Speakers

Mr. Mitchell Thornbrugh is the Chief Information Officer (CIO) and the Director for the Office
of Information Technology (OIT) for the Indian Health Service (IHS). The IHS, an agency
within the Department of Health and Human Services, is the principal federal health care
advocate and provider for American Indians and Alaska Natives. He is an enrolled member of
the Muscogee Creek Nation.
Mr. Thornbrugh leads the IHS in all aspects of information resource management and
technology, and promotes adherence to federal information technology laws, regulations, and
policies. Under his leadership, OIT designs, develops, implements, and maintains policies,
budgets, standards, architecture, and systems for IHS information technology, to include the IHS Health IT Modernization Program. He also manages OIT’s participation in cross- government initiatives with federal, tribal, state, and other partners to serve American Indians and Alaska Natives.

As CIO, Mr. Thornbrugh is a key leader in the IHS Health IT Modernization Program. The
Program offers an enterprise electronic health record (EHR) system to IHS health partners to
provide consistent patient-centered care across Indian Country through proven best practices,
secure technology, and shared data. He, along with members of the Program’s Executive
Steering Committee, work closely with tribal, urban, and federal partners to plan, acquire,
build, deploy, and operate the new system and associated business processes. Once in use, the
EHR can help improve patient safety and patient outcomes for American Indian and Alaska
Native communities, improve disease management and clinical quality measures, liberate
siloed data for informed clinical care and patient access, increase third-party revenue
generation, and create a sustained financial model into the future.

Dr. Brian Anderson is the Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI), a non-profit coalition he co-founded in 2021. CHAI is focused on developing a set of consensus-driven guidelines and best practices for Responsible AI in Health, as well as supporting the ability to independently test and validate AI for safety and effectiveness. Prior to leading CHAI, Dr. Anderson was the Chief Digital Health Physician at MITRE, where he led research and development efforts across major strategic initiatives in digital health alongside industry partners and the U. S. Government. He was responsible for leading much of MITRE’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic, working closely with the White House COVID Task Force, as well as Operation Warp Speed. He also led MITRE’s largest R&D effort in Oncology, focusing on the initial development of mCODE and the use of AI in more efficient and inclusive clinical trial design. Dr. Anderson is an internationally recognized author and expert in digital health, and is regularly engaged as a speaker on digital health innovation, health standards development, clinical decision support systems, and interoperability. Prior to MITRE, Anderson led the Informatics and Network Medicine Division at athenahealth. He has also served on several national, and international, health information technology committees in partnership with the Office of the National Coordinator (ONC), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Avinash Shanbhag is the Executive Director of the Office of Technology. In this role, he advises the National Coordinator and the Deputy National Coordinator on health information technology matters, provides executive direction and control over ONC’s technology portfolio, and fosters health information innovation.

Mr. Shanbhag oversees coordination with federal agencies and industry stakeholders for advancing health information technology interoperability for improved health care delivery. He leads ONC’s standards coordination activities with all the health IT standards development organizations, including administration of the ONC Health IT Certification Program, the Certified Health IT Product Lists, and the certification testing tools.

Throughout his over 10-year career with ONC, Mr. Shanbhag has held a variety of leadership positions, including serving as the Deputy Director of the Office of Technology, Director of the Testing Division, and the Director of the Nationwide Health Information Network. During his tenure at ONC, he led the creation of the ONC testing and utilities platform to support health IT developers, developed a long term vision for the Nationwide Health Information Network, and successfully transitioned the operations of the network into the “eHealth Exchange.”

He has over 25 years of experience in developing enterprise software systems and managing large scale distributed software systems for healthcare industry. Prior to joining ONC, Mr. Shanbhag served as the Director of Core Infrastructure at the Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology under the National Cancer Institute (NCI). He was responsible for developing and operating the distributed network and semantic services used by all the NCI funded institutions to share research data in a privacy protective manner.

Mr. Shanbhag holds a Master of Chemical Engineering from University of Alberta, and a Master of Operations Research from University of Maryland. He also maintains a Service Oriented Architecture certificate and a certificate in Machine Learning from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Jonathan Alboum is the Federal CTO at ServiceNow. In this role, Jonathan works with federal agencies to deliver digital workflows that create great experiences and unlock productivity. Before joining ServiceNow, Jonathan held a variety of senior executive positions in the federal government. His federal government tenure includes serving as the Chief Information Officer for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where he led the development of USDA’s IT Modernization strategy, including Cloud computing, network modernization, and enhanced information security protections for a $3 billion annual technology spend. In addition, he served as a leader in USDA’s Acquisition community, supporting the oversight, assessment, and strategic planning of an acquisition portfolio of more than 70,000 awards, worth $6 billion annually. Jonathan also worked at GSA as the Associate CIO for Enterprise Governance and Planning and led the creation of GSA’s consolidated IT organization. He began his federal career at the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), where he served as Deputy CIO and CIO. Before joining government, he worked in management consulting. Jonathan holds a MS in the Management of Information Technology from the University of Virginia’s McIntire School of Commerce and a BS in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Curtis Chase is the Netskope Regional Sales Manager for State and Local Government and Education, covering the Mid-Atlantic region.  Curtis has over 24 years of information security and customer service experience.  Over the last 10 years Curtis has worked for leading Security Organizations such as RSA Security (Identity Management and Governance) and Secureworks (Extended Detection & Response).

Bruce Doub has a 20-year career of creating and delivering IT solutions for the public sector, with a keen interest in driving business growth by connecting people, data, and applications quickly, effortlessly, and securely. He is committed to helping State & Local Government and Higher Education achieve their digital transformation goals through innovative solutions in networking, edge cloud, collaboration, and security. He has a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications, a Master of Business Administration – Information Technology Management and a Project Management Professional – PMP certification. Bruce lives in Virginia with his wife and enjoys paddleboarding and pickleball

Arunkumar (Arun) Iyer is a Principal Executive Architect/Field CTO with more than 30 years of Industry experience and more than 11 of those within the ServiceNow ecosystem. He has served in multiple roles within the ecosystem as an Implementation Partner, Instructor, as well as a Platform Owner at a ServiceNow customer. He connects and collaborates with customers and account teams across Federal Civilian and DoD areas.

He empathizes with customer platform owner challenges and facilitates shared strategic vision across stakeholder leadership to help them realize value from the “Platform of Platforms” that he evangelizes. He feels he is always learning from customers

Venus Quates, a game-changing US Air Force Veteran and Entrepreneur, boasts a distinguished 27-year career as a technologist with a proven track record in spearheading large-scale technology transformation initiatives globally.

In 2016, Venus founded LaunchTech, which has since gained international recognition for its exceptional growth and outstanding technological contributions. As President & CEO, she leads the award-winning company in delivering cutting-edge technology solutions with a focus of emerging technology, modernization, and support of critical infrastructure. Inc. has recognized LaunchTech among the top 50 fastest-growing companies, the top 5 fastest growing Veteran-owned companies, and the top 10 woman-owned companies in the nation. LaunchTech’s expertise is sought by Fortune 500 corporations, military and defense, state governments, and large systems integrators.

Beyond her professional success, Venus actively serves her community, having contributed her time to the Girl Scouts national and regional boards and advising universities, nonprofits, STEM, and veteran-focused organizations. She has also served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence mentoring companies seeking VC and private equity funding.

Committed to diversity in STEM, Venus launched the annual Launching Scholars initiative in 2022, providing scholarships for girls 12-18 to attend cost-based space, aviation, and cybersecurity programs across the US.

A trailblazer in her field, Venus's remarkable achievements have been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, and Inc. publications, among others. She remains a source of inspiration to aspiring entrepreneurs and seasoned professionals alike as she continues to leave an indelible mark on the world of technology and beyond.

Edward Graham is a technology reporter for Nextgov/FCW, where he reports on national security technologies and policies, the Department of Veterans Affairs and election security issues. He received his master’s degree in Journalism and Public Affairs from American University in 2016.