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Sparking Innovation in Our Communities

We empower our people to share their technical and consulting expertise with the community and in ways that benefit our stakeholders. With innovative skillsets, our people bring value to charitable nonprofits through skills-based volunteering and pro bono services and to our stakeholders through events focused on critical client and community challenges.

Driving Equity in Future Technology Education

Booz Allen is committed to driving equity for future STEM education in areas such as engineering, cybersecurity, and artificial intelligence. For the 19th consecutive year, we partnered with FIRST® to support future STEM leaders in Texas; Alabama; Hawaii; the Washington, DC, metropolitan area; and worldwide. To promote access to cybersecurity education, we supported programs for the USS Midway Museum, Girl Scouts of San Diego, and Year Up.

This year, we partnered with Year Up to provide cybersecurity and data analytics training, wraparound support, and access to living-wage career opportunities for 107 young people between the ages of 18-29. Twenty Booz Allen employees worked with the Year Up participants, helping with resume and interview skills while inspiring them to go into public service. Year Up is committed to ensuring equitable access to economic opportunity, education, and justice for all young adults—no matter their background, income, or zip code. Of the organization's graduates, 70% obtained full-time, STEM-related employment.

We also began a new national partnership with the Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS) at the University of Texas at San Antonio. CIAS' K-12 initiatives include digital and physical cybersecurity resources to foster good "cyber hygiene" among students and inspire our youngest citizens to pursue cybersecurity careers. Through Booz Allen's support, CIAS provides free resources for teachers to integrate cybersecurity education into their classrooms.

Using AI to Identify Uncredited Women Researchers

In collaboration with the Smithsonian's Office of the Chief Information Officer, Booz Allen supported the new Smithsonian American Women's History Museum through Hidden Impacts, a pro bono project. Hidden Impacts uncovered women's roles in research and science—contributions that were often excluded from official documentation or listed under a husband's or family's name. Using AI techniques such as named entity recognition/disambiguation and graph analytics, we enhanced the Smithsonian's capability to locate women's historical contributions in its Open Access content data sets. At the end of the engagement, the Booz Allen team built a searchable network graph showing relationships between women and their collaborators, institutions, and collections—and unearthing previously hidden networks and collaborations.

Equitable Pathways for AI Education

Booz Allen was an early mover in responsible AI education. In 2019, we began a multiyear collaboration with the AI Education Project (aiEDU) that aligns with our goal of equipping young people with the knowledge and tools to work and thrive in an increasingly automated world. As aiEDU's first corporate partner, we helped it build momentum and grow.

In January 2023, the Booz Allen Foundation hosted the DC Capital Region AI Education Summit, which brought together more than 150 education and nonprofit leaders, tech partners, and government officials to discuss the importance of equitable AI education and ways to integrate responsible AI into the classroom. The summit created a template for similar gatherings across the country and grew awareness of aiEDU, leading to dozens of requests from school districts and nonprofits interested in collaboration and partnership—including a July follow-up training for Washington, DC area teachers with 400+ registrants.

In March 2023, aiEDU rallied 50+ partners to launch a national call to action for AI education at a South by Southwest EDU (SXSW EDU) event hosted by Booz Allen that brought together stakeholders from around the country to promote a goal for 500 school districts across the U.S. to incorporate an ethical and equitable AI education curriculum.

The Helix, Booz Allen's Center for Innovation

When it comes to delivering mission impact, seeing truly is believing. In November 2022, Booz Allen opened the doors to The Helix, Booz Allen's Center for Innovation. The Helix is a platform for showcasing our world-class innovation and building community and affiliation among clients, partners, and employees. We bridge the physical distance between Washington, DC; Silicon Valley; and everywhere in between with an immersive and compelling showcase of our people, trusted expertise, and disruptive capabilities, demonstrating how we bring our collective ingenuity to help clients solve their emerging challenges of today and position them at the forefront of tomorrow.

The Helix pulls back the curtain on emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, 5G, and digital twins, making them accessible and immediately applicable to critical U.S. federal government missions.

The Helix prominently features Booz Allen's ESG strategy in both small and large ways. Its storytelling rotunda describes our three ESG pillars through stories on climate, our COVID response, and our DEI efforts. We help empower diverse talent by showcasing the thought leadership and technical strength of diverse team members within our demonstrations and stories. We make innovation accessible to all by featuring content that ranges from beginner to advanced levels and hosting guests from a variety of organizations. Finally, we help drive community resilience by featuring content ranging from how AI can support climate disaster preparedness to how data visualizations can illuminate the health of a community.

The Helix offers bespoke tours that draw from over 250 unique stories, events that can accommodate both in-person and hybrid audiences, and private meetings for deeper conversations around the technology featured.

Since opening, The Helix has hosted over 180 tours, meetings, and events for over 1,900 guests that include clients, corporate partners, community organizations, the startup community, and Booz Allen talent. From middle school students exploring careers in STEM to senior defense leaders seeking to understand the role of digital twins in base security, The Helix has helped make the invisible visible and introduced guests to the power of emerging technology in solving mission-critical challenges.