Ask the CIO

Like legacy technology systems, agency chief information officers are struggling to modernize their own roles. Federal technology executives and their private sector counterparts still face an uphill battle to shed the long-held viewpoint that they are back-office, cost centers. A new survey of public and private sector CIOs indicated the modernization of their role isn’t happening as fast as many...

Gordon Bitko, the chief information officer of the FBI, said the bureau is relaying on a combination of tools, training and shared services to better manage data. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Eddie Hartwig, the deputy administrator of the U.S. Digital Service, said the goal is to train 250 contracting officers under the Digital IT Acquisition Professional Program (DITAP). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

The General Services Administration will host an industry day on April 18 to detail initial thoughts around a new contract writing system. Crystal Philcox, the assistant commissioner for Enterprise Strategy Management at GSA's FAS, among others joined Federal News Network's Jason Miller for Ask the CIO. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19....

Michelle Jacobs, the director of DLA’s hosting office, said the agency is using commercial cloud services to host more than 60 percent of its applications and wants to move toward a software-as-a-service model. Jacobs joined Federal News Network's Jason Miller on Ask the CIO. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-i...

Vince Urias, a distinguished member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories, said the HADES program creates a fake environment where cyber defenders can lure hackers and better understand their techniques. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Suzi Connor, the chief information officer at CDC, said a new three-pronged approach will change the way the agency manages and uses technology. Connor joined Federal News Network's Jason Miller on this week's episode of Ask the CIO. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Whether or not the Section 809 panel’s recommendation to exempt the Defense Department from the Clinger-Cohen Act makes sense or goes too far, the congressionally-mandated group hit upon a bigger issue to be solved for every agency: The way Congress provides funding for agencies to buy technology is frozen in time. Former Office of Management and Budget and Defense Department IT executives weighed...

Max Everett, the Energy Department’s chief information officer, said about one-third to one-half of the department still needs to move their email to the cloud. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Raghav Vajjhala, the chief information officer of the FTC, said a new blanket purchase agreement with four vendors will help the agency take a low risk approach to IT modernization. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Contracting officers are getting some much needed help to make sure solicitations include language to guarantee accessibility for people with disabilities. Section 508 requires agencies to buy technology products and services that are compliant with accessibility standards. Where no human could review the tens of thousands of requests for proposals (RFPs) that come out every year to make sure they...

Margie Graves, the deputy chief information officer of the government at the Office of Management and Budget, said the administration is trying to identify innovative approaches for recruiting and training IT workers. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Lt. Gen. Bruce Crawford, the Army’s chief information officer, said the service’s new artificial intelligence task force will focus on tasks ranging from automating cybersecurity to identity management. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Josh Moses, the former Office of Management and Budget’s chief of the cyber and national security branch in the office of Federal CIO, said agencies are in better shape to defend against cyber attacks because of a combination of policy, people and programs. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Artificial intelligence and the cyber workforce will be front and center when the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on IT comes back for the 116th Congress. Both Reps. Will Hurd (R-Texas) and Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), currently the chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee, respectively, said they want to see progress across the government in both of these areas. House Informati...

Glenn Davidson, the former executive director of enterprise services at the Commerce, said after three years the agency is seeing better services and cost avoidance from consolidating IT, acquisition and HR services. He joined Federal News Network's Jason Miller on Ask the CIO. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my...

Jothi Dugar, the NIH’s clinical center’s chief information security officer, said she is using the agency’s Diversity of Science effort to increase the number of women in cybersecurity. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

The General Services Administration is creating new special item numbers under its IT schedule to make it easier for agencies to buy mobile computing services. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

The Air Force is the second military service to restructure its chief information officer’s role by moving it to a higher level in the organization. The service named Undersecretary Matt Donovan as its new CIO to go along with his current role as the chief management officer. And while there is more to finalize around the Air Force’s restructuring efforts, Bill Marion, the Air Force’s deputy CIO,...

Janet Vogel, the acting chief information security officer at HHS, said the Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center (HC3) replaces the Healthcare Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (HCCIC). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Jeanette Manfra, the assistant secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity and Communications at DHS, said her office will focus on helping agencies manage and mitigate vulnerabilities through the CDM program. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Kathy Hutson, NSA’s senior strategist for academic engagement, said a 20-year partnership with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County helps keep current employees growing and brings in new ones. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

USDA and HUD are taking advantage of both the Technology Modernization Fund and the Centers of Excellence to jumpstart IT modernization efforts. David Chow, the chief information officer at HUD, said TMF and CoE are part of HUD’s financial transformation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Jason Gray, the Education Department’s chief information officer, said IT modernization is all about making both the policy and the infrastructure more flexible, agile and customer focused. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Renee Wynn, the NASA CIO, said during the upcoming ACT-IAC ELC ImaginationNation conference she’s interested in learning about SDN and zero trust networks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .