focuses on technology innovations such as Big Data, AI, cognitive, and cloud in the context of government use cases such as customer experience, data driven benefits and services, and public health protection.  Ms. O'Brien's research also includes a particular emphasis on journey maps that assist clients in understanding the full scope of efforts required to achieve outcomes, and she has benchmarked the maturity of deploying cloud and Big Data and analytics in the federal government. Her research also includes the threats and opportunities now facing government's ecosystems in leveraging agency information as a critical asset, allowing stakeholders to make better decisions, provide better services and experiences for constituents, and react in real time to limit liabilities and manage risks.

Blake Nelson is vice president of platforms and cloud for SAIC, responsible for the development, sales, and delivery of products and solutions for digital platforms, including networking, data centers, edge computing, 5G, private and public cloud, and platform security. He drives vision and strategy for solutions that enable SAIC’s customers to transform their IT services portfolios into everything-as-aservice in the hyper-scale world.

Nelson is a seasoned cloud solution evangelist and leader with over 20 years of experience in driving innovative technical solutions and business transformation. He has extensive experience in delivering successful outcomes for customers, including the adoption of hybrid and cloudnative capabilities, DevSecOps, big data analytics platforms, advanced analytics visualizations, and cloud-native capabilities.

Nelson joined SAIC in 2021 following his stint at Pragmatics, where he was vice president and general manager for federal solutions. Prior to that, he held various leadership roles in solution development at Accenture Federal Services, Beacon Associates, and iConstituent.

Nelson holds a bachelor of arts in political science and an MBA in management and information systems from West Virginia University. He lives in Arlington, Virginia, with his three children, Riley, Molly, and Cole, and enjoys spinning and skiing in the wintertime.

George Jackson is director of events at GovExec – the largest and most-influential media
company in the public sector marketplace. He joined the company in 2020 to enhance the scale
of their events and audience experiences. In 2021, George launched GovExec TV (streaming
video content) and received the company’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Award, part of their first-
annual Icon Awards.

George graduated from The Ohio State University in 2003 with a bachelor’s degree in English.
In 2006, he earned his master’s in broadcast journalism from the University of Maryland,
College Park.

George spent the first five years of his journalism career at WJHL-TV in Johnson City Tenn. –
beginning as an overnight producer for the station’s 6 a.m. broadcast. He advanced to lead on-air
reporter for WJHL’s 11 p.m. newscast.

As a reporter, George examined the earnings of two non-profit hospital systems, felony charges
filed against a local sheriff, predatory paving companies, a health benefits backlog for local
veterans, and a series of cold-case murder investigations. He received an honorable mention for
Best TV Reporter in the 2011 Tennessee AP Broadcast awards and won a Best Investigative
Reporting award from Media General in 2010.

George joined DC’s ABC affiliate WJLA-TV in 2012 to produce Capital Insider, which won
him an Emmy award. One year later, he developed and recorded the pilot episode of Government Matters – a program about the business of government. It debuted as a weekly show on Sunday, August 4 th of 2013. George led Government Matters through September of 2020, expanded its reach to a daily worldwide audience, and produced its first feature-length documentary The Dawn of Generation AI.

George is from Toledo, Ohio. He lives with his wife, twin daughters, and a pair of rescue dogs in
Northern Virginia.