The Daily Scoop Podcast

DISA’s Hosting and Compute Center was opened in 2021 to empower the warfighter to execute at the speed of mission with cloud computing and other hosting and computing services. Now two years later, the HaCC, as it's called, is smashing its strategic goals out of the park while leading the administration of one of the largest and highest profile cloud computing contracts in all of government. Sharo...

Last month, the Office of Management and Budget issued guidance for federal agencies digital experience management — a policy that’s been five years in the making as set out by the 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act. In her role as federal CIO, Clare Martorana is championing for progress in how agencies interact with the public online to make it easier for citizens to get the informati...

Darren Ash was hired as CIO of the Department of the Interior last September. And during his first year, the longtime federal IT official, who’s served also as CIO of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the USDA Farm Service Agency among others, has been focused on delivering an IT strategic plan to guide the vision for Interior’s IT operations. Ash joins The Daily Scoop Podcast now to discuss t...

More and more agencies are turning to as-a-service, cloud-based applications rather than hosting services in house. While there are many benefits to that model, there are challenges too. Scoop News Group's Wyatt Kash spoke recently with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission CIO Mittal Desai about the challenges and benefits of adopting an as-a-Service model, the cultural shifts required within IT t...

Artificial intelligence continues to be all anyone in the government technology space can talk about. But AI is not exactly new. It’s been a topic federal IT officials have discussed and explored for decades now. So what makes this point in the AI development and adoption cycle different? Rob Carey, President of Cloudera Government Solutions and the former Navy CIO and Pentagon Deputy CIO, joins T...

We’re all set for Tuesday’s Google Public Sector Summit at the Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., where the amazing lineup of speakers are set to discuss how agency and industry experts are approaching the widening intersection of AI and security. Ahead of Tuesday’s event, I spoke with Google Public Sector CEO Karen Dahut on what she hopes attendees walk away with from the event, as well as how...

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent federal government agency primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. As such, the ability to leverage cloud services has played a pivotal role in helping USAID support several key mission objectives, including efforts to foster global health, climate sustainability, and su...

As a member of Congress, Will Hurd made a name for himself in the federal technology space as one of the largest advocates for agency cybersecurity and technology modernization. The former CIA operations officer helped penned legislation that created the Technology Modernization Fund, and regularly conducted oversight hearings around the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act, better known as FITARA. H...

Climate change and defense – two topics that you don’t often think about together. But in recent years, the Defense Department has made sustainability, climate and energy resiliency top priorities related to national security. And it makes sense – not only is the DOD one of the largest energy consumers in the world, but in the digital age, emerging threats put the department’s access to energy at...

After bringing the government shutdown clock to the very brink of a closure over the weekend, Congress was able to reach a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government funded through Nov. 17. While that’s a better-than-worst-case-scenario outcome, it still has some impacts for the way agencies must operate without full appropriations. And there’s a strong possibility we may be right bac...

The Special Competitive Studies Project, which has continued the work of the now dissolved National Security Commission on AI, issued its latest report this week on generative AI and its impact on the global competitive landscape. That report states, among other things, that recent advancements in AI come as transformations in geopolitical structuring resemble that of the days leading up to World...

The General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service is in the midst of a major reorganization. Led by Commissioner Sonny Hashmi, the reorganization will be implemented beginning next month at the start of fiscal year 2024 to better meet the needs of federal customers and simplify interactions with GSA. Hashmi, a longtime federal servant and former CIO of GSA, joins me now to discuss...

FedScoop hosted its annual FedTalks Sept. 6 in Washington D.C. In its 14th year, the event is the largest annual gathering of C-level executives, leaders and innovators from the government and tech community. Dr. Kelly Fletcher, the CIO of the State Department, took the stage during the day’s event to detail how her office is working to support democracy and diplomacy across the globe using modern...

FedScoop hosted its annual FedTalks Sept. 6 in Washington D.C. In its 14th year, the event is the largest annual gathering of C-level executives, leaders and innovators from the government and tech community. One of those leaders was Ann Dunkin, CIO of the Energy Department, who delivered a keynote on DOE’s ongoing modernization efforts. During the FedTalk, Dunkin shared progress of her IT enterpr...

FedScoop hosted its annual FedTalks Sept. 6 in Washington D.C. In its 14th year, the event is the largest annual gathering of C-level executives, leaders and innovators from the government and tech community. A sure highlight of the day came in a FedTalk from Commerce CIO Andre Mendes. During his energy-filled keynote Mendes explored what the future of digital services in government could look lik...

FedScoop hosted its annual FedTalks Sept. 6 in Washington D.C. In its 14th year, the event is the largest annual gathering of C-level executives, leaders and innovators from the government and tech community. And to kick off the packed-house event, Deputy Federal CIO Drew Myklegard spoke with me during a rapid fire session focused primarily on the evolution of cloud in the federal government and h...

Allen Hill has been on the job as the CIO of the Federal Communications Commission for roughly a year now. And during that time, he’s made it a priority to move as many systems and applications as possible within the agency’s portfolio to as-a-service models. To discuss that, what he’s learned and accomplished in this first year, and how he’s thinking about cybersecurity as part of that journey, H...

Each year, the National Security Agency hosts the Codebreaker Challenge – an annual cryptanalysis and reverse engineering event that gives U.S. students a hands-on experience working with an NSA mission-centric scenario that showcases the type of work the agency does every day. The challenge for 2023 will launch in late September and NSA will soon begin accepting registrations for the event. To di...

In late 2021, the Biden administration issued landmark citizen and customer experience focused policy items in the President's Management Agenda and an Executive Order on Transforming Federal Customer Experience and Service Delivery to Rebuild Trust in Government. And to further bolster those efforts, the administration in this year’s budget request called for more than $500 million to support CX...

Earlier this week , I told you about a story exclusive to FedScoop in which a number of current and former federal officials claim a significant lack of prioritization and strategic vision from key technology leaders at the White House’s U.S. Digital Service, Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration has caused massive delays in critical improvements to government web...

The Department of Veterans Affairs holds one of the largest IT budgets across the federal government. From major programs like its EHR modernization effort to the digital implementation of various benefits programs, the VA has one of the most important technology portfolios in the federal space. As CIO of the VA, Kurt DelBene is responsible for leading that IT mission space, managing nearly 16,000...

Chief innovation officer – it’s a title you don’t often see across the federal government. But at the Transporation Security Administration, it’s become a critical role for building and sustaining a culture of innovation and creating an environment that incentivizes anyone across the agency to innovate. Dan McCoy served as chief innovation officer at TSA from May 2020 to Oct. 2022. Now the head of...

Small pieces of space debris or space junk have become a massive issue across the space industry, threatening the nation’s future space operations. As commercial space flight grows in popularity, and some of the U.S.’s greatest threats bolster their anti-satellite military operations, the more than 100 million debris objects greater than 1 mm in size orbiting the earth have become a matter of nati...

Earlier this week, I told you about FedScoop’s investigation into federal agencies’ efforts to inventory their artificial intelligence use cases. These inventories are required by a 2020 Trump administration executive order, which also introduced nine principles and a policy process for implementing AI the public can trust. But, across CFO Act agencies results vary. Inventories for civilian agenci...

As federal agencies progress toward IT modernization, cybersecurity is a hallmark of those journeys, one that must be baked in from the start. David Shive, CIO of the General Services Administration, spoke with the Daily Scoop about how his office is going about building out a zero-trust security architecture across the agency via a new cybersecurity solicitation that’s on the street. During our c...