The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has established a new office in San Francisco, California, as part of an effort to hire professionals who possess skills in the science, technology, engineering and math fields, Nextgov reported Friday.The Outpost Silicon Valley office will support three new recruitment initiatives under NGA’s Data-Enabled Workforce strategy, which is designed to address the agency’s human capital gap.
Andy Brooks, chief data scientist at NGA, said at a Nextgov-sponsored event that NGA plans to recruit up to 100 full-time data scientists and analysts through the Data Corps initiative “to solve the big data problems within the agency.”
The strategy also includes the Developer Corps program that seeks to form an in-house software development team comprised of up to 200 full-time software engineers, developers and coders.
NGA also launched the Explorer program to hire about 50 technically-skilled individuals for one- to three-year terms.
“Explorers” will be assigned to various projects across NGA based on skillset and interests, and they may work on unclassified projects remotely if they pass an initial security vetting, the report noted.
Anthony Vinci, associate director for capabilities at NGA, said the agency is considering expansions into other technology hubs such as Austin, Boston and New York City.
