'Data Science is a Team Sport': DJ Patil Spends First Day Pitching Silicon Valley on Joining Government

Just a day after the White House officially named DJ Patil the government’s first-ever US Chief Data Scientist, the Obama Administration is already putting him to work, sending the Silicon Valley alumni to a West Coast tech conference to recruit fellow data scientists to join government. "Data science is a team sport, and we can't do this without you,” Chief Data Scientist Patil told attendees of the “Strata + Hadoop” big data conference in San Jose (CA). “We really need your help …You don't have to be a US citizen. You don't have to relocate to DC. There's all sorts of ways to jump in."