Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville told Government Matters in an interview posted Sunday about the service’s plan to shift to a new talent management system that could help meet the demand for warfighters who are skilled in coding, data management and artificial intelligence.

The plan comes as the Army intends to form two multidomain task forces in the Pacific and another unit in Europe that will provide intelligence, space, electronic warfare, long-range precision fires and other capabilities.

He told host Francis Rose that the new system will enable the Army to manage soldiers and know about their knowledge, behaviors, skills and preferences.

McConville talked about the service’s software factory. Under the Project Convergence, he said the Army realized that it would “need soldiers that can write software on the battlefield.”

“We have a tremendous amount of soldiers that have that talent, that code, that want to write software and now we’re going to bring them in. … Now, we need to have a management capability to make sure they are promoted, they are incentivized for their talents,” McConville said.

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The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has launched the Federal Workforce Competency Initiative (FWCI), a workforce data collection effort that aims to support recruitment, training, performance management, career development, job design and other human capital activities by updating agencies' competency models with current data.

Kathleen McGettigan, acting director of OPM, said in a statement published Friday the Federal Workforce Competency Initiative will provide agencies with data needed to strengthen workforce across the federal government and enable effective human capital management.

FWCI will start the phase one survey on April 26 and will engage with employees and supervisors in over 350 occupational series to identify relevant general competencies and tasks across the federal government.

The survey will take approximately three weeks. The initiative is designed to help OPM and agencies enhance efficiency and lower costs, and support the development of Code of Federal Regulations-compliant assessments.

FWCI will also update OPM's Multipurpose Occupational Systems Analysis Inventory—Closed-ended studies.

The Department of Homeland Security’s science and technology directorate will collaborate with the Niceville, Florida-based nonprofit DefenseWerx organization to establish an innovation hub that can support DHS’ mission requirements.

S&T and DWX seek to engage the small business community and the educational sector in efforts to develop, transition and commercialize technology across five task areas under a partnership intermediary agreement, the directorate said Friday.

The nonprofit will help review S&T’s current innovation environment and recommend approaches on how to move homeland security inventions to the marketplace.

DWX also serves as a partnership intermediary for U.S. military organizations such as the Air Force Research Laboratory, Naval Post Graduate School and Army Cyber Command.

Established in 2012, DWX maintains five innovation centers throughout the country.

Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren Division has tested a ground/air radar system designed to detect ground weapons and provide air surveillance for any platform of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Danny Mudd, a U.S. Navy engineer, led a team to test the AN/TPS-80 Ground/Air Task-Oriented Radar (G/ATOR) system, Naval Sea Systems Command said Thursday. He leads the program team for G/ATOR and serves as the radar operations manager for NSWCDD’s sensor software engineering branch.

“We provide government support to the program office, located in Quantico, and develop test procedures for the radar system,” said Bill Shea, G/ATOR technical program manager at Mudd’s same branch.

Involved personnel assessed the safety protocols of the new G/ATOR during the first week of testing. The G/ATOR team plans to augment the system’s software capabilities in further testing.

The Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate is funding SecuLore to test a technology designed to protect emergency communications infrastructure from cyber threats. SecuLore Solutions is testing a system that uses predictive analytics to detect threats targeting emergency communications centers, DHS said Thursday.

The testing will expand across five more U.S.-based ECCs, each of which will receive pilot testing support for two months. This support will include weekly vulnerability reports, 24-hour security oversight and immediate alerts on any critical security issue.

The new cybersecurity technology is also made to protect internet protocol and Next Generation 911 technologies from threats. SecuLore will use the pilot testing's results to inform how ECCs would handle and deploy the technology.

Norman Speicher, S&T program manager, said they will partner with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to research and develop security control technologies over the next few months.

The Biden Administration submitted to Congress on Friday its priorities for the fiscal year 2022 discretionary spending. Those priorities included in the submission to Congress was the funding request for the U.S. General Service Administration (GSA), which provides for critical investments in the nation’s infrastructure, improving the sustainability and resilience of the nation’s public buildings, electrifying the federal vehicle fleet and strengthening the cybersecurity posture of the federal government.

“These funds will allow GSA to support the Administration’s efforts to tackle the climate crisis, promote economic opportunity, and strengthen federal cybersecurity. These critical investments will enhance support to federal agencies and the public while making our nation’s infrastructure more secure and sustainable,” commented 2021 Wash100 Award recipient and acting GSA administrator Katy Kale. 

The budget stipulates $2 billion needed for federally-owned buildings, courthouses and land ports of entry construction, repairs, and alterations projects to provide more efficient office space for agencies to execute their mission. The $2 billion is also intended for the use of climate change-related projects.

A further $364 million is reserved for the GSA Federal Buildings Fund. These funds will be to support additional repair and alteration projects that have been delayed due to previous. This amount also includes $100 million for a particular program dedicated to furthering climate resilience goals.

The discretionary request allocates $364 million for the GSA and other federal organizations and agencies to transition the federal vehicle fleet to electric vehicles. The money will serve the same purpose for the federal leased fleet of over 200,000 vehicles. 

The budget also includes $500 million for the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF). The TMF’s goal is to enhance the federal cybersecurity posture and retire antiquated legacy technology systems.

These discretionary investments are an element of President Biden’s broader agenda. The administration is expected to release a more comprehensive budget plan to address challenges in the coming months.

NASA has certified the computer system that would process the data of an upcoming uncrewed lunar flyby, which will serve as a prerequisite to future astronaut missions.

The spacecraft command and control system (SCCS) is designed to address the information capacity and speed requirements of NASA's Artemis I mission, the space agency said Thursday.

SCCS would handle data generated by the Orion spacecraft, the Space Launch System and ground support equipment. NASA expects these systems to generate 100 megabytes per second altogether.

“The SCCS system engineering and performance teams evaluate the data after each simulation to ensure the system is performing per specifications and no unexpected errors were triggered,” said Mike Van Houten, the Launch Control System project manager at the command, control and communications organization within NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems team.

Artemis I, scheduled to launch late this year, will provide data that SCCS developers may use to improve the system for future Artemis missions. NASA aims to revive manned space exploration through the Artemis program.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a program that focuses on expanding the computational power capacity of high-performance computing systems in line with energy efficiency standards. 

DARPA said Thursday that the Low-Temperature Logic Technology (LTLT) program is focused on developing a device/circuit capability that can achieve a performance and power improvement of 25 times compared to room-temperature central processing units.

Specifically, DARPA seeks to develop low-temperature fin field-effect transistors (FinFETs) based on complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors (CMOS) to support Very Large Scaled Integration (VLSI) functionalities.

The agency also intends to produce and test a static random-access memory (SRAM) cell with a compact framework and the capacity to handle foundational circuit elements for HPC engines. 

LTLT will additionally leverage DARPA’s Toolbox Initiative which provides licensing support for proprietary commercial technologies.

“While microelectronics is typically designed to operate at room temperature, we know that device characteristics improve significantly at reduced temperatures,” said Jason Woo, a program manager for the Microsystems Technology Office at DARPA.

Interested participants must submit proposals by May 18.

President Biden is expected to submit to Congress the administration's discretionary spending top line requests for the fiscal year 2022 on Friday, signaling the start of the annual budget and appropriations process, DefenseNews reported Friday.

The upcoming $715 billion defense budget request is slightly less than 2021’s request when adjusted for inflation. A detailed budget request with agency-by-agency estimates is expected to be released in late spring.

However, the budget process will reportedly progress more slowly due to a backlog of Congressional legislation in recent months.

“What’s going to be different this year is we’re facing a monumental legislative traffic jam. Those are going to be the priorities of the administration, and your traditional authorization and appropriation bills really can’t get cranked up until we get the budget details ― and we’ll be lucky to see serious budget details before Memorial Day,” commented Arnold Punaro, a former Senate Armed Services Committee staff director and the chairman of the board of the National Defense Industrial Association.

Pandemic relief spending, infrastructure packages and voting rights legislation are some of the bills' Democrats, who control both houses of Congress, want to pass during Biden’s first year. They also seek to boost U.S. competitiveness with China.

The late spring schedule for the detailed budget request is expected to pose challenges to the appropriations and authorizing committees, which will increase the likelihood of Congress missing the deadline to pass federal spending before Oct. 1, the end of the fiscal year.

President Biden plans to issue an executive order that will focus on addressing recent cybersecurity issues that could impact the software supply chain, Defense One reported Thursday.

Jeff Greene, acting senior director for cybersecurity at the National Security Council (NSC), told attendees at a Cybersecurity Coalition event that binding requirements under the executive order will be established after at least six months.

He added that the criteria will likely fall under the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) purview. The White House is also rolling out a program to address potential issues associated with the order’s scope, said Greene.

“We're going to need all developers who are selling software to the government to implement more rigorous and predictable mechanisms to ensure that their products and their software behave, both as intended and as designed,” said Greene.

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