Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
White House
CIO-min

With the Biden administration taking office Jan. 20, the Federal CIO Council has named acting CIOs at five of the seven agencies where the position is helmed by political appointees who are obliged to step down at the end of presidential administrations. […]

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is looking for a commercial off-the-shelf cloud-based product that “promotes the management, scheduling, tracking, operation, and reservation of various workspace environments within a current commercial office building setting.” […]

Within hours of the inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the new administration began issuing marching orders to rein in the COVID-19 pandemic, including an executive order (EO) to mandate face coverings on all Federal property, and other directives to ensure that its national strategy for the COVID-19 response has a data-driven approach. […]

Air Force

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR), the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), and the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation (IITP) announced a joint international partnership that will offer three-year research grants in quantum information science and technologies. […]

Joe Biden

Following President Joe Biden’s inauguration, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced the list of political appointees that will lead the agency. According to the GSA, the appointees are a combination of Obama-Biden administration officials and others with public/private sector experience specifically in climate and technology. […]

DHS

The Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) annual assessment of acquisition programs at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) found 10 programs to have been in breach of either baseline cost or schedule at some point in 2020 and five were in breach as of September 2020. […]

New working conditions have led agencies to adjust AI adoption methods and strengthen data analytics capabilities by leveraging commercially available solutions from industry and implementing other practices during the pandemic. […]

State Department
Cyber

Mark Montgomery, senior advisor to the chairmen of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission that last year produced dozens of recommendations to Congress on legislative steps to improve U.S. cybersecurity, said Jan. 19 that the commission is urging Congress in 2021 to adopt a more comprehensive strategy to protect the nation’s information and communications (ICT) supply chain. […]

Lloyd Austin
DHS

In a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing, Alejandro Mayorkas, President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), laid out his vision for the nation’s cybersecurity and promised to make it a priority if confirmed. […]

Getting in and out of the District of Columbia will likely be more trouble than it’s worth until after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration with the Secret Service adding bridge closures to mounting restrictions. The Secret Service announced restrictions on seven bridges Jan. 18, with all but one restricting all access into the city. […]

CISA

The costs and consequences of the Russia-backed hack of government and private sector networks via a breach of SolarWinds Orion products are continuing to grow more than a month after the exploit was publicly disclosed, a senior official with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said today. […]

The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) housed within the Department of Education is seeking support for its cloud hosting, system administration, and website support and development. […]

Rob Joyce
Gerry Connolly

House Oversight and Reform Committee Chair Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Government Operations Subcommittee Chairman Gerry Connolly, D-Va., asked Office of Management and Budget (OMB) leaders in a Jan. 15 letter to halt implementation of the Trump administration’s 2020 executive order that created a new “Schedule F” classification for Federal employees in policy-making positions. […]

Joe Biden

President-elect Joe Biden’s proposal to inject $9 billion of new money into the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) to speed Federal agency IT modernization and improve security is drawing uniformly positive reviews from across the Federal tech community, mixed with notes of caution about how the proposal will end up faring in Congress. […]

Pentagon Military Defense DoD

The Defense Department (DoD) is parceling out senior management responsibilities that had been overseen by its chief management officer (CMO) position – which was eliminated under the William M. “Mac” Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for FY 2021. […]

cybersecurity

Federal agencies have made major changes in their approach to network security in the recent past, spurred by last year’s move to widespread telework, the implementation of Trusted Internet Connections (TIC) 3.0, and the desire toward zero-trust network security, a panel of agency officials and experts explained. […]

Joe Biden

President-Elect Joe Biden has announced two key nominations to help run the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), tapping Shalanda Young as the nominee for the Deputy Director of OMB, and Jason Miller as the nominee for Deputy Director for Management at OMB. […]

cloud

As Federal agencies are looking to modernize IT infrastructure and increasingly migrate to cloud environments, their respective stages of implementation are running the spectrum from just beginning the journey to having highly developed processes, a General Services Administration (GSA) official said at a FedInsider digital training event Jan. 13. […]

OPM Office of Personnel Management

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) published an updated doctrine on Jan. 13 that details new core security vetting principles for the government to use in managing security clearances.  […]

Health Data

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found in a new report that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System (T-MSIS) has shown key improvements in accuracy and completeness of data that it handles. […]

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