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IT Industry Council Advises OMB on Zero Trust Strategy
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IT Industry Council Advises OMB on Zero Trust Strategy

The Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) advises the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to help agencies identify priorities when implementing a zero-trust architecture (ZTA).

ITI said Tuesday that it made a list of recommendations regarding the OMB's Federal Zero Trust Strategy, which will guide agencies as they migrate to a ZTA.

The council said agencies need guidance to determine how to prioritize ZTA use cases based on assets, high-risk vulnerabilities and known threats. This guidance must consider the incremental nature of ZTA adoption, which is not a wholesale infrastructure replacement.

ITI also said OMB should involve the IT administrators of these agencies in anticipation of future cultural changes. The council advises OMB to refer agency administrators to the future, finalized version of the ZT Starting Guide, which is developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

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Gen. John Raymond: Space Force to Handle Army, Navy SATCOM Operations
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Gen. John Raymond: Space Force to Handle Army, Navy SATCOM Operations

Gen. John Raymond, the chief of space operations and a two-time Wash100 Award winner, said the U.S. Space Force will be responsible for U.S. Army and U.S. Navy satellite communications, in an effort to consolidate SATCOM missions, DOD News reported Wednesday.

Raymond said at the Air Force Association meeting that USSF would receive this authority on Oct. 1st, if the Department of Defense's budget is finalized and approved. The action aims to boost the military's operational capability and readiness in a way that is more efficient, he said.

The Navy will transfer 76 manpower authorizations and 13 satellites to USSF, as the Army transfers operations valued at $78 million. The Army's assets to be transferred include 500 manpower authorizations, four regional SATCOM centers and five wideband SATCOM centers.

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GovCon Expert Kim Koster: 2021 Gauge Report Highlights Challenges, Best Practices in Post-Pandemic Marketplace
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GovCon Expert Kim Koster: 2021 Gauge Report Highlights Challenges, Best Practices in Post-Pandemic Marketplace

Unanet and CohnReznick LLP, joint authors of the fifth annual 2021 Gauge Report, released their findings from the survey which gathered data from nearly 1,500 government contracting representatives from January to May of 2021.

This year’s Gauge Report found that the top pressures currently affecting the government contracting marketplace include competition, cyber threats, compliance costs, hybrid work environments and supply chain disruptions.

GovCon Expert Kim Koster, Unanet’s vice president of GovCon strategy and co-author of the 2021 Gauge Report, shared her insights regarding how the pandemic and its residual effects have shifted the marketplace.

“In 2020, the political environment, budgets and talent recruitment ruled, but this year competition was the number one issue causing sleepless nights for executives and managers,” Koster reported.

The increase in government spending has in turn increased the level of competition government contractors are facing in the pursuit of new awards. More than 70 percent of report respondents identified that obstacles encountered in the proposal writing process pose significant challenges in successfully securing awards.

Recently, Koster authored a GovCon Expert article in which she illuminated government contractors’ top tactics for addressing these obstacles and increasing proposal win rates.

She found that government contractors are focusing on being smarter about targeting their pursuits, looking earlier for partners to team with and pushing more resources to their BD and capture teams to improve chances of delivering winning proposals.

The report also highlighted that government contractors are looking to address proposal challenges through the implementation of technological solutions that will help automate and streamline proposal management, improve communications across proposal processes and clarify proposal scope.

Christine Williamson, CPA and PMP Partner at CohnReznick emphasized these tactics and said, “Intelligent technology, effective project management, communication and collaboration have consistently proven to be solutions for this dynamic, ever-changing marketplace.”

Koster and Williamson both echo that the number one takeaway from the 2021 Gauge Report should be that government contractors’ continued success in a pressurized environment depends on “selecting better opportunities to pursue and then leveraging both technology and expertise to structure their pursuit processes for success.”

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Octo Wins Contract to Provide IT Support for U.S. Navy’s SeaPort Next Generation; Mehul Sanghani Quoted
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Octo Wins Contract to Provide IT Support for U.S. Navy’s SeaPort Next Generation; Mehul Sanghani Quoted

Octo Consulting announced Thursday that the federal IT modernization company has won a five-year multiple-award contract to provide engineering, programmatic and technical support services for the U.S. Navy’s SeaPort Next Generation program.

Under the contract, Octo will leverage their expertise in cybersecurity solutions, data analytics and leading-edge technologies to assist the U.S. Navy in achieving modernization and cybersecurity mission objectives, the company said.

“Since 2017, Octo has provided engineering, technical, and programmatic support services to the Navy including modernization of mission-enabling Navy applications and infrastructure,” said Mehul Sanghani, CEO of Octo.

SeaPort Next Generation (NxG) is the Navy's electronic platform for acquiring support services in 23 functional areas including system engineering, software development and program management.

General Manager of Octo’s Defense Business Unit, James Vant, commented, "The SeaPort NxG program plays a critical role in the Navy's ability to provide services fulfilling capability requirements across the entire spectrum of Navy mission areas and technical capabilities supported by the Navy’s ordering activities.”

Octo's previous work with the U.S. Navy includes providing IT modernization support and developing SeaPort applications to enhance the Naval Sea Systems Command's professional support services procurement portal.

Both Sanghani and Vant expressed that they are honored to continue supporting the nation’s warfighters and civilians through the company’s work with the U.S. Navy’s NxG program.

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HHS Awards $73M to 10 Universities Under Public Health IT Workforce Program; Secretary Xavier Becerra Quoted
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HHS Awards $73M to 10 Universities Under Public Health IT Workforce Program; Secretary Xavier Becerra Quoted

The Department of Health and Human Services has awarded $73 million in cooperative agreements to 10 higher education and minority-serving institutions through a program that seeks to train over 4,000 individuals in public health informatics and technology areas over a period of four years.

"Thanks to the American Rescue Plan, we can invest in growing our nation's public health workforce today to better meet the needs of tomorrow,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra,  a 2021 Wash100 Award winner, said in a statement published Wednesday.

In June, the department’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology announced that it received $80 million in funds for the Public Health Informatics and Technology Workforce Development Program through the American Rescue Plan.

The awardees under the PHIT Workforce Program are Bowie State University; California State University, Long Beach Research Foundation; Dominican College of Blauvelt; Jackson State University; Norfolk State University; Regents of the University of Minnesota; University of Texas Health Science Center; University of Massachusetts, Lowell; University of California, Irvine; and University of the District of Columbia.

“And as we work to expand talent, whether it's in the field of technology or public health informatics, we will do so with an eye towards promoting diversity,” added Becerra.

The awardees will establish multiple consortia to recruit and train individuals, develop curricula, provide paid internship opportunities and help individuals secure positions at public health agencies, nonprofits and public health-focused institutions.

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Army Seeks to Automate EW, Spectrum Management With New Software
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Army Seeks to Automate EW, Spectrum Management With New Software

The U.S. Army's 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team (2SBCT) has tested a new tool built to help military personnel manage electronic warfare and spectrum activities in a common operating environment.

The Army said Wednesday soldiers used the EW Planning and Management Tool to track high-payoff targets during the test and perform spectrum management operations for a command post-exercise.

According to the service, the software allowed users to position EW systems in optimal positions across the battlefield, visualize effects in the electromagnetic spectrum and transmit information to the Army Field Artillery Tactical Data system.

The branch's EW integration product manager expects to hand down a decision on the full deployment of the tool in the second quarter of fiscal year 2022.

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5 Defense Manufacturing Consortia Land DOD Grant Awards
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5 Defense Manufacturing Consortia Land DOD Grant Awards

The Department of Defense has named five consortia as recipients of $25 million in total grants to help drive manufacturing innovation for national security missions.

DOD said Wednesday the awards under its Defense Manufacturing Community Support Program will come from the department's fiscal year 2021 budget and add another $11.7 million from non-federal sources.

The Virginia Maritime Industrial Base Consortium, led by the Commonwealth of Virginia Office of Veterans and Defense Affairs, aims to create a training pipeline for skilled workers and engineers across the region for U.S. Navy sustainment and shipbuilding work.

A North Carolina State University Industry Expansion Solutions-led consortia will work on advanced textiles and autonomous wearables, as well as a strategy addressing businesses' ramp-up needs, while a University of Tennessee at Knoxville-led group will focus on next-generation machine tools and smart manufacturing processes.

A consortium headed by Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station plans to integrate smart manufacturing skills and technologies into the Texas defense aerospace manufacturing ecosystem.

The Wichita State University National Institute for Aviation Research will spearhead a group that aim to improve capabilities, workforce and engineering competencies for the weapon system part and assembly prototype development sector.

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Wilmer Graham: HUD to Implement AI-Based Risk Management Platform
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Wilmer Graham: HUD to Implement AI-Based Risk Management Platform

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) seeks to accelerate the process for reviewing grant applications through the implementation of an artificial intelligence-based risk management platform, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

Wilmer Graham, chief risk officer of HUD, told the publication that she expects the Argus system rollout effort to drive the adoption of AI technology in other agency programs.

HUD intends for its new platform to simplify its current labor-intensive process of manually encoding 6,000 worksheets and cut program monitoring time across its grants portfolio by 75 percent.

“The programs can spend more time on actual risk assessment and opportunities to support the grantees. And probably most importantly, remove some of the human subjectivity from the process,” Graham told an Association of Government Accountants’-hosted conference Tuesday.

Wilmer Graham: HUD to Implement AI-Based Risk Management Platform

GovCon Wire, sister site of ExecutiveGov, will host a virtual forum on Oct. 7 about the role of AI technology in the homeland security mission. Visit the GCW Events page to register for the “AI: Innovation in Homeland Security” forum.

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Marine Corps Achieves Full Operational Capability of New KC-130J Tanker Configuration; Capt. Steve Nassau Quoted
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Marine Corps Achieves Full Operational Capability of New KC-130J Tanker Configuration; Capt. Steve Nassau Quoted

The KC-130J tanker's new configuration achieved full operational capability at the U.S. Marine Corps when the service received its 10th unit of the modified aircraft on Aug. 26.

Fleet Marine Forces now has a complete set of aircraft modified with the Harvest Hercules Airborne Weapons Kit Plus, which succeeds the old HH system and equips the KC-130J with a new electro-optical/infrared multi-sensor imaging technology, Naval Air Systems Command said Monday.

Naval Air Station Patuxent River began modifying KC-130J units in 2015 and Sierra Nevada Corp. continued this work with last four aircraft, as part of USMC's Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance / Weapons Mission Kit program.

California-based Marine Aerial Refueler Transport 352 received five aircraft equipped with HH+, and North Carolina received four. Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 20 will keep the single remaining aircraft for future tests.

“We are proud to provide the Marine Air-Ground Task Force with an updated intra-theater Close Air Support and Multi-Sensor Imagery Reconnaissance capability,” said Capt. Steve Nassau, PMA-207 program manager.

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HHS Names 6 Winners of Synthetic Health Data Challenge; Steve Posnack Quoted
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HHS Names 6 Winners of Synthetic Health Data Challenge; Steve Posnack Quoted

The Department of Health and Human Services has announced six teams as winners of the Synthetic Health Data Challenge with a $100,000 prize pool.

The winning groups developed improvements to the Synthea open-source technology that generates data from synthetic patients and models their medical histories, which would help ongoing and future health care research and information technology development, HHS said Tuesday.

A team from Code Rx won $40,000 for its medication diversification tool, while groups from Generalistas and LMI bagged $15,000 each for respectively building Synthea capabilities for modeling co-morbidities and producing realistic disease modules.

Meanwhile, $10,000 each went to Particle Health for a study on the necessity of realistic data development environments, TeMa#1 for research on inferring underlying condition probabilities using Synthea's generated data and UI Health for big data analysis on Illinois' Opioid Epidemic.

“The availability of realistic, synthetic data is a vital part of supporting iterative testing models and early-stage research and product development,” explained Steve Posnack, the deputy national coordinator for health IT.

HHS will hold a webinar on Oct. 19 to present the winning technologies.

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