2016 Washington Forum to Focus on Risk Management

by Shawn Miller, Chair, Board of Enterprise Economic Development
The AMS Board on Enterprise Economic Development invites you to attend the 2016 AMS Washington Forum, April 12-14, 2016, at the American Assocation for Advancement of Science (AAAS) Building in Washington, D.C. The purpose of the AMS Washington Forum is to provide an opportunity for members of the weather, water, and climate community to meet with senior federal agency officials, Congressional staff, and other community members to hear about the status of current programs, learn about new initiatives, discuss issues of interest to our community, identify business opportunities, and speak out about data and other needs.
This year’s theme is “Leveraging Environmental Intelligence to Enhance Risk Management.” Following that theme, the Forum will focus on the use of weather, water, and climate data–together creating a foundation for environmental intelligence–to support risk management across the public and private sectors. This includes agencies and companies whose operations and planning are dependent on environmental factors, as well as agencies and companies whose primary mission is to identify, analyze, and/or mitigate environmentally induced risks. Several special topics are planned for interactive panel discussions, each with a special focus on risk management, including an overarching theme session, environmental security, water resources, space weather, big data, and renewable energy.
We will invite senior leaders from agencies such as NOAA, NASA, DoD, and FEMA to look ahead and provide updates on current weather, water, and climate programs and provide insights on new science initiatives and directions. We will also invite leaders from the Office of Management & Budget and the Office of Science & Technology Policy, and from Congress, who will discuss the latest programs and legislative initiatives in our enterprise to better serve the American people.  For our keynote, we have invited Dr. DJ Patil, U.S. Chief Data Scientist at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
We hope to see you in D.C. in April!