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Nonprofit Calls for Government-Industry Panel Formation to Ensure 5G Deployment Safety
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Nonprofit Calls for Government-Industry Panel Formation to Ensure 5G Deployment Safety

The Flight Safety Foundation has urged the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Aviation Administration to form a panel of government and industry representatives who will devise strategies to ensure the safety and efficiency of 5G wireless service rollout.

The Alexandria, Virginia-based nonprofit said Wednesday it believes that FAA’s restrictions on the use of certain aircraft systems due to potential interference from C-band 5G communications will harm critical missions such as helicopter emergency medical services.

FAA expects telecommunications companies to activate the spectrum-based service on Jan. 5.

“We urge the formation of a government-industry expert panel to collaboratively develop viable and sustainable solutions for safe deployment before 5G activation,” said Hassan Shahidi, president and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation.

“Working together, sharing and analyzing data, is going to result in the best outcome.”

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Executive Order to Implement 2.7% Average Federal Pay Raise for Civilian Employees
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Executive Order to Implement 2.7% Average Federal Pay Raise for Civilian Employees

President Biden signed an executive order that will give federal civilian employees a pay increase of 2.2 percent and an additional locality pay adjustment of 0.5 percent, effective Jan. 1, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

In August, the president announced plans to implement an average pay raise of 2.7 percent for General Schedule employees.

The move marks an increase from the 1 percent rise in federal pay that civilian personnel received in 2021. In 2020, General Schedule employees received a 3.2 percent salary increase.

Although Congress has included in its omnibus spending package a proposal to increase federal pay in recent years, it has yet to pass any spending measures for 2022, according to the report.

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Gunnison’s CEO Gil Dussek on Achieving Success in Collaborative Digital Transformation
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Gunnison’s CEO Gil Dussek on Achieving Success in Collaborative Digital Transformation

Gil Dussek, CEO of Gunnison Consulting Group, said close collaboration and communication are key to achieving rapid success in digital transformation initiatives across public and private sectors, regardless of access to resources.

“We’ve often conveyed to our teams that through working shoulder-to-shoulder with our customers, we can shift the mindset from ‘doing more with less’ to ‘doing more, without more and faster,’ which compels us to find creative ways to drive value creation with a similar amount of funding and in quicker increments,” Dussek told the Association for Corporate Growth’s Capital Style blog.

Dussek also shared the insights he gleaned from spearheading Gunnison’s acquisition of Global Solutions & Services Frameworks, or G2SF, which closed in Nov. of 2020.

“One of the major lessons learned included the fact that constant communication is paramount – not only between those involved in integration, but with all of Gunnison, both existing employees and the newly acquired entity,” said Dussek.

He added that robust and widespread messaging protocols help not only through the acquisition and integration processes, but also in ensuring that employees are thoroughly informed and unified in their collaborative efforts with each other and with their clients in the public and private sectors.

In a recent Executive Spotlight interview with ExecutiveBiz, Dussek also elaborated on the G2SF acquisition, which marked his first buy as CEO of Gunnison, as well as the core values he and his leadership team established to shape the company’s culture.

“When thinking about the combination of these new additions with longtime Gunnison leaders who played a material role in helping Gunnison achieve its initial growth phase, I’m extremely excited about our prospects for 2022 and beyond,” Dussek told ExecutiveBiz.

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GSA Awards New Electric Bus Models to 5 Firms Including 3 Small Businesses; Robin Carnahan Quoted
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GSA Awards New Electric Bus Models to 5 Firms Including 3 Small Businesses; Robin Carnahan Quoted

The General Services Administration has selected five firms to help the agency implement 10 electric transit bus models in support of the Biden administration’s zero-emission vehicle goals.

These models, awarded under the agency’s five-year Transit Bus program, include the first GSA-offered fuel cell electric buses and seven that run on battery electricity, the agency said Tuesday.

The three hydrogen fuel cell bus models combine hydrogen with oxygen to generate power for electric motors.

“We look forward to continuing to help our agency partners meet their missions with the latest zero-emission vehicle technology and leverage government buying power to create clean energy jobs across the country,” said Robin Carnahan, GSA administrator.

Federal agencies may lease the newly awarded buses or directly order them via GSA’s AutoChoice portal. The buses can accommodate between 34 and 46 passengers.

The government wants to achieve a full percentage of zero-emission vehicle procurements by 2035. 

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DHS Launches New Technology Solicitation for Small Businesses
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DHS Launches New Technology Solicitation for Small Businesses

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has opened a small business solicitation that seeks research proposals on 11 technology topics.

DHS said Tuesday its Small Business Innovation Research 22.1 solicitation calls for projects that apply artificial intelligence, push-to-talk, biological hazard detection and other modern technologies to homeland security.

“A strength of the DHS SBIR program is that each year we can partner with innovative small businesses from diverse backgrounds that specialize in a variety of technological interests that can help DHS execute its mission,” said Dusty Lang, director of the department’s SBIR Program.

Interested parties may submit proposals to sbir.dhs.gov through Jan. 19, 2022.

The solicitation’s specific topics are:

  • A Step Towards Agent Agnostic Detection of Biological Hazards
  • Automated Artificial Intelligence (AI) Distress Alerts and Monitoring
  • Broadband Push-to-Talk Interoperability Platform
  • Field Forward Detection Platform for High Consequence Toxins
  • From Port-Side to Pen-Side: Low-Cost Detection/Diagnostics for High-Consequence Transboundary or Nationally Reportable Animal Diseases, Particularly Those with Zoonotic Propensity
  • Mass Fatality Tracking System (MFTS)
  • Next Generation High-Performance, Low Cost, Semiconductor-Based Spectroscopic Personal Radiation Detectors (SPRDs)
  • Non-invasive and Real-time Detection of Counterfeit Microelectronics
  • Person-worn Detector for Aerosolized Chemical Threats
  • Rapidly Deployable Countermeasures at Protected Perimeters and Structures
  • Streamlined Airport Checkpoint Screening for Limited Mobility Passengers
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FedRAMP Seeks Feedback on Draft Rev. 5 Baselines
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FedRAMP Seeks Feedback on Draft Rev. 5 Baselines

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program is seeking public comment on the initial draft of its baseline security measures that align with the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s updated cloud security guidance.

In a blog post published Tuesday, FedRAMP said its Program Management Office worked with the Joint Authorization Board to develop draft high, moderate and low baseline security requirements for cloud services providers.

In September 2020, NIST released the final version of Revision 5 of Special Publication 800-53, which provides a catalog of security and privacy controls to protect federal information systems and organizations from cybersecurity threats.

NIST also unveiled a companion document, SP 800-53B, to outline control baselines for identifying the risk level of organizations and their information systems.

FedRAMP used the threat-based methodology for scoring each NIST SP 800-53, Rev. 5, control against the MITRE ATT&CK Framework version 8.2. By applying the threat scoring methodology, FedRAMP included one additional control in the low baseline, 17 in the moderate baseline and 22 in the high baseline. The public can submit feedback until April 1, 2022.

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DARPA Initiative Open Sources Tools Repository for AI Adversarial Defenses Evaluation
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DARPA Initiative Open Sources Tools Repository for AI Adversarial Defenses Evaluation

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA) Guaranteeing Artificial Intelligence Robustness to Deception (GARD) initiative has opened to public use a virtual testbed, toolbox, benchmarking dataset and training materials used for assessing AI and machine learning defenses against adversarial attacks.

Among the available assets is a virtual platform, dubbed Armory, that runs repeatable evaluations of adversarial defenses in relevant scenarios using a Python library for ML security called Adversarial Robustness Toolbox, DARPA said Tuesday.

The toolbox provides resources for evaluating ML models and applications against various adversarial threats such as inference, evasion and extraction. The Armory testbed relies on ART library components for attacks and model integration and MITRE-generated datasets and scenarios.

GARD also uses the Adversarial Patches Rearranged In COnText, a publicly released benchmark dataset that focuses on real-world examples of physical adversarial patch attacks.

“The goal is to help the GARD community improve their system evaluation skills by understanding how their ideas really work, and how to avoid common mistakes that detract from their defense’s robustness,” said GARD Program Manager Bruce Draper.

GARD includes researchers from Two Six Technologies, IBM, Mitre, Google Research and the University of Chicago.

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DOE Opens New Office Overseeing $20B for Clean Energy Demonstration Investments; Jennifer Granholm Quoted
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DOE Opens New Office Overseeing $20B for Clean Energy Demonstration Investments; Jennifer Granholm Quoted

The Department of Energy (DOE) has launched a new office that will manage $20 billion in federal investments for clean energy technology demonstration projects involving carbon capture, small modular reactors and other concepts. 

The Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations, mandated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, will help prove how clean technologies can help drive emissions to a net-zero in real-world conditions at scale, DOE said Tuesday.

The new office will finance large and small-scale research and development programs to help attract private funding that would enable the deployment of energy-related systems to U.S. businesses and communities.

“Thanks to the investments Congress made in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations will move clean energy technologies out of the lab and into local and regional economies across the country, proving the value of technologies that can deliver for communities, businesses, and market,” explained Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

The establishment of the organization is part of the Biden administration’s goal of addressing climate change, creating jobs for U.S. citizens and reducing pollution.

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ICF Recognized By CDP for Climate Action Leadership; CEO John Wasson Quoted
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ICF Recognized By CDP for Climate Action Leadership; CEO John Wasson Quoted

ICF announced on Wednesday that the company has been recognized by global environmental nonprofit CDP for its leadership in climate action by securing a spot on CDP’s prestigious “A List” for tackling climate change.

“Our commitment to climate change is not just about our corporate sustainability, it is part of who we are and what we do. We are proud to be recognized for our ongoing climate actions, ambitions and transparency,” said John Wasson, ICF chairman and CEO as well as a two-time Wash100 Award recipient. 

For over 40 years, ICF has supported a wide range of clients in climate science, impacts and adaptation. The company launched the ICF Climate Center in 2021 that offers more than 2,000 climate, energy and environment experts who work with public and private sector clients on climate initiatives around the globe.

“Achieving the CDP A List validates the impact ICF is achieving through our corporate focus on climate change, our mission and values and the work we do for our clients,” Wasson added. 

The company also became the first carbon neutral professional services company in 2006 and has reduced greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 86 percent per employee since 2013.

The A List recognizes companies that are leading the way in cutting emissions, mitigating climate risks and contributing to the low-carbon economy. Nearly 12,000 companies were scored in 2021, and only 200 companies made the climate change A List.

“The A List achievement caps a year of strong climate action and recognition for ICF,” said Marian Van Pelt, senior vice president and climate and clean energy lead. 

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OPM Asks Agencies to Implement Classification, Qualification Standard for Data Science Jobs
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OPM Asks Agencies to Implement Classification, Qualification Standard for Data Science Jobs

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has released a memorandum directing agencies to implement the new occupational series job classification for data science in compliance with the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policymaking Act of 2018. 

OPM created the position classification flysheet for the Data Science Series, 1560, by conducting focus groups and other engagement activities to identify skills, competencies, knowledge and work roles related to data science, Kimberly Holden, deputy associate director of talent acquisition, classifications and veterans programs at OPM, wrote in the memo released Monday.

The occupational series for data science covers positions that involve the identification of processes, methods, algorithms and related tools to interpret findings from unstructured and structured datasets as well as the “use of data visualization techniques to articulate findings.”

“The occupational series in which data scientist work is performed is determined by the domain expertise required to conduct data scientist activities,” the memo reads. “Therefore, agencies will maintain the flexibility to use a parenthetical of Data Scientist along with the occupational title for positions that perform data science work as a major portion of the job, and not as a collateral duty, for example Statistician (Data Scientist).”

OPM is calling on agencies to implement the new job classification flysheet for data scientists within 12 months of the date of the document’s release. It also asked agencies to immediately apply the qualifications standard for data science to new positions.

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