JULY 28, 2024 – The launch of an artificial intelligence-powered platform for uncovering and matching talent across the joint force is an important step in tackling what Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, Jr., has described as the current “war for talent.”
Combining the eagle from the Defense Department’s iconic heraldry with the term for a short-term work opportunity, the GigEagle platform is one of the Defense Innovation Unit’s transformational projects. It works to match members of the Reserve and National Guard with gigs based on their full set of skills, including in-demand talents gained from civilian careers. The gigs range from four hours to 90 days across DOD.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Michael T. McGinley, GigEagle’s program lead, draws parallels from the platform’s inception to the successful model of rideshare companies that match supply and demand in real time.
“The idea is that across the department, programs have real-time needs for specific support and skills, and by mapping the expertise across the Reserve and Guard force, who have in-demand expertise outside of their military occupational specialty, we are able to connect them in an easy-to-use environment,” McGinley said.
Today, the model for real-time talent matching has been proven, and it’s transforming the way one military member is serving.
Air Force Reservist Maj. Kaitlin Zimmerman created her GigEagle profile and was matched with a project listed by the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office to support an on-base Morale, Welfare and Recreation Center initiative. While her military job is a program manager in the Space System Command’s reserve strike team, she was tapped for her civilian career skills as a principal data scientist at Amazon Web Services to help predict MWR program office staffing levels.
“They needed a pretty straightforward machine learning model, and I was able to build a model that predicted the staffing needs with close to 87 percent accuracy,” Zimmerman said.
The MWR office provided a dataset with information that included the number of people on-base, different events and training courses, which Zimmerman was able to use as proof of the possible.
“The training dataset was relatively small, so I’d categorize this as a prototype — nothing ready for production, but it did show that it could be done,” Zimmerman said.
Showcasing what is possible for the future of defense work is precisely what platform users are demonstrating. With a focus across the services to find ways to drive modernization and recruit and develop top talent, the platform represents a joint capability gap solution.
“Throughout the U.S. Army and other services, there is an unprecedented focus on innovation and modernization which is forcing the department to leverage skillsets not typically developed within traditional military occupational specialties or branches,” said Army Maj. Craig Robbins, chief talent management officer at the 75th Innovation Command.
Leveraging soldier skills and experience — especially those gained through the private sector — in AI, robotics, software development, data analytics and medical technologies represent just a few areas critical for the future force.
“These are skills we know we have in our ranks, but [we] cannot access them in real time because we lack the tools to identify them across the force,” Robbins said.
The demand for talent matching is not new. Several years ago, the 75th Innovation Command prototyped a tool, which has since been retired, that matched talent with missions and assignments. Building on this demand, GigEagle brings those capabilities to the next level using AI and machine learning to understand the totality of soldiers’ talents and how they align with problem sets in real time.
“I see GigEagle as the next step forward in achieving what we’ve been able to achieve in the 75th Innovation Command, but at scale across the Army and DOD,” Robbins said.
Early adopters of the platform include DIU’s own Joint Reserve Detachment, Space Force Space Systems Command, Marine Innovation Unit and AFWERX.
During a March technology demonstration at the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas, Chief of the National Guard Bureau Gen. Daniel Hokanson, experienced the GigEagle platform.
“We’re happy to have seen the GigEagle platform in action, a new joint talent marketplace that could be a game changer for the National Guard Bureau by unlocking the incredible skills resident in our Guard force.”
Most recently, GigEagle prevailed as a top contender in DOD’s inaugural Talent Management: From the Ground Up Innovation Challenge hosted by the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. The goal was to meet the challenges of talent management by asking employees across the department for their best talent management ideas.
Of the 200 submissions received, nine, including GigEagle, were selected after employees presented their ideas in a final round of the competition in April. They will work with various policy offices inside DOD to collaborate on how best to implement their ideas.
Initially focused on National Guard and Reserve talent, the platform has enterprise-wide use case potential to include supporting the active-duty component, civilian service matching, and even military spouses.
To learn more about how this platform can transform the way service members can apply their skills or how your organization can find and engage in-demand talent to help solve problems, visit www.gigeagle.mil.
By Devon Bistarkey
Defense Innovation Unit