The Office of Personnel Management released guidance on April 22 to agencies on how to implement sections of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that involve emergency paid sick leave. […]
How’s this for an emergency drill within the eye of the swirling coronavirus storm? As America social distanced, Federal IT has literally brought us together – as a government, and as a nation. As government IT operations achieve steady-state amid the demands of the pandemic, let’s begin to lift the veil on that story, starting with the Small Business Administration (SBA). […]
As political leaders and public health experts look to both stem the spread of COVID-19 and work towards economic recovery, the use of contact tracing for those testing positive for the novel coronavirus has come to the forefront. While he praised the idea of contact tracing, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., urged Vice President Mike Pence to data privacy at the forefront of any policy decisions. […]
As we enter week six of telework, I find myself looking for small bits of normalcy. Finding new ways to support local businesses that I enjoy frequenting the most has helped achieve that. Rewinding to early March, I packed up my essentials at the 300Brand offices and thought I’d be back in a few short weeks. In those early days, I saw a lot of my favorite local businesses scrambling to launch virtual offerings. Yoga studios were streaming classes on social media, coffee shops were offering online ordering, and neighborhood restaurants were adding delivery for the first time. Were these options perfect? No. But they were helping us all get by. […]
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. […]
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is requesting that Federal government offices meet a list of preconditions before reopening to employees. […]
Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Accreditation Body (AB) Chair Ty Schieber and Department of Defense (DoD) Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Katie Arrington shared new insights on what CMMC-AB looks like and how companies can expect to interact with it. […]
Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., introduced a bill to the House on April 21 to provide support for internet devices during emergencies related to COVID-19. […]
In a Department of Defense (DoD) press conference on April 22, U.S. Air Force General John E. Hyten and Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist laid out a four-tiered testing program for service members. […]
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.” […]
Just like in pharmaceuticals, IT teams and end users use technology and applications off label. And, in extraordinary times, necessity is the mother of invention – you see heightened human ingenuity and even more creative off-label tech adoption. […]
The Army Research Laboratory is building a new service to study the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) and determine the learning methods that benefit both soldiers and tech, according to an April 20 presolicitation. […]
Resiliency has taken on new meaning for government agencies as they accommodate new ways of working due to COVID-19 and as a result, grapple with an exponentially larger attack surface. MeriTalk sat down with former Navy CIO and DoD Deputy CIO, Robert Carey, now VP/GM of Global Public Sector Solutions at RSA Security, to talk about steps agencies can take to ensure they meet their missions in the short term, as well as in the longer term as we navigate toward the “new normal.” […]
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. […]
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are seeking submissions for research concepts in the technical domain of disrupting machine vision systems without in-depth knowledge of how they were built or trained. […]
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. […]
Steven Nguyen, Vice President and General Manager-Public Sector at Citrix, has charted a career path that could serve as a virtual roadmap for informing and supporting the Federal IT industry enterprise over the past three decades. […]
The novel coronavirus pandemic has touched many aspects of business in the United States, including how we communicate with our colleagues. […]
Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., introduced legislation today that would warn consumers before they download an app from countries that “pose a national security risk.” […]
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. […]
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. […]
While the concept of artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for decades, research shows only 12 percent of Federal agencies use highly sophisticated AI today. […]
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) are prepping Federal agencies to start sending employees back to the office, as outlined in a memo released today. […]
Here’s an overview of some of the latest developments on the government and tech fronts due to COVID-19. […]
As the government begins to issue COVID-19 stimulus payments, cyberattackers are looking to scam individuals out of their money, a Check Point report released today found. […]