The Buzz with ACT-IAC

This fall, our federal government has teetered on the edge of shutdown more than once before a last-minute agreement could be reached. As of this episode, yet another Continuing Resolution has extended the day of reckoning to either mid-January or early February, depending on the agency.  Unfortunately, this is not the first time discord in Congress has disrupted government operations, and it&apos...

This year, ACT-IAC's Imagine Nation ELC was our largest conference ever, with more than 1200 in-person attendees! We also had more sessions than ever, and The Buzz is excited to bring a selection of recordings from this year's event to our podcast audience. We're kicking things off with a lively discussion between OPM Director Kiran Ahuja and her colleague Melvin Brown , who serves...

This week, the Buzz is partnering with ACT-IAC's Federal Insights Exchange (FIE). The FIE program hosts short-form conversations between industry and agency leaders to share success stories, challenges, and priorities. Our guest host Dr. Allan Burman , President of Jefferson Solutions at the Jefferson Consulting Group and member of the Department of Veterans Affairs FIE, sat down with Dr. Ang...

Among America's Indigenous communities, the legacy of settler colonialism has left deep scars. As they confront disparities in health outcomes, economic development, and political attention, Tribal governments must routinely do more with less to provide necessary services to their people. In addition, accelerating resilient infrastructure threatens local ecologies, which many tribes rely on b...

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is a small government agency with an important charge - to research and communicate to the public the personal safety risks of the everyday products that we buy and use. But our cluttered information landscape makes any sort of public communication challenging - let alone for (traditionally) dry messages from public sector agencies with limited budgets...

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, so this week we present a session from ACT-IAC's 2023 Cybersecurity Summit. TSA CIO Yemi Oshinnaiye kicked off our summit with a broad-ranging discussion of his experience in cyber, why cybersecurity matters, and how the IT community can confront the cyber challenges of the present and future. Agile Product Discovery Course | ACT-IAC Summary - A Hole...

This week, The Buzz presents a session from ELC 2014. Mikey Dickerson initially came to the federal government on a temporary basis as part of the team assigned to rescue the unfortunate Healthcare.gov rollout in 2013. Less than a year later, he was tapped to serve as the first administrator of the fledgling US Digital Service, which sought to bring a modern service design and delivery approach to...

This week, The Buzz presents a session from our first ever Future Evolution of the Workforce Forum. For decades, the Government has competed with private industry for talent by offering what were generally perceived to be better benefits, job stability, improved working environments and a greater sense of fulfillment via a sense of purpose built around agency mission. Unfortunately, workers enteri...

Last month marked the 1-year anniversary of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. The somewhat simple name belies the breadth and scope of this enormous piece of legislation. Among other changes like tax code and Medicare reform, the IRA is also the most comprehensive piece of US climate policy in history, and it contains a dizzying number of new programs and incentives that seek to reorient...

This week, The Buzz presents a session from our 2023 Resilient Infrastructure Summit. DoD, DHS, and the State Department have long recognized that resilient infrastructure’s impacts - including sea level rise, weather-related challenges to installations and operations, and forced migration - can significantly threaten our national security.  In January of 2021, President Biden signed Executive Ord...

As detailed in the President's Management Agenda and Executive Order 14058, a major priority of the current administration has been to improve government service delivery to the American public. The challenges of receiving federal benefits have been well-documented - from confusing paper applications to unclear responsibilities between multiple federal agencies - and so a reform effort is und...

As August comes to a close, The Buzz is here to get you up to speed on the top stories in the federal technology sector from this summer, as well as share what ACT-IAC has coming up in the fall.  From climate change to government AI, we'll give you the most important updates from the past few months. Resources : AI News: No Section 230 for AI Act  Block Nuclear Launch by Autonomous Artificial...

This week, The Buzz presents a session from our 2023 Emerging Technology and Innovation Conference. In this panel discussion, representatives from government and industry discuss how hyperautomation is reshaping roles and responsibilities in the working world, and the skill requirements for organizations to operate these powerful new technologies. Panelists: Mike McKinney - Vice President at Amive...

This past July, a series of severe floods devastated central Vermont. After more than a decade of drought, early 2023 brought a series of 12 "atmospheric rivers" to California, dumping trillions of gallons of water up and down the coast and causing billions of dollars in damage. Last summer, parts of Eastern Kentucky experienced more than a foot of rainfall in less than 5 days. Rivers sw...

If you have a gas car, you never really need to double-check which gas station you go to when you fill up. Every gas station in North America is compatible with every personal vehicle. This standardized fuel network enables our gas-driven transportation system in a way that most of us don't notice on a day-to-day basis. If you have an electric vehicle, though, you do notice this. Or rather, y...

Over the past few weeks, we've seen a host of state governments triumphantly announcing the arrival of federal funds - usually over $1 billion apiece - to expand broadband access, particularly to rural communities. The seeds of this arrival were planted nearly two years ago, when Congress passed the Infrastructure and Jobs Act. The wheels of government do spin slowly, but hopefully the scope...

In December 2022, scientists at the National Ignition Facility, of NIF, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory did something that had never happened before on Earth – controlled fusion ignition. What is nuclear fusion and why does it matter? This week on The Buzz, we'll be talking about why last year's experiment represents an enormous breakthrough in the future of energy, by hearing...

While "the Future of Work" has become a popular topic in the post-pandemic era, the conversation has largely focused on how white-collar workers are adapting and reacting to a workplace and labor market governed and facilitated by digital technologies. The expansion of remote work has sparked plenty of discussion about our relationship to technology, both economic and philosophical. Miss...

This week, The Buzz presents a session from our 2023 Health Innovation Summit. Government partnerships across civilian and military healthcare agencies are critical for health life cycle delivery. In this panel discussion, leaders from both civilian, military and industry health landscape will discuss how collaborations and standard development are driving the data modernization and the implementa...

This episode of The Buzz is best experienced with headphones. With the generative AI hype cycle reaching a fever pitch, now may be a good time to step back and consider some of the potential downsides and risks of creating terabytes of text, image, sound and video at the click of a button. What will it mean to exist in an online world where the source and veracity of information is even more inscr...

This week, The Buzz presents a keynote session from ACT-IAC's 2023 Emerging Technology and Innovation Conference. The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) supports the entire DoD community by providing strategic information about the capabilities of foreign adversaries. In this talk, Edacheril "E.P." Mathew, the agency's Deputy CIO, explains who the DIA is concerned about, how the...

This week, the Buzz is partnering with ACT-IAC's Federal Insights Exchange (FIE). The FIE program hosts short-form conversations between industry and agency leaders to share success stories, challenges, and priorities. Our guest host Sid Getz , Vice President at CGI and member of the Department of Veterans Affairs FIE, sat down with Jon Rychalski, Assistant Secretary for Management and Chief...

This week, the Buzz presents a recorded session from our first ever Resilient Infrastructure Summit, held on April 17th. This fireside chat features Edward Saltzberg, Executive Director of the Security and Sustainability Forum and Andy Bochman , Senior Grid Strategist at the Idaho National Laboratory. These two experts discuss vulnerability of infrastructure in a world that must adjust to geopolit...

Global average temperatures have risen roughly 2 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880, but more than half of that change has come only in the last 4 decades. And in the next 3 decades, we are on track to see an additional 5-degree Fahrenheit (or more) increase. The Earth of today, and of the near future, is one in which we must constantly adapt to the environmental upheaval we have created. As our planet...

If “data is the new oil” as British mathematician Clive Humby famously said in 2006, then perhaps artificial intelligence is the new plastics – a novel application of an existing raw material.   Though opinions vary on how AI will actually influence our future, we're firmly in the “revolution is imminent” category. Whether that revolution is beneficial or harmful, however, is still up in the...