The Enterprise Cloud Management Agency, a new organization within the U.S. Army, asks the private sector for information on cloud and data management services, C4ISRnet reported Tuesday.

The Army wants to migrate applications to commercial cloud platforms and standardize data management across the service branch. The first of two requests for information said the Army needs a contract vehicle for cloud migration and corresponding modernization services.

Army applications will migrate to cARMY, a cloud environment the service intends to use for a variety of purposes.

The second RFI seeks services to manage the Enterprise Data Management Platform, which will store data and accommodate artificial intelligence activities for the Army.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency will host an online industry event from June 23rd to 24th to inform companies about the Defense Sciences Office's upcoming research pursuits.

Discover DSO Day participants will gain insight into the office's science and technology priorities over the next year, DARPA said Tuesday.

Panel discussions at the event will cover the following topics: alternative computing, next-generation artificial intelligence, under governed spaces, resilient and environment-resistant systems, sensing, communications and metrology.

The office will also use the event to further explain an upcoming solicitation scheduled for release prior to the event. Proposers may engage in discussions with program managers from DARPA.

DARPA Director Stefanie Tompkins and DSO Director Valerie Browning will also present at the event.

William Nelson, director of the U.S. Army's cross-functional team for assured position, navigation and timing (PNT), said the service wants to maintain access to its future payloads hosted on non-Army satellites, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.

Nelson said the Army does not want to build its own intelligence constellation but instead wants to make sure it can access its own payloads on satellites hosted by other services, federal agencies, or commercial entities.

The service branch seeks access to a tactical layer of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance satellites that help missiles navigate through adversarial territory.

The Army is now in talks with the U.S. Space Force, the Space Development Agency (SDA) and the intelligence community to achieve this goal.

The Department of Defense (DOD) has informed ethical hackers that they can now look for security issues across DOD's publicly available information systems under its expanded Vulnerability Disclosure Program.

DOD said Tuesday that its Cyber Crime Center-led program now covers public defense networks, connected devices and frequency-based communications platforms.

"This expansion is a testament to transforming the government's approach to security and leapfrogging the current state of technology within DOD," said Brett Goldstein, the director of the Defense Digital Service.

The initiative is a product of the “Hack the Pentagon” pilot project launched by the Pentagon five years ago in collaboration with bug bounty platform provider HackerOne to identify security flaws on publicly accessible defense websites.

Participants have reported over 29,000 vulnerabilities to the department since the program's inception, with more than 70 percent of the reports deemed to be valid, according to officials.

DC3 Director Kristopher Johnson said DOD's online portals account for a portion of its entire attack surface.

If you're interested in cybersecurity, check out GovCon Wire's Defense Cybersecurity Forum coming up on May 12. Click here to learn more.

The digital engineering team at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Idaho National Laboratory (INL) aims to expand the capability of general artificial intelligence by using algorithms and auditable data.

Chris Ritter, leader of the digital and software engineering group at INL, said on a Federal News Network segment that his office works to curate data and transform it into a format that could present scale-up advantages.

With data being required to train algorithms, he discussed a type of algorithm called “explainable or transparent artificial intelligence.”

"So it’s completely auditable. And we can apply some penalize regression techniques to those areas, and you can make that a more novel technique,” added Ritter.

He also talked about research efforts to address complex energy problems by applying machine learning.

"Machine learning is about having pre-programmed devices, which can conduct analysis on their own," the INL official said.

If you're interested in the government's data-related efforts then check out GovCon Wire's Data Innovation Forum coming up on June 15. Click here to learn more.

Ted Kaouk, chairman of the Federal Chief Data Officers Council, said the council is preparing to introduce 10 data science training program use cases compiled by its data skills development working group that seeks to help agencies strengthen their data workforces, FedScoop reported Tuesday.

“We have an opportunity to accelerate that learning because we can learn about what others are doing – what’s worked for them,” Kaouk said Tuesday during an ACT-IAC event Tuesday. “And I think that crosses the data skills domain; that crosses data sharing."

The council’s COVID-19 data coordination working group has created prototypes to tackle challenges related to data sharing between agencies. 

“That’s really focused on working with [the Department of Health and Human Services] to facilitate broader access to key public health data across internal agencies and developing decision support tools that are primed to be shared across agencies,” said Kaouk, who also serves as chief data officer of the Department of Agriculture.

He also expects agencies to come up with their first artificial intelligence inventories later in 2021 upon the release of guidance being developed by the Federal CDO Council with the Federal Chief Information Officers Council. 

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