Federal agencies and departments have spent more than $6.9 billion on COVID-19 related contracts since February – spending more than a billion dollars in the past week. […]
The Small Business Administration (SBA) transitioned to telework “without missing a beat,” quickly implemented new programs, and scaled to adjust to a mass number of new users amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic thanks to prior IT modernization and cloud transitions, per CIO Maria Roat. […]
A dozen legislative proposals designed to make the nation more resilient to a cyber attack have been submitted to congressional committees by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, who released its report the week before Federal agencies were told to “maximize telework.” […]
The Department of the Interior (DOI) has tripled its remote work numbers amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic as agencies were instructed to maximize telework. […]
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has been on maximum telework mode since March 15, an OPM spokesperson told MeriTalk, adding “on any given day approximately 90 percent of the workforce is teleworking.” […]
The United States Agency for International Development operates in over 100 countries, providing foreign aid and humanitarian assistance. On March 2, approximately 65 percent of the overseas workforce logged in to their computers at USAID facilities while just 22 percent of the nearly 7,000 overseas staff logged in remotely or teleworked. […]
In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has moved almost entirely to telework, an EPA spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is not releasing the text of its cybersecurity audits during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic citing increased cyber activity. […]
The novel coronavirus pandemic has touched many aspects of business in the United States, including how we communicate with our colleagues. […]
The Federal Communications Commission approved an application from Ligado, which will allow the company to operate in an adjacent spectrum band to Global Positioning System (GPS) signals, a move that defense leaders fear could disrupt military operations. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Defense Department (DoD), and Federal Electronic Health Records Modernization (FEHRM) program office launched a modernized health data sharing capability which will enhance both VA’s and DoD’s ability to securely exchange records with community health care partners. […]
One of our favorite Feds, Jay Huie, is leaving the General Services Administration (GSA) to become CIO at D.C. Government’s Office of the State Superintendent of Education – OSSE – the office responsible for improving education outcomes for D.C. residents. […]
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has expanded telecom access for essential workers, including public safety and national security professionals. CISA said that as of April 19, it has provided priority telecom services to 65,606 additional public safety and national security professionals, in both the public and private sectors. […]
Amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, more patients and healthcare providers are switching to telehealth to reduce the spread of the virus. […]
Since the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) instructed all employees who could to work from home just over a month ago, the agency is now reporting that 95 percent of their employees are currently teleworking, a senior HUD spokesperson confirmed to MeriTalk. […]
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) hasn’t implemented any priority recommendations made by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in 2019 and now GAO has identified three additional recommendations, including one involving cybersecurity. […]
The State Department workforce is at about 90 percent telework, with the remaining 10 percent performing duties not transferrable to telework such as driving, CIO Stuart McGuigan announced at the April 21 AFCEA breakfast. […]
The Department of Education has implemented three priority open recommendations that were identified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in April 2019, including improving information security. […]
Air Force officials began planning for the Advanced Battle Management System about three years ago with the intent of replacing and modernizing aircrafts on the existing system by 2035. The Government Accountability Office said Thursday that the service needs to create a plan if that goal is to be reached. […]
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) updated its language around the essential status of IT and operational technology employees and contractors in version 3.0 of its Guidance on Essential Critical Infrastructure Workers for the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, released today. […]
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has taken social distancing directives to heart and achieved a 100 percent employee telework rate, the agency told MeriTalk. […]
The Federal agency responsible for global development and humanitarian work released its first Digital Strategy this week, outlining its aims to improve lives across the world through partnerships and digital initiatives. […]
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) said this week they launched the Text Retrieval Conference (TREC)-COVID program to develop artificial intelligence (AI) tools to analyze a new dataset of machine readable COVID-19 scholarly literature. […]
Anil Chaudhry and Krista Kinnard from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Center of Excellence (CoE) within the General Services Administration (GSA) reminded attendees at an April 16 AI in Government webinar to continuously put people first during AI implementation at the Federal level. […]
Federal agencies and departments have spent more than $5.7 billion on COVID-19 related contracts since February – with total virus-related spending more than doubling in the last nine days. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is teaming up with the American Red Cross and Facebook to provide Portal video calling devices to veterans, caregivers, and families as social distancing guidance remains in place. […]
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and “innovators across the globe” are testing 3D designs of medical equipment used by healthcare professionals in the fight against the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. […]
In a move to further secure mobile devices, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced April 14 that it is developing a new Cloud-Based Root-of-Trust (CRoT) technology. […]
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced that it will send 10 additional letters of warning to companies to cease making unsupported claims that their products can treat or prevent coronavirus. […]
A group of Democrat senators urged Congressional leaders to include $1 billion in funding for the Lifeline program, which provides a discount on phone services for low-income consumers, in a future COVID-19 relief package. […]