Hodan Omaar

AI is transforming economic sectors and industries, creating new areas for innovations, and making its way into global trade discussions. A strong understanding of the AI landscape will be important to the International Trade Administration (ITA) and the Department of Commerce to ensure policy actions effectively strengthen the international competitiveness of U.S. industry and foster economic growth by promoting trade and investment.

The 117th Congress was the most AI-focused congressional session in history with 130 AI bills proposed, so it is a good moment to take stock of U.S. AI policy accomplishments to date and identify areas where there is room for continued progress.

A collaboration between the University of Florida and NVIDIA provides five lessons for effective industry-university partnerships.

Private firms face a number of challenges that limit their willingness and ability to share mobility data. The government’s role should be to coordinate the behavior of individuals, companies, and researchers toward social good.

Responding to an RFI on the use of biometric technologies, ITIF argued the government can help address and mitigate risks through independent public testing; performance standards; and more diverse training and evaluation datasets.

The White House’s proposal to create a bill of rights for artificial intelligence is an idea premised on a misunderstanding of how power is deployed in America.

DOE should prioritize creating a national quantum computing research cloud that provides academic researchers with affordable access to high-end quantum computing infrastructure.

If successful, the NAIRR would serve to bolster innovation and U.S. competitiveness in AI. We support the goals of the Task Force and offer several comments to inform the work of the Task Force.

Given the transformative potential of AI for workforce decisions, policy should tilt toward enabling transformation with this technology.

The Tenant Data Privacy Act would require all owners of residential buildings that use digital technologies to provision access to residents, such as through electronic key fobs or biometric door locks, to obtain informed consent through writing or a mobile app. Additionally, building owners would need to provide a “plain language” privacy policy to tenants that details the data their smart access system collects, the third parties they share the data with, how they will securely store the data, and how long they will retain data for.

As other nations rapidly scale up their investments to develop and use quantum computing, U.S. policymakers should ensure the United States remains a leader. Investing in near-term applications would bolster the development of longer-term use cases, thereby helping to cement U.S. economic competitiveness and protect national security.

To advance the president’s ambitious agenda, the administration should develop and share U.S. genome data, require law enforcement agencies to share data, and create a publicly available national evictions database.

Join ITIF's Center for Data Innovation for a panel discussion on the impact and efficacy of AI policy to date. Experts will debate on how policymakers can best nurture the capabilities and activities of the U.S. AI ecosystem moving forward.

Hodan Omaar speaks at Microsoft Innovation and Policy Center's event emphasizing the importance that policymakers ensure to internationalize efforts to mitigate harm from deepfakes and disinformation as malign information campaigns are increasingly targeting non-English speakers and immigrant communities.

Watch the Center for Data Innovation's discussion on the proposed amendments to the EU’s AI Act for general-purpose systems and its implications for AI development, innovation, and deployment in the EU and beyond.

Hodan Omaar presented at the "Democracy Affirming Technology: Restoring Trust Online" event, which identified and discussed solutions for some of the problems surrounding disinformation online, including the threat of deepfake information campaigns to national security and democratic values.

Watch ITIF’s Center for Data Innovation for a conversation with Ben Shneiderman, whose new book calls for a “human-centered” perspective on AI, as opposed to a “technology-centered” focus, so as to better serve human needs.

ITIF's Center for Data Innovation hosted a discussion about a new report exploring steps Congress and federal agencies can take to support quantum computing in the United States.

ITIF's Center for Data Innovation hosted a video webinar to discuss the transatlantic opportunities and challenges to promoting better cooperation in military use of AI.

ITIF's Center for Data Innovation hosted a conversation with Lauren Klein on her new book Data Feminism, co-authored with Catherine D’Ignazio.

ITIF's Center for Data Innovation hosted a discussion on a new report exploring what steps Congress, the NSF, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) should take to increase access to HPC resources for AI researchers in the United States.

ITIF’s Center for Data Innovation hosted a discussion about the impact quantum computing will have on AI, the current state of the field and near-term challenges, and the role that policy can play in accelerating this paradigm shift in computing and AI.

ITIF hosted a discussion with industry leaders on the role of digitalization in driving energy efficiency gains across the economy, and the release of a new ITIF report assessing the concerns—some legitimate and most not—regarding the energy and environmental impacts of the tech sector.