AggregateDBNathan | Shutong | Kaya | Chris

12 Interviews

Sponsor: Conflict and Stabilization OperationsPOC: Santiago StockerMentor: Dan SpokojnyPolitics in volatile countries is influenced by ethnic and religious leaders. Determining their location and relative power is a labor intensive and inconsistent process. However, embassy staff - economic, political and public diplomacy regularly meet with leaders to gather this information.

CASE STUDY #1: Revolts Against Oil Companies SITUATIONPolitical unrest in the Delta Region occurred in 2009/2010. Because Nigeria has so many oil wells, there were many controversies over how oil revenues were being distributed nationally.

ACTION Many communities in the Delta did not feel like they were being given their fair share, which led to outbreaks of violence on oil companies (Shell, Chevron). Over 2000 people died.

RESULTSCSO was brought in for 2 years to gather information about how to prevent a similar crisis from happening again. The crisis is still ongoing, but efforts to resolve it include an amnesty and payoff program, where there are still ethnic groups in the Delta receiving stipends to maintain the peace.

How was the information obtained?

Organized / catalogued?

Official or informal

information?

How was it used?

What kind of information was

it?

How were informal leaders

defined?

What more information

could’ve been useful?

CSO “on the ground” went out and interviewed

business leaders.

CSO modelled stakeholder

analysis of all different ethnic

groups and their connection to the oil controversy.

Both. Cables, briefed directly to

embassy. Then, integrated to

amnesty work conducted by

embassy.

Statistical reports on different groups and their stake in the oil revenue

situation.

Public figures who publicly agreed / disagreed with oil

company situation.

US stakeholders are proposing

crushing revolts with military force; not enough info on

which groups to target / not target.

CASE STUDY #2: Gathering Intel on HamasSITUATIONHamas, a terrorist organization, is expanding. But, Hamas is a highly decentralized organization. The leadership structed is based on consensus decision making, so it is extremely difficult to identify who the “leaders” are. In a decentralized organization like Hamas, everyone is a “spokesperson.”

ACTION Peter Lohman, the Desk Officer for Algeria, was responsible for gathering intel on Hamas. Challenge: Officers cannot access the group (too dangerous) so create relationships with indirect contacts and read media reporting of Hamas (not always accurate).

RESULTS2014 Israel-Gaza conflict: Congress passed legislation proving Israel with an additional $225 million in military aid for missile defense. According to Israel: Hamas was weakened. According to Hamas: Israel was repelled from Gaza.

How was the information obtained?

Organized / catalogued?

Official or

informal informati

on?

How was it used? What kind of information

was it?

How were informal leaders

defined?

What more information could’ve been useful?

Interviews with indirect, personally

cultivated contacts. (Friends-

of-friends-of-friends)

Contacts semi-catalogued.

Compiled in a cable and sent

back to Washington.

Both. Washington decides whether or not to

intervene in whatever Hamas

was planning.

Reports on meetings,

future plans, potential terrorist

attacks.

Difficult to define - “everyone is a spokesperson.” Word-of-mouth. Person who has

spoken to the media.

Sometimes finding that one last contact is the

exponential jump you need. Would “kill” for a program

mapping relationships. Even if contacts were helpful, it ⅕

would be a great program.

CASE STUDY #3: SITUATION: Franklin Square Group an influential lobbying firm stated that they would be interested in using such a product to discover the stakeholders in large companies and how decisions are made. It is fairly difficult to determine the decision chain in a company when a sensitive decision or contract is at stake.

ACTION : Follow up in person meeting with Partners December 2nd.

RESULTS

How was the information obtained?

Organized / catalogued?

Official or

informal informati

on?

How was it used? What kind of information

was it?

How were informal leaders

defined?

What more information could’ve been useful?

Phone interview with Franklin

Square group.

Information needs to be organized

with some surefire root information

but approximation or even lists of

educated gueses are interesting

Both When lobbying in washington on

behalf of facebook or google lobby

firms need to get the buyin of many

stakeholders with similar interests

regulation information internet law, data flow policy making.

product team leads, VP level leads, engineer leads.

org tree structure from a decision standbpoint. very difficult to gauge and determine.

Customer Discovery Hypothesis Experiments Results

What actionable missions can embassies and / or bureaus carry out using this information about informal leaders?

Interviewed Peter Lohman, Desk Officer for Algeria. Interviewed Santiago, CSO and asked about 2 years CSO spent in Nigeria.

1. Achieve political amnesty by contacting “moderate” informal leaders. (Oil Companies)

2. Map out “friends-of-friends” between terrorist groups (Hamas)

3. Company leaders contacts to informal leaders

Can we trace at what level decisions are made, regarding embassies, desks and DC, when political crisis occur?

Interviewed Marlin Hardinger, political and economic officer in State since 2002. Served in Turkmen, Moldova, South Sudan, Abuja, and Buhari.

We found that information flows pretty freely between embassies, desks, and bureaus. (See chart on prior slide)

How do FSO’s currently trace networks of informal leaders? How do FSO’s rank the importance of a particular leader / contact?

Steve McDonald. Works at the Wilson Center, doing work on Burundian leadership.

Peter Lohman, Desk Officer for Algeria.

No formal ranking system - contacts are kept in FSO’s personal “rolodex.” Personal relationships are everything in “ranking” a leader.

At FSO’s own discretion.

Foreign National Employe

e(OMS)+

Section Chief

Relies on3-5 yr

FSO3 p.

To manage relationships

Union leaders

Official leaders in gov.

NGO’s

Ethnic leade

r

Daily contact/meetings

7+ yr FSO

5+ p.

Delegates tasks portfolios(p)

New FSO1 p.

Friend

FSO

S/ES request

Un-helpFunc.

Bureau

HelpfulFunc.

Bureau

Inundates w/daily request for more info

Official meetings with highest ranking

Deputy Chief Mission aka

COOusually

(Ambassador)

GATEKEEPERSDOS TIME=$$

SC alerts DCM ofmission critical requests/ changes

No- “Tell your boss to tell my boss”

Country X Desk in

Washington

Boeing political lobbyist

Raw material supplier not cooperating

Charge d'Affaires

CEO of Embassy

DCM communicates main issues charge-D to get regional bureau help

Charge-D passes DCM down regional priorities

7th floor

officialsWhite House

RegionalBureau Officials

USAID in

country

Boeing in

County X

Support

Employs, supportspunishes, joins,exploits?

Edges: Red - Family Black - Negative Blue - NeutralNodes: Yellow - President Red - APC Blue - Lagos State Govern Green - OthersRotimi Akeredolu

On Saturday September 3rd, 2016, Represent the All Progressive Congress (APC) at their primary conducted in Ondo State to represent the party at the forth-coming 2016 elections.

Twitter: @RotimiAkeredoluFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/rotimiaketi/

Rotimi Akeredolu&Simon Lalong

Mr. Lalong formally presented Rotimi Akeredolu, the All Progressives Congress gubernatorial candidate in Ondo, to President Buhari.

CLICK NODES

CLICK EDGES

Beneficiaries

Mission AchievementMission Budget/Costs

Buy-In/Support

Deployment

Value PropositionKey Activities

Key Resources

Key Partners

CSO: Santiago - Writing report about Boko HaramTyler - Analyzing relationship between known members of BH and unclassified actors

Will Meeker - Travels to Nigeria for 2 years to generate contacts for CSO, get Santiago data

Embassy Staff:Caroline: Economic/ Political Officer at small Embassy in stable countryJames/Steve: Economic/ Political Officer at large Embassy in an unstable country Nick: Public Diplomacy Officer at busy Embassy

Executive Secretariat(S/ES)Nick from Secretariat Staff: The Secretary want’s to speak with Monica Geingos in Namibia

1 of 2 Operations Staff on Call: Spends all day summarizing , combining incoming cables

CSO Sponsor: Santiago Stocker

Foreign Nationals(OMS): Office Management Specialists to implement and upkeep central list for long term deployment

Elian Carsenat founder of NamSor- onomastics(surname) analysis software

Mentor: Daniel Spokojny, insights into CSO dynamics

ParseHub

TensorFlow

Database companies(ACLED,GDELT)

lobby companies and evengalist that make introductions

SV companies who are working in a similar space / contract (partnerships)

Beta starts in Nigeria, with Vanguard newspaper(English)

Focus on formal leaders through public sources

Need CSO to continue connecting us upstream w/ former clients and downstream with data sources in field

Continued support from AF staff to differentiate known unknowns from unknown unknowns

Source Aggregation: Gives organizations the ability to identify most important actors in rapidly evolving situations using data mined from a breadth of sources.

Relatable data visualization: ensure people from all backgrounds can analyze and filter relevant data depending on their needs

Information Extraction: perform natural language processing on news articles, twitter and etc to extract categories and information for informal leaders.

Improve CSO’s ability to write relevant reports by giving them tools for passive “granular” data collection w/o Embassy involvementProvide long-term contact management, automation of embassy “check-in”Ability to rapidly provide “S” contact information of any person FSO/Embassies have had official contact with

Information AnalysisKey entities identification

Software EngineeringData collection and storage

Data mining

Network visualization

CSO pre-formatted and edited JSON databases

Previously published unclassified reports commissioned by DOS

Web Crawler API’s

TensorFlow Machine learning API

Nigerian news papersgurdian, sahara Times, Punch, Business day, Vanguard

FIXED:Frontend / backend deployment of app

VARIABLE: Parsehub API Google Compute Engine

Analyze foreign conflicts & Advise relevant parties upstream(7th floor) and downstream to embassy

100% accurate information, but realistically happy with 50%, b/c have time to corroborate with classified sources

Data on ethnic/religious leaders

Data that is current & structured

Current sources too shallow

Best data unstructured, in cables, year old

Santiago Stocker CSO Advanced Analytics Unit(8)

Output data formatted, downloadable and available for further analysis and combination with classified intel

Data-mining provides daily updates, validity based on page ranking

Targeted source scraping means information gets more accurate as # of users and providers increases

Mining searches for personal names

Program can be run continuously, updates daily based on input from internal embassy and external news

Passive connection btwn. CSO in D.C. and FSO Nigeria to share information and contacts gathered from data mining

Embassies too busy to help w/ CSO side-projects

Program can run with passive interaction w/ Embassy

- BS/BA + MA in International Policy

- Thesis work used LOTS of data

- Wants to make CSO relevant- Believes in power of data to

solve international problems

- Needs worldwide knowledge base b/c impossible to know next

r equest - Skeptical of data provided by

embassies’ political offices

Connection that doesn’t require constant requests/ coordination with DCM

Understand & analyze domestic, labor market in Nigeria, meet with cooperative leaders and report progress, strikes developments in weekly cables/ SPOT reports

100% accurate information, but realistically would be happy with 20% lead success, works @ 10% right now

Phone number of reliable informant in distant villageLong term tracking of contacts, especially as known leads progress upwards hierarchy

Predecessor left nice handover, but too old after move, industry changes quick

Town with protest three days drive away, through desert

Marlin- 8 year FSO, currently Economic Officer in Lagos- Labor Portfolio(5)

Hierarchy based on # mentions, info reliable contacts inside companies

Visualization of relationships btwn. companies, individuals, unions

Targeted source scraping means knowing which Labor Unions marched together, signals coop., bring together @Embassy soon?

Nodes can be sorted by region, help FSO get closer to right contact

Program runs beyond rotations, eliminates need for 40 page paper handover reports, 4 months old

Provide economic FSO new contact, % “helpful” ranking, based on input of known contacts, better diplomacy

Protocol Foreign National has excel spreadsheet w/ 4000+ unorganized names

Nodes bigger or smaller depending on cross-reference embassy visits, mentions in cables/newspapers

- MA+, intense study foreign policy

- Rigorous entrance testing, but now jobs based on past-work

- Speaks 4+ languages- Believes in prioritizing

interactionw/ “traditional” contacts

- Asked by DCM to join Nigeria team based on post-election work in Afghanistan

- Receives many “urgent” requests for data/info daily, knows which ones to answer/ignore/forward to DCM

Actionable suggestions of contacts means Marlin missing link

Learn actualities of diplomacy @ first embassy by working election portfolio

100% accurate information, but would accept 10%,

Understanding of hierarchy @ Embassy, who Section Chief thinks is most important/why

Ability to see most recent interaction w/ certain contact

FSO tests did not mention 3AM DCM phone calls

Doesn’t know which requests can be ignored, has CSO asking questions about knowledge after 3 months

Bryce K..- 1 Year Political FSO reflecting on first year @ Embassy w/ Election Portfolio

Better able to tell if contact is BS’ing about connections, mining shows if there documented ways X knows Y

Huge gain: Able to look at information in organized fashion w/o feeling embarrassed to ask for help

Hierarchy based on # mentions means initial category beyond word of mouth about priority of contact

Before each meeting new FSO can look at map, mined data to make conversation/trip relevant, productive

Network mapping to help new FSO understand who embassy knows and how they fit into greater framework in country

Weekly excursions helpful, but only if k value=5

Access to last FSOs network greatly helps because starting k higher

- BS in International Policy, 27 y.o. generation of FSO uses iPhone

- Thesis work used LOTS of data- Speaks 2 languages, but feels

at home @ combinator in country

- Section chief gives lots travel $$, but learning statecraft like hose

- Solves a problem only to show SC and have them say “I already knew this, and here’s 40 more pages @”

- Interested in proving himself, finding niche in a massive/ competitive organization that now will only look @ previous work, not test scores

Embassy work done @ school-yard, doesn’t have kid

Reduced requests from “J” bureaus means less time spent on busy work “delegated” by SC and DCM

Awareness Interest consideration Purchase Keep unbundling up-sell cross-sell referral

Activity & people

-Franklin Square-Facebook

-Matt T.-Kara (FB)-Tom (google)

-CSO-embassy FSO-DoD

? -evangelists-promoters

Metrics follow up calls or pinging us without us pinging them

-willing to give time

-asks for pricing/quote-requests deployment meeting

-payment in account

-are they actively involved weekly basis?

?? -hardware bundle -API bundle -multilocation

?? -makes a direct intro

GET KEEP GROW