UnidosUS is the largest Latino advocacy organization in the US. We work with our community by partnering with affiliated local nonprofits on projects in education, workforce development, financial empowerment, immigration, and health. We continually adjust our programs to respond to the needs of the community. Standing up a new program is often a long and difficult process that involves the creation of curriculum materials to train affiliate staff and to use with community members directly.   

In this talk, we demonstrate how using a retrieval augmented generation (RAG) generative AI technique is helping us to be more responsive by allowing our staff to focus on the source research and data to inform these programs rather than on the work of creating the actual training documents themselves. We will cover:

• How curriculum documents are normally created manually
• What is retrieval augmented generation (RAG)
• How we experimented with different approaches to using RAG
• Results and our pathway going forward

Speaker: Andrew Patricio

Andrew Patricio leads the digital transformation work at UnidosUS, the largest Latino advocacy organization in the United States. He is responsible for ensuring that technology and data are effectively used to advance our mission. He champions innovation across teams via both process and technology improvements to provide effective, pragmatic, and sustainable solutions to problems facing the US Hispanic community using both current and emergent tools, technologies, and research. Prior to joining UnidosUS, Andrew led technology teams at numerous District of Columbia government agencies. He is the former Chief Data Officer/CIO of the District of Columbia Public Schools where he led the implementation of the district’s first reporting data warehouse and the successful multi-million dollar replacement of the core student information system. He also ran a consulting firm advising multiple clients from the non-profit and commercial startup sectors on how to make more effective use of their data. 

Speaker: Armando Garcia

Armando is the Data Lead at UnidosUS and an AI Cloud Specialist with a decade of experience in data processes and AWS cloud technologies. They are an expert in leveraging tools like Lambda, SageMaker, and Bedrock, having a significant focus on generative AI, with practical skills in embeddings and vector databases. Their work spans projects for non-profits and financial entities in the US, Europe, and Latin America. They are known for a collaborative approach, they have consistently enhanced business solutions by working with diverse stakeholders. Armando is proficient in data analytic tools such as SQL, NoSQL, Python, and Snowflake, and specializes in integrating data analytics with cloud and AI technologies to drive business transformation. Armando is recognized for their ability to align technical solutions with business objectives, their career is marked by the successful delivery of projects that provide actionable insights and meet stakeholder goals.