FDA DeepRacer Race Day Event 

In support of the FDA's Information Technology Strategy and its six key goals, the Office of Digital Transformation (ODT) hosted the first agency-wide Amazon Web Services (AWS) DeepRacer event. This annual event helped FDA staff get quickly acquainted with machine learning. We assembled over 100 participants that formed into 21 teams with employees representing over 10 different centers and offices, culminating in a final Race Day at the White Oak campus on May 16, 2024. Developers and motivated team members of all skill levels, including those with no prior machine learning experience, benefited from completing hands-on training to build reinforcement models, and race for glory. The AWS DeepRacer information ecosystem taught FDA staff the fundamentals of reinforcement learning with educational resources, an easy-to-use console, and real self-driving cars.