Fed Gov Today

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...

The leader of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency , Jen Easterly , says her agency is “ not tracking a significant impact against the civilian .gov enterprise ” because of the MOVEit hack . But there is more CISA can do to help civilian agencies fight cyber attacks, according to Ron Sanders , the President and CEO of Publica Virtu ; former Associate Director at OPM; and former Chi...

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the IRS are two agencies dealing with backlogs for citizen services. The VA has a claims backlog in the Veterans Benefits Administration ; the IRS has a backlog of tax returns . Paul Lawrence, former Undersecretary for Benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs and his co-author Mark Abramson have a piece in Gov Exec titled “ Helping Production Agencies D...

The Department of Veterans Affairs is rolling out its new Workforce Dashboard . The agency has set a monthly update schedule for the dashboard. Tracey Therit, Chief Human Capital Officer at VA, tells you what the dashboard tracks , who its customers are, and what they can do with the information there. She also describes how the dashboard will continue to evolve over time. Photo: Tracey Therit, Ch...

The nominee to become the next Commandant of the Marine Corps says technology is integral to preparing his service for the future fight. The Senate Armed Services Committee questioned Gen. Eric Smith, the current Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps, at his confirmation hearing Tuesday . In this highlight of the hearing, the Chairman of the Committee , Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) asks Gen. Smith abo...

This edition of Fed Gov Today, featuring the ACT-IAC Health Innovation Summit 2023, is sponsored by Red Hat and Carahsoft. Innovation is coming fast for health care providers all across the federal government, according to speakers at the Health Innovation Summit. The people who run the support infrastructure will benefit from innovation too. Ryan Dempsey Argentieri is Deputy Director of the Offic...

On the latest episode of the Innovation In Government television show from SOF Week , you learned about five pillars the Operator Relief Fund bases its help around for Special Operators. The pillars are sleep; alcohol; hormones; nutrients; and psychological. At SOF Week, I asked Derek Nadalini , Beneficiary Advocate for the Operator Relief Fund, how his group settled on those five pillars. Defense...

The intelligence community is moving to the cloud through its Commercial Cloud Enterprise . But one of the I-C’s leaders says the community doesn’t have a multi-cloud strategy . Bob Osborn , Chief Technology Officer for Global Governments for ServiceNow & former CIO of the National Nuclear Security Administration, describes what goes into a multi-cloud strategy, and how to make it work. The Un...

The next evolution of FedRamp is here. A new blog post at FedRamp.gov is titled “ Revision 5 Baselines Have Been Approved and Released .” Dave Wennergren, CEO of ACT-IAC & former Chief Information Officer of the Navy, former Deputy Defense Department CIO, and former assistant Deputy chief Management Officer at DOD, explains what the new guidelines mean, and what comes next for industry and age...

This podcast was recorded at GEOINT Symposium 2023 , hosted by the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, in St. Louis, MO, May 22-23, 2023. Technology isn’t the aspect of the metaverse government leaders are strategizing for. Personal privacy and personal security are important considerations for government leaders too. Dan Opstal, Acting Director of the National Civil Applications Center at the...

This podcast was recorded at GEOINT Symposium 2023 , hosted by the US Geospatial Intelligence Foundation, in St. Louis, MO, May 22-23, 2023. The theme of this year’s event is “ From Maps To Metaverse .” Many of the discussions here focused on the metaverse. Christy Monaco , Vice President of Programs at the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation and former Chief Ventures Officer at the National G...

Congress could find budget savings in federal agency software, according to a veteran of the Hill. He calls those contracts “software vampire squid.” Matt Cornelius , former Senior Professional Staff Member for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and former Senior Technology and Cybersecurity Advisor at the Office of Management and Budget, writes about software licensin...

The debt limit debate on Capitol Hill could have some impact for operations at federal agencies. Those implications for agencies could be somewhat familiar and different at the same time. Janice Haith, industry strategic advisor at Oracle and former Deputy Chief Information Officer of the Navy, tells you why, and how to prepare for it. Operators across the government are using the Team Awareness K...

The Inspector General’s office at the General Services Administration has a new look at the Transactional Data Reporting pilot on the Multiple Award Schedule. That new look finds more problems on top of the problems the IG office found before . Larry Allen , President of Allen Federal Business Partners , doesn’t think the problems the IG found are problems, and he explains why. U.S. Special Operat...

The Defense Logistics Agency says its supplier base shrunk 22% between 2016 and 2022. DLA leadership released supply chain data at the Supply Chain Alliance Conference and Exhibition in Richmond earlier this month. Tara Murphy Dougherty, Chief Executive Officer of Govini and former Chief of Staff for Global Strategic Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, describes how data can help th...

Today is day three of Public Service Recognition Week . Part of the observation of that week each year is the release of the finalists for Service to America Medals . Max Stier, President and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, outlines what goes into choosing the finalists each year, and some of the great stories of the work this year’s finalists do. The Defense Information Systems Agency...

The Chief Information Officer of Space Systems Command, Col. Jennifer Krolikowski, says she’s “cautiously optimistic” about generative artificial intelligence. DefenseScoop reports military services are just one part of the government deciding how they want to use the technology. CDR Juliana Vida (USN ret.), chief strategy advisor at Splunk and former Deputy Chief Information Officer of the Navy,...