Smarter Gov Tech, Stronger MerITocracy
research

Federal agencies often award funds to foreign organizations or individuals to encourage scientific advancements, but a new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns that agencies need to improve their information sharing to better protect U.S.-funded research. […]

Expert witnesses this week offered members of Congress a menu of recommendations – ranging from innovation-fueled security practices to better efforts to protect educational networks – to meet security threats posed by foreign adversaries to communications technologies.  […]

CISA

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is looking to test the technical capabilities of teams and individuals in its fifth annual 2024 President’s Cup Cyber Competition, where teams will be pitted against each other in a competition to recognize and reward some of the very best in the cybersecurity world.’ […]

deep fakes, AI

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) tech trade group has published a new guide for global policymakers focused on critical areas of AI technology as part of the organization’s AI Futures Initiative. […]

In his first public event since swearing in as national cyber director (NCD) late last year, Harry Coker this week announced several initiatives to “aggressively” fill vacant cyber positions within the Federal government, including conducting a series of cyber hiring sprints. […]

NIST

A bipartisan group of senators is asking the Senate Appropriations Committee for $10 million of funding to help establish the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute (USAISI) within the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as part of the fiscal 2024 funding legislation. […]

The National Science Foundation (NSF) this week launched a new $16 million program that seeks to ensure ethical, legal, community, and societal considerations are embedded in the lifecycle of technology’s creation and use. […]

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is making significant progress in moving to a J-code staff organization in order to better align with the Joint Staff and combatant commands, as well as to help it keep up with the strategic threat that is China. […]

Pentagon, DoD

The Department of Defense (DoD) released its first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS) today, with an aim to catalyze generational change from the existing defense industrial base (DIB) and create a more robust, resilient, and dynamic modernized defense industrial ecosystem. […]

FirstNet

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has issued a Federal Register Notice to find people interested in serving on the board of the First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet Authority Board). […]

Army

The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) needs to provide more information to state and local governments to help them better meet requirements for the agency’s Homeland Security Grant Program, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. […]

The Department of Defense (DoD) is looking for education providers in the cybersecurity and technology arenas to apply to the agency’s Cyber Workforce Qualification Program to receive accreditation through the Defense Department. […]

deep fakes, AI

Experts from government and academia said this week that successful adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies depends on a host of factors including strong leadership on the technology front, along with a good understanding of the contents of data sets that are used to train AI applications. […]

DHS
Data

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced a new solicitation seeking solutions to generate synthetic data to train machine learning models.  […]

AI Cyber World machine learning-min

While the IRS has been making historic progress in modernizing its tech-based capabilities to streamline workforce effort and tax processes, a new report from the agency’s taxpayer advocate office says IRS still has more work to do to eliminate paper-based processes. […]

President Biden this week sent to the Senate two renominations that would fill out the three-member roster of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and give the board a permanent chair to help it continue efforts to reduce a long-standing backlog of thousands of cases. […]

workforce federal workers industry-min

When generative AI first made waves with the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, one major concern that arose within the Federal government and beyond was the idea that the tool would steal people’s jobs. Something akin to the opposite of that trend emerged today at a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. […]

A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveals that Federal agencies’ implementation of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act (FISMA) continued to be mostly ineffective in recent years, and it calls on the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to develop better metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of FISMA. […]

A bipartisan pair of lawmakers have sent a letter warning Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen of what they call the “problematic relationship” that China-based Quectel Wireless has with being a “civil-military fusion arm” of the Chinese government. […]

deep fakes, AI
What Happened This Week – Ep. 53

President Biden this week hit the refresh button on dozens of nominations left over from 2023, including several for officials that may have big impacts on the Federal technology and workforce fronts within the Department of Defense (DoD) if their nominations are cleared by the U.S. Senate.  […]

FCC, Federal Communications Commission

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it plans to start winding down the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) – the nation’s largest broadband affordability program – this week unless the program receives additional funding from Congress. […]

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., chairman of the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and Chinese Communist Party, and the committee’s ranking member Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., urged Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo in a Jan. 5 letter to stem U.S. reliance on “foundational” semiconductors produced in China.    […]

modernization

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has issued guidance to agencies to encourage more public feedback in Federal rulemaking, including through a new web portal that makes it easier for citizens to provide their feedback. […]

Data
Budget Federal spending

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