DEA Social Media Communications

DEA Social Media Communications

iDEAte 2.0 COMPETITION 2024, DEA’s second innovation competition

Every day, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is protecting American communities from criminal drug networks that threaten our safety and our health. DEA offices worldwide are meeting this time-sensitive mission. Our success is rooted in the expertise and dedication of our workforce. Our people are our best resource.

As such, DEA formally launched iDEAte, an agency-wide, grassroots, innovation competition designed to rapidly identify data-centric solutions for our most critical challenges. There is significant opportunity to capitalize on the skills all DEA employees possess by tapping into their awareness of the existing challenges DEA faces in fulfilling our mission and creating a space to bring innovative ideas to fruition.

"Innovation stems from all over the place, especially because people who aren't directly involved in a particular process or who are new to a space can see things differently and provide a new perspective.  Data helps shine a light to see where you should be going. It's about helping people find the right brick wall to go through." 
                                                                                                   Anne Milgram DEA Administrator

IDEAte 2.0 graphic

iDEAte 2.0 invites employees to submit an idea about how DEA can better harness data and technology to make its work more efficient and effective.

 

All employees were encouraged to submit an idea about a technical challenge DEA could solve in one of three focus areas: Data Retrieval, Data Utilization, and Data Governance. 

 

Hearing from those on the front lines, doing the work, is essential to DEA’s evolution and will ultimately help transform the organization. 

 

Presentations by the finalists and judging by DEA and DOJ leadership will take place on June 3, 2024.  Check @DEAHQ social media sites for the announcement of innovations that will move forward to the implementation phase.

Judging at iDEAte 1.0 competition

iDEAte 1.0

Of the ideas presented in iDEAte 1.0, six were chosen to be evaluated for implementation, and moved through a planning phase.

They included: streamlining and modernizing DEA lab databases; creating a personnel skills tracker; revamping DEA’s tip line; and automating a key DEA form used to report drug seizures. They included: streamlining and modernizing DEA lab databases; creating a personnel skills tracker; revamping DEA’s tip line; and automating a key DEA form used to report drug seizures.

Overview

 

iDEAte is designed to:

  • Build an idea pipeline with initiatives that will have a measurable impact on the mission
  • Create holistic solutions for current and future needs
  • Foster a culture of innovation, creativity, and collaboration to drive peak performance at DEA.

iDEAte finalists will get the opportunity to:

  • Address a significant challenge they are facing in their role at DEA
  • Move ideas to action to advance agency strategy
  • Meet with DOJ and DEA executive leadership to present their proposed solutions

Why this, why now?

With an increasing need for innovative solutions that address existing challenges, DEA seeks to create and foster an innovation platform that will:

  • Generate ingenuity and creativity in the advancement of mission and strategy
  • Increase the number of individuals and teams that are contributing to organizational priorities
  • Elevate new and diverse voices within an organization
  • Empower and develop the next generation of leaders
  • Operationalize ideas more quickly