The board overseeing the $1 billion Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) has started assessing just under 100 proposals from agencies, including four proposals from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Federal News Network reported Monday.
DHS Chief Information Officer Eric Hysen said those proposed projects seek to modernize data sharing across DHS components and other agencies and improve the processing of non-citizen arrivals at the southern border; make the experience of travelers more secure and seamless at U.S. airports; improve data access and analysis for some DHS components in conjunction with the agency’s chief data officer and enhance threat information sharing with local and state law enforcement agencies to address domestic extremism and violence.
“As we are looking at all of these efforts and the long list that we are still working on below that, we are looking at this in a way that is a little different from how DHS at least viewed the TMF in the past,” Hysen said at a Professional Services Council-sponsored conference.
“What we are trying to do very deliberately is not just use the TMF as an opportunity to look at our big list of unfunded modernization programs that we just need one vendor and we already have a whole plan for. But really to look at common problems and challenges across the department and set up systems and structures that will allow us to move together. We think we can get a lot more done if we modernize in common aligned ways across DHS components and systems,” he added.
Hysen said the department’s goal is to focus on systems that will help facilitate the delivery of services to citizens and he expects DHS to continue to file TMF applications in the coming months.
In May, the General Services Administration (GSA) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) announced the launch of an updated repayment model for TMF that provides agencies more flexibility in paying back awarded funds for cybersecurity, digital services and other IT modernization projects.
