Keynote
ConfirmedThe Three Kinds of Data: Why Definition Comes Before AI
On October 16, 2026, Will Melton will speak at 2026 Virginia Datathon for Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics (ODGA) at The Nicolas Center, Brightpoint Community College in Chester, VA.
There are three ways to get the data behind any solution: you find it, you collect it, or you create it. Most people only think about the first. The real leverage, for a Datathon team or a business, is in the other two: building systems that collect data continuously, and creating original data that others can use. None of it works, though, without defining exactly what you're measuring before you start.
I'll walk through this using examples from my own work, including CARL, an AI system we built that collects data at scale, writes content from defined parameters, and continuously optimizes what's published, and a health-metrics dashboard I run for a Richmond initiative. In both cases, the AI does a small, well-defined step. The bigger and more valuable work is deciding what to measure, collecting it reliably, and validating it before anyone uses it.
That's directly relevant to this year's affordability theme: housing costs, energy burden, and healthcare access all get tracked differently depending on who's collecting the data and how it's defined.
- Host
- Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics (ODGA)
- Event
- 2026 Virginia Datathon
- Date
- Location
- The Nicolas Center, Brightpoint Community College, Chester, VA
- Audience
- Datathon teams and Virginia data practitioners
About this talk
There are three ways to get the data behind any solution: find it, collect it, or create it. Using CARL, an AI system that collects data at scale, and a health-metrics dashboard for a Richmond initiative, Will shows that the valuable work is deciding what to measure, collecting it reliably, and validating it before anyone uses it.
About the event
The Virginia Datathon is organized by the Virginia Office of Data Governance and Analytics (ODGA) and held at The Nicolas Center at Brightpoint Community College in Chester, Virginia. This year's theme is affordability, including housing costs, energy burden, and healthcare access.