Fed Gov Today

This edition of Fed Gov Today is sponsored by Leidos. Today and Thursday, conversations from the Department of Veterans Affairs National Artificial Intelligence Institute ’s International Summit for AI in Health Care , September 6-8 in Washington. The VA is optimistic about moving AI solutions from prototype and testing to deployment. Part of that transition is engaging end users in that deploymen...

A 10-year roadmap for agency digitization is out from the Office of Management and Budget. The guidance is called “ Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience .” Suzette Kent, CEO of Kent Advisory Services and former Federal Chief Information Officer, explains what’s in it, and what it means for agencies and the government as a whole. “Data as a strategic asset” is not a new term in the federal...

A government shutdown wouldn’t just stop work for the two point one million federal employees of the government. It would stop work on almost all the contracts that almost all the contractors that work for the government work on. Soraya Correa , Executive Director of the Contract Management Institute at the National Contract Management Association , and former Chief Procurement Officer at the Depa...

Early fiscal year 2024 is the target date for a reorganization at the General Services Administration . GSA will restructure the Federal Acquisition Service. Alan Thomas , Chief Solutions Officer at Leadership Connect and former Commissioner of the Federal Acquisition Service at GSA, tells you how the reorg will work, and what it will mean for GSA and its employees; GSA customers; and industry. He...

A new initiative from the Defense Department will try to counter China with large quantities of autonomous systems. Breaking Defense reports Deputy Secretary of Defense Kath Hicks says the Replicator project will “ leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap, and many. ” Dov Zakheim, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former Under Secretary of Defense (Com...

The Merchant Marine service is dealing with some of the same people problems the rest of government is dealing with. RADM Ann Phillips (USN ret.) is Administrator of the Maritime Administration at the Transportation Department . On the latest edition of Fed Gov Today TV , she explains why the people problem is her biggest issue right now. Several federal agencies are increasing the number of days...

The Department of Veterans Affairs is the recipient of one of the most recent Technology Modernization Fund awards. The TMF Board says the $7.4 million award “ aims to help the VA tackle the digitization of forms at scale .” Maria Roat, Founder and CEO of MA Roat Consulting and former Deputy Chief Information Officer of the United States, details the potential pitfalls of digital modernization pro...

The Federal Government is getting better at moving money from one agency to another . But it still has work to do in a number of money management areas. Dawn Simpson , Director of Financial Management and Assurance at the Government Accountability Office, explains what those issues are, and how to fix them. Customs and Border Protection has a 70% goal to hit by the end of this month. That’s the pe...

The Commerce Department is counting down to a big cloud move at the end of this month. On the latest edition of the Fed Gov Today TV show , the Chief Information Officer at Commerce, Andre Mendes , tells you what’s coming October 1st. The Chief Information Officer at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency is making a culture shift. Robert Costello told me about it in a one-on-one con...

The White House is asking agencies to “ aggressively execute ” back-to-office strategies this fall. President Biden’s Chief of Staff, former Deputy Director for Management at OMB Jeffrey Zients calls in-person work “critical to the well-being of our teams.” John Sawyer , Director of Education, Workforce, and Income Security Issues, and Michael Hoffman , Director of the Center for Economics, both a...

The Office of Management and Budget is working on a 10-year plan to modernize federal IT. Chris DeRusha, the Federal Chief Information Security Officer, says legacy system modernization is “ the number one biggest rock that needs to get moved for us to be able to secure our systems. ” Richard Spires, principal at Richard A. Spires Consulting and former Chief Information Officer at the Department o...

The National Finance Center does payroll, human resources, and retirement services for 650,000 federal employees across 170 agencies. It’s up against the same modernization challenges other federal government organizations are facing. Margie Graves , Senior Fellow at the IBM Center for The Business of Government , and former Deputy Chief Information Officer of the United States, led a team for the...

GovForward FedRAMP Headliner Summit August 23 Big changes are coming to the 8(a) program at the Small Business Administration. Vendors will soon have to tell their own stories about why they should be in the program . Joe Jordan , President and CEO of Actuparo and former Administrator of Federal Procurement Policy, explains why both contractors and SBA could have some trouble ahead. The newest ser...

GovForward FedRAMP Headliner Summit August 23 The new edition of one of the federal government’s guiding performance documents is out. The update to Circular A-11 includes references to strategic reviews, customer experience, and evidence-based policymaking. Robert Shea , Chief Executive Officer of GovNavigators , former Associate Director at the Office of Management Budget, and former Commissione...

The State Department’s “ Tech for Life ” initiative will give each employee her or his own phone number to connect to the department’s IT. The CIO at the State Department, Kelly Fletcher, says the department is running two pilot programs this summer. Karen Evans, Partner at KE&T Partners, and Managing Director of the Cyber Readiness Institute and former E-gov Administrator at OMB, and former C...

The Department of Veterans Affairs is moving to a new supply chain management solution . The agency’s solicitation has been on the street for a couple weeks now. Greg Giddens , Partner at Potomac Ridge Consulting and former Principal Executive Director of the Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction at VA, tells you what he sees in the solicitation, and what he reads between the lines. Th...

The next generation of the Army’s Project Convergence is scheduled for the beginning of next year. Federal News Network reports Project Convergence-4 will focus on battlefield scenarios . Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan (USAF ret.), former director of the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, tells you what really matters in AI research, and how a movie he watched recently sparked that thought. The Air For...

Scientists could save the earth from an object that’s coming at us from outer space thanks to a test NASA has done. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test team at NASA , called DART, has proven it can change the path of something coming toward earth by smashing a spacecraft into it. Brian Key is Program Manager, and Scott Bellamy is Mission Manager, in the Planetary Missions Program Office at the Ma...

The Defense Department says it considers diversity a “ strategic imperative ”. But data seems to show diversity hasn’t changed much in the last decade. Brenda Farrell , Director of Defense Capabilities and Management at the Government Accountability Office , tells you what she looked at, and what she found, about diversity in DoD. A network based at the National Cancer Institute has “changed the w...

The Internal Revenue Service will award a procurement worth up to $1.7 billion to modernize its Integrated Enterprise Portals platform. The agency says that platform “served over 11.4 billion page views to 660 million site visitors globally.” Richard Spires , principal at Richard A. Spires Consulting and former Chief Information Officer at the Department of Homeland Security and the Internal Reven...

This edition of Fed Gov Today is sponsored by Eleven09 and Carahsoft. The Coast Guard is running into some problems with its new Offshore Patrol Cutter program . Those problems are stacking up on top of some issues with the ships the new program will replace. Marie Mak , Director of Contracting and National Security Acquisitions Issues at the Government Accountability Office, took a close look , a...

This edition of Fed Gov Today, from the Edge23 Security Summit in San Diego, is sponsored by Hitachi Vantara Federal and Carahsoft. The Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section at the Justice Department is more than halfway through its third decade fighting cyber crime. It’s taken down some of the biggest dark web and cyber crime organizations in the world. Mick Stawasz is Deputy Chief for...

This edition of Fed Gov Today, from the Edge23 Security Summit in San Diego, is sponsored by Okta and Carahsoft. The motto of Edge 23 is “Managing Risk in Turbulent Times.” Zero trust is the primary driver of cyber policy and action in government right now. At Edge 23, Barry West, Founder and CEO of West Wing Advisory Services, and former Chief Information Officer at FEMA and the Commerce Departme...

This edition of Fed Gov Today, from the Edge23 Security Summit in San Diego, is sponsored by Splunk and Carahsoft. Civilian and military agencies across government are building systems to collaborate more closely with industry. One of the goals of most of these cells is to learn what’s possible from industry, instead of writing lists of requirements. Don Upson is Founder and Chairman of the Govern...

The Office of Management and Budget’s new cyber investment priorities for fiscal 2025 match the National Cybersecurity Strategy . Those priorities align with the Federal Zero Trust Strategy too. Karen Evans, Partner at KE & T Partners, Managing Director of the Cyber Readiness Institute, and former E-Gov Administrator at OMB, explains what’s in the priorities list for the federal government ent...