Category: Press Releases

Optimal’s President and CEO, Dr. Mark Turner, has joined the National Data Science Alliance (NDSA) Education and Workforce Committee. The committee aims to advance the field of data science across Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). It is recognized for its commitment to fostering equitable opportunities in the data science arena.

The NDSA is a national consortium of individuals and organizations dedicated to advancing data science, supporting institutions, and bridging the gap between academia and industry. With a primary focus on HBCUs, the NDSA aims to increase representation and diversity in data science, empowering underrepresented communities to thrive in this rapidly evolving field.

As a member of the Education and Workforce Committee, Dr. Turner brings his extensive data science expertise and commitment to promoting education and workforce development in the data science field. His experience and passion align perfectly with the NDSA’s mission to advance data science education and opportunities for HBCU students and faculty.

The Education and Workforce Committee will serve as a vital platform for HBCUs, providing access to resources, funding opportunities, industry partnerships, and mentoring programs to foster the success of students and faculty in data science-related fields. By strengthening the data science programs at HBCUs, the NDSA seeks to reshape the landscape of technology and data science, ensuring equitable representation for all.

For more information about the National Data Science Alliance and its Education and Workforce Committee, please visit www.NDSA.org.

Optimal is proud to announce its approval to join the General Services Administration’s (GSA) exclusive program evaluation subgroup. This achievement shows Optimal’s expertise in evaluating complex multisite programs, government demonstrations, pilots, and initiatives.

GSA’s Program Evaluation Subgroup allows Federal agencies to give solicitations to contractors with expertise in program evaluation. It provides contractors access to large Federal investments in program evaluation and ongoing engagement with Federal agencies. 

As part of the GSA’s program evaluation subgroup, Optimal joins a select group of firms recognized for their exceptional skills and knowledge in evaluating federal programs. The subgroup’s admission criteria are stringent, ensuring only firms with a proven track record and deep understanding of program evaluation are approved.

Optimal brings extensive experience in monitoring and evaluating federal programs. Optimal has conducted evaluations that involve evaluability assessments, wide-ranging evaluation designs, technical assistance, and evidence-building activities at the U.S. Agency for International Development, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of Commerce, U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Small Business Administration, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Optimal has actively participated in various evaluation activities listed in federal government agencies’ annual plans. 

To learn more about Optimal’s experience in program evaluation, visit https://optimalsolutionsgroup.com/entrepreneurship-innovation-case-studies/.

Optimal has developed a Generative AI webinar series that discusses the beneficial use cases for businesses and government agencies to leverage the growing presence of AI tools. Through this initiative, Optimal continues demonstrating its commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology to support its clients and work within the Optimal Real-Time Framework.

The Generative AI webinar series developed by Optimal delves into various essential topics, including analyzing statistical tables, comments processing, and market research. By providing expert insights and practical examples, the series empowers organizations to fully embrace and optimize the growing potential of Generative AI in their operations.

The three comprehensive webinar modules offered by Optimal’s Generative AI series are as follows:

1. Leveraging Generative AI for Policy Research: Learn how businesses and government agencies can effectively employ Generative AI tools to enhance their policy research initiatives. Through robust data-driven analyses and simulations, participants gain valuable insights into crafting effective policies and making well-informed decisions.
2. Using AI in Public Comments Analysis: Learn how to leverage Generative AI to streamline and elevate the analysis of public comments using Optimal’s CommentsAI tool. Organizations can efficiently extract meaningful patterns and sentiments from feedback by automating the processing and categorizing vast amounts of input.
3. Streamline Market Research for Government Procurement: In this webinar, Optimal reveals how AI can revolutionize market research efforts for government procurement processes. The AcqusitionAI tool developed by Optimal will help facilitate more informed and strategic decision-making during procurement procedures by equipping agencies with advanced data analysis tools.

Optimal’s corporate initiative on Generative AI proved to be successful. Departments and project teams started working groups, with suggested use cases and a fast-paced shared “wiki” to investigate how Generative AI can move the company forward, support existing clients and work within Optimal’s Real-Time Framework.

With existing products such as Revelo Software, Generative AI can receive curated data, content and information through the upfront data validation and ingestion capabilities. Revelo has several applications, such as accessibility testing (iAccessible), comments processing (CommentsAI), and streamlining market research (AcquisitionAI).

The communications team tried out ChatGPT and BARD across multiple activities, such as generating social media content, editing, translating, rendering images and composing webinar invitations. It proved to be a great aid.

The Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) has awarded Optimal Solutions Group several contracts to assess online course materials for high school students for compliance with Section 508 and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards. Optimal’s DHS Trusted Testers will provide technical assistance to content developers and assist them in remediating course materials.

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased reliance on internet-based learning, highlighting the need for digital accessibility and inclusion for students and individuals with disabilities. Optimal Solutions Group is proud to partner with MSDE in ensuring that all students have access to educational materials that meet accessibility standards.

Optimal Solutions Group is a leading research and consulting firm that provides data-driven solutions to improve public policy and decision-making. The company’s work spans a range of fields, including education, health, and workforce development.

Optimal’s teams have made significant strides in leveraging the latest ChatGPT and BARD AI tools, which are already enhancing our Real-Time Framework for evidenced-based decision making. Through this cutting-edge technology, we have been able to generate software test scripts, social media content, resolve software development queries, and enhance web data scraping in a relatively short period of time. While we are excited about our early success, we remain cautious and diligent in ensuring the highest standards of privacy, security, data governance, validity, and verification are upheld. Our commitment to these principles is unwavering as we continue to explore new opportunities and push the boundaries of what’s possible with AI technology.

Optimal was awarded the One Acquisition Solution for Integrated Services (OASIS) – Small Business (SB) Pool 1. OASIS is a General Services Administration (GSA) government-wide best-in-class procurement vehicle that provides flexible and innovative solutions for complex professional services. It encompasses a broad set of offerings covering everything from program management services, management consulting services and financial services to logistics services, engineering services, and scientific services. Specific tasks may include data analytics, monitoring and evaluation, and management consulting.

Learn more about how to make Optimal your innovative partner through the OASIS contract solution.

*********************************************************************

Optimal Solutions Group, LLC

Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a nonpartisan public policy research,  technical assistance and analytics firm that stands out for its quantitative expertise, innovative and technology approaches to provide rigorous, data-driven research and technical assistance to government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations. Located at the University of Maryland’s Discovery District in College Park, Optimal is a leader in driving real-time public policy research. Optimal has 60+ employees, including multidisciplinary researchers with backgrounds in economics, education, health, housing, sociology, statistics, information management and entrepreneurship. Optimal has four research centers—Health, Education, Housing and Workforce Development, and Social Policy—as well as an International Practice, Analytics Group, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.

Women face a wider variety and a greater severity of challenges in starting and growing their business ventures than men. Difficulties obtaining government contracts represents one of the largest hurdles faced by women-owned firms. Congress approved the Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contracting Program to provide greater opportunities for small businesses to win federal contracts.

The Small Business Administration partnered with Optimal Solutions Group LLC (Optimal) to conduct a study that identified the industries in which WOSBs are underrepresented with respect to federal procurement contracting. Optimal used the disparity ratio approach, which measures the degree to which WOSBs are represented in proportion to their prevalence in the population of “ready, willing, and able” businesses. The disparity ratios were calculated by the number of contracts and the obligations of contracts. The evaluation also used secondary data sources, such as the Federal Procurement Data System, the System for Award Management, and calculations based on Census data for all firms in the United States.

Overall, the evaluation suggested that results regarding WOSBs’ disparity in federal procurement depend on how it is measured. The results revealed that WOSBs’ underrepresentation was greater when the disparity was measured with respect to the obligations of awards than for the number of awards. These results support the importance of using both measures of the disparity. Optimal recommends that future studies should develop interactive, near real-time decision support tools to provide detailed results for disparity metrics.  

Visit WOSB Federal Contracting Program for more information.

*********************************************************************

Optimal Solutions Group, LLC

Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a nonpartisan public policy research and technical assistance firm that stands out for its quantitative expertise and innovative approaches to provide rigorous, data-driven research and technical assistance to government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and philanthropic foundations. Located at the University of Maryland’s Discovery District in College Park, Optimal is a leader in driving real-time public policy research. Optimal has 60+ employees, including multidisciplinary researchers with backgrounds in economics, education, health, housing, sociology, statistics, information management and entrepreneurship. Optimal has four research centers—Health, Education, Housing and Workforce Development, and Social Policy—as well as an International Practice, Analytics Group, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.

The Small Business Administration (SBA) monitors whether government agencies are providing opportunities for small business participation in federal contracting by performing Surveillance Reviews, which assess whether selected Procurement Centers (PCs) at federal agencies execute their small business programs effectively and according to federal regulations.

The SBA completes about 30 Surveillance Reviews annually at major PCs across the country. These are selected for review from a pool of approximately 3,000 PCs and based on several criteria, including, but not limited to, failing to meet small business goals in the prior fiscal year and having not been reviewed in the prior 5 fiscal years. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Surveillance Reviews shifted from in-person site visits to virtual Surveillance Reviews from March 2020 to the present. Barriers to virtual information sharing such as security constraints reduced the number of reviews possible during the pandemic.

Optimal Solutions Group LLC is evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of Surveillance Reviews, which includes an analysis of outcomes for PCs that have undergone Surveillance Reviews and to what extent PCs increase their small business contracting goal achievements following Surveillance Reviews. This evaluation also looks at lessons learned from the SBA’s shift to virtual Surveillance Reviews during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results in findings will be used to produce actionable recommendations to Surveillance Review effectiveness and efficiency and be presented to the SBA in 2022.  

Visit small business federal contracting for more information.

*********************************************************************

Optimal Solutions Group, LLC

Founded in 2000, Optimal Solutions Group, LLC, is a nonpartisan public policy research and technical assistance firm that stands out for its quantitative expertise and innovative approaches to provide rigorous, data-driven research and technical assistance to government agencies, corporations, nonprofit organizations and philanthropic foundations. Located at the University of Maryland’s Discovery District in College Park, Optimal is a leader in driving real-time public policy research. Optimal has 60+ employees, including multidisciplinary researchers with backgrounds in economics, education, health, housing, sociology, statistics, information management and entrepreneurship. Optimal has four research centers—Health, Education, Housing and Workforce Development, and Social Policy—as well as an International Practice, Analytics Group, and Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center.