RICE is a Key Ingredient of DOT’s IT Modernization

The Department of Transportation launched its Registration, Inspection, Compliance and Enforcement (RICE) technology platform to make the agency’s IT modernization more efficient and secure, DOT CIO Cordell Schachter told GovCIO Media & Research during a recent interview.

According to Schachter, RICE will help boost DOT’s DevSecOps capabilities, building on low-code enterprise platforms. This approach ensures greater standardization and reduces reliance on less standardized applications managed independently by various operating administrations, ultimately speeding up solutions delivery.

“The dream is, instead of them each building their own platform that does many of the same things as the others, that we come up with a standard baseline that the operating administrations can then build on that baseline actually a foundation in in code, so that your journey to building a registration application is benefited by the group that came before you,” said Schachter.

As DOT continues to modernize, the agency is focusing its efforts on accessibility to improve user experience.

“Not only do we want systems that are easier to secure in the future, we also want those systems to be accessible, and if they have a public customer interface, for that interface to be easier to use and more direct,” said Schachter. “We get all of those benefits when we modernize, but we’re specifically focused on gaining the maximum amount of accessibility and improved customer experience, even with the legacy technology that may not be replaced for some time, given funding and other priorities.”

Schachter emphasized the importance of a “21st century IT workforce” equipped to handle the cybersecurity risks associated with the digital age. DOT is developing its talent pipeline to attract and retain the next generation who are interested in working in IT and cybersecurity.

“We need our people to move on to more complex tasks, because there’s always things that need to be done, and we want to support them in improving their position, moving and advancing within the government and being prepared for the next challenges,” said Schachter. “We can only do that if we recognize the need to both recruit the best people, but also to retain them once they’re here, because there’s a lot of competition for cybersecurity talent, AI talent and general IT talent, and we believe the mission of DOT and the federal government is so important that we want to keep them here.”

The agency is leveraging artificial intelligence to enable its workforce to “move on to more complex tasks,” but Schachter said governance and oversight is key to ensure the safe and effective use of this technology, alighing with President Biden’s executive order on AI.

“We are going through a process of describing our governance structure that will allow people safe places to experiment and develop AI informed tools,” said Schachter. “It will also allow a process for reviewing applications that are desired to be put into production to make sure that they’re safe and also meet all of the risk management criteria laid out in that executive order, for example, being free of bias and keeping private information private.”