AI/ML Data Infrastructure

We are looking for a volunteer with AI/ML experience to help us take a working data platform from "it runs" to "our team can rely on it." Over the past several months we moved past our initial readiness assessment and built a functional AI stack that supports WANAC's veteran transition programs. What we need now is someone who can pressure-test it, fix the weak spots, and get it ready for daily use by our program and coaching staff.
Here is what we have built and where we need help:
• Semantic Search: We have a vector database that indexes tens of thousands of document segments so our team can search by meaning, not just keywords. We need help tuning relevance and making sure it holds up under real usage.
• Structured Data Model: We built a graph database that maps relationships between regulatory codes, conditions, legal references, and eligibility criteria used in veteran benefits. We have a large backlog of documents ready to load in. We need help designing the ingestion pipeline and checking the data model for gaps.
• Retrieval Pipeline: We combine semantic search with keyword search and merge the results. We need someone who can help us build an evaluation framework, measure how good the answers are, and connect the pipeline to an AI assistant that can respond to staff questions with cited sources.
• Document Corpus: We maintain a large collection of documents from multiple public sources. We need help building a repeatable update workflow, expanding to additional sources, and putting basic version control and governance in place.

The end goal is a platform our team trusts to give accurate, sourced answers to complex questions, so we can spend more time on the veterans and less time digging through documents.

WANAC helps transitioning service members and veterans build successful paths in education, careers, entrepreneurship, and life through coaching and structured programs. The AI platform this project will harden is what lets us do that work faster and at a scale our small team could not reach otherwise.

One of the biggest challenges veterans face after service is understanding and accessing the benefits they have earned. The process is slow, confusing, and most people do not have easy access to the legal and regulatory knowledge that would help them. We built this platform to change that: to give our coaches and, eventually, veterans themselves fast, accurate, source-backed answers grounded in the actual regulatory record.

With a production-ready platform, we will be able to:
• Get our coaching team answers in seconds instead of hours of manual research, which means more time spent with veterans and less time reading through policy documents.
• Show funders and partners measurable results by building quality metrics and evaluation tools into the platform from the start, so we are not guessing about whether AI-assisted guidance actually helps.
• Serve significantly more veterans without hiring proportionally more staff, because the most research-heavy parts of the work are handled by the platform.

The volunteer's contribution here will shape how we support veterans for years. We already have the infrastructure. We need the expert who can make it reliable.

We are treating this as a priority project with full leadership backing. Here is how we will set the volunteer up:
• We will assign a senior leader as project sponsor and a technical point of contact who built and maintains the current platform. The volunteer will have a knowledgeable counterpart from day one, not someone learning alongside them.
• We will share our project charter, risk register, work breakdown structure, and the codebase with inline documentation. We have project governance in place and track all work in a shared project management tool.
• We will give the volunteer direct access to the search engine, graph database, retrieval pipeline, and document collection in a secure, access-controlled environment.
• We will hold a kickoff to agree on scope, priorities, a 6 to 8 week timeline, and what "done" looks like. We will schedule weekly check-ins and commit to same-day responses on questions and feedback.

We have already put in the work to build the foundation. What we need is someone who can look at it with fresh, expert eyes and help us close the last mile.