Cloud adopters are stepping on the gas – from police stations and state colleges to our nation’s capital. But how do these agencies and institutions determine the best route? And, which applications do they take along for the ride? MeriTalk asked Federal, state and local, and higher education cloud adopters about their cloud strategies. […]

We are a group of former Federal IT leaders, technology industry executives, and journalists. We believe the technology priorities embraced by the next President of the United States will be central to our nation’s ability to remain secure, competitive, open, innovative, and responsive to the needs of citizens. That is why we are endorsing Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. […]

The Drone Advisory Committee defined the problems that need to be addressed surrounding unmanned aircraft systems but decided not to tackle them at this time. […]

About 10 states have reached out to DHS’s Office of Cybersecurity and Communications to ask questions and provide feedback on its cybersecurity services, according to Neil Jenkins, director of the Enterprise Performance Management Office at DHS. He said there has been an uptick in outreach because of the impending election. […]

MeriTalk caught up with four of The Cyber Awards winners, announced at this year’s Symantec Government Symposium. […]

In the endeavor to create a digital government, agencies and organizations should not let new technologies supersede the wants and needs of their users, according to experts. […]

Students taking a geography class at Penn State University might find themselves sitting next to a robot instead of just their peers. The school is running a pilot program involving Suitable Technologies’ Beam robots. […]

The Technical Guidelines Development Committee’s cybersecurity working group doesn’t know what to focus on in terms of voting security less than two months from Election Day. “It’s not clear where to go or whether our group should do anything on this,” said member David Wagner, computer science professor at the University of California-Berkeley. […]

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will mobilize 911 emergency services at the insistence of the Federal Communications Commission. […]

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration on Oct. 1 will finish the process of privatizing the Internet’s address book, a task it started in the 1990s. […]

Ajit Pai, commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, proposed his Digital Empowerment Agenda, which includes Gigabit Opportunity Zones, mobile broadband for rural areas, the removal of barriers to broadband development, and entrepreneurship and innovation. […]

The storm clearly has not passed for some big programs run by the General Services Administration, including FedRAMP’s spending of $150,000 in taxpayer money to duplicate an online dashboard capability that had already been developed in the private sector and made available to the government for free….Also, Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, is back with another bill aimed at IT modernization. […]

The future of cybersecurity in the government and beyond relies on finding the kernels of innovation potential within “crazy” ideas, according to experts. One such idea is to abandon the concept of passwords altogether. […]

President Obama announced Wednesday that the White House will be hosting a Computer Science for All summit, and that agencies and industry partners are acting in support of computer science (CS) education. […]

The Department of Commerce uses a system to encourage employees to report on the tools they’re using outside of the information security boundaries. […]

The e-learning market in the United States is forecast to grow by 15.64 percent by 2020. The “E-learning Markets in the US 2016-2020” report points to cloud-based solutions as a key trend over the next few years. […]

Many Federal agencies struggle with whittling down their cybersecurity priorities. Meeting with individual organizations within an agency to gauge their priorities is a solution that can be transferred from the private sector to the Federal world, according to Rocky DeStefano, cybersecurity subject matter expert at Cloudera. […]

Strategic plans and scorecards are essential to effectively budgeting their cybersecurity needs, agency officials said. Michael Johnson, CIO of the Department of Energy, said the agency uses the DOE Cyber Strategy for information sharing and safeguarding, using multifactor authentication, and focusing on research and development. […]

The Federal government and its agencies all agree on the need to modernize IT infrastructure, though they continue to struggle with just how to do it. […]

Most Federal agencies are drafted to be defensive and reactive rather than offensive and predictive, Federal officials said. […]

Facing criticism over the awkward nature of the FedRAMP process and the use of $150,000 to create a FedRAMP Dashboard that already exists in the private sector, the GSA was told on Tuesday that it needed to clean up the program or have Congress step in. […]

The Defense Information Systems Agency receives notifications for about 800 million alarms a day while providing support for 146 mission partners, and Maj. Gen. Sarah Zabel, vice director, said the agency is trying to grant all 146 partners access to the commercial cloud. […]

The White House’s Research and Development Strategic Plan will ensure that Federal cybersecurity capabilities continue to improve into the next administration, according to Greg Shannon, assistant director for cybersecurity strategy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. […]

The United States Office of Personnel Management announced four contracts with CACI Premier Technology; CSRA; KeyPoint Government Solutions; and Securitas Critical Infrastructure Services. […]

Vice President Joe Biden announced $100 million in scholarships to those who are underrepresented in the technology workforce and talked about the importance of education for information technology jobs. […]

The NIST Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity should prioritize the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, and creating norms and deterrence strategies, according to officials at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. […]

Phase 2 of NASA’s Small Business Technology Transfer program has begun. […]

Next-Generation High Schools encourage at-risk students to stay in school and graduate on time, according to school administrators and students. […]

Texas on Sept. 1 launched an IT marketplace website for state agencies to get the best deals for cloud services, the Lone Star State’s CIO tells MeriTalk.com. “Texas is leading the country on cloud. We have more cloud contracts in place than any other state,” CIO Todd Kimbriel said in an interview. […]

To keep our data, systems, and enterprises secure, cybersecurity executives must nail down the many moving parts – training, governance, budgets, and innovation. But while cybersecurity strategies are evolving, agencies still aren’t up to code. What’s the holdup on the Hill? […]