A Federal Robotic Process Automation Community of Practice report states that overall RPA program maturity for fiscal year 2020 increased by 70 percent from FY19 as agencies continue to deploy automation in more functional areas. The report found that RPA deployments also reached 460 in FY20 from 219 in the prior fiscal year.

According to the analysis, federal RPA programs have deployed complementary capabilities for process improvement as agencies are increasingly adopting the CoE model for RPA implementation.

Data from the report shows that while agencies reported a strong demand for RPA, incorporating intelligent automation saw limited success due to issues in security requirements.

FY21 efforts must prioritize the standardization of automation authority approvals that involve standard protocols including the security of controlled unclassified information as well as classified or restricted data, the Federal RPA CoP noted.

Adopting sophisticated technology platforms for RPA programs would additionally ensure long-term program capacity and effectiveness, the report states.

“The CoP pursues a two-fold mission to share best practices and lessons learned, as well as to break down common technology and management hurdles that can slow RPA deployment,” said Gerard Badorrek, chief financial officer of the General Services Administration, in the report’s foreword.

The audit comes as part of the Federal RPA CoP’s efforts to measure the maturity of agencies’ RPA programs in line with Cross-Agency Priority Goal 6 or "Shifting from Low to High Value Work.”

NASA has authorized two heliophysics research missions worth potentially $108.3 million combined to study solar impact and space weather near the Earth’s atmosphere.

The agency said Wednesday the first mission is a $53.3 million geomagnetic research effort known as Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) led by Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and slated for launch in June 2024.

EZIE will utilize cube satellites deployed 60 to 90 miles above Earth to study the behavior of aurora and its impact to the magnetosphere. Aurora tends to interfere with communications and radio signals in addition to damaging spacecraft, according to NASA.

The mission will use the Auroral Electrojet index as well as ultraviolet spectroscopy concepts for measuring solar activity. 

The second $55 million effort, known as Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope (EUVST) Epsilon Mission, will be led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and is scheduled for 2026. The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory will lead the NASA contribution to the mission.

The EUVST solar telescope will work to observe the release of solar wind as well as the eruption of solar material which impact the space radiation environment. Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA, said he is looking forward to continuing international collaborations with JAXA as well as European partners for EUVST.

“We are very pleased to add these new missions to the growing fleet of satellites that are studying our Sun-Earth system using an amazing array of unprecedented observational tools,” he noted.

Army Research Laboratory (ARL) has received two new supercomputers, named “Jean and Kay,” to address the Department of Defense’s (DoD) most data-intensive computational challenges and drive the continued development of artificial intelligence and machine learning tools. 

The lab anticipates that the new supercomputers will enter production in the “mid-fiscal 2021 timeframe, according to ARL’s announcement notes. These new supercomputers are in addition to the Pentagon’s Supercomputing Resource Center, which is already housed at the ARL. 

“Jean and Kay will allow ARL to support many of DOD’s most significant modernization challenges to include digital engineering and other emerging workloads,” ARL Defense Supercomputing Resource Center, or DSRC Director Matt Goss explained. 

The two systems are named Jean and Kay, as an homage to Jean Jennings Bartik and Kathleen “Kay” McNulty Mauchly, who are considered by DoD to be “computing pioneers as part of the original team of programmers of the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer.” 

“By adding specialized technology to augment traditional high performance computing with data analytics, these machines will serve as a springboard on which DOD scientists can make game changing discoveries,” Goss added. 

In addition, “Jean and Kay” will also offer a chance for DoD’s High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP) to shift and refresh its capabilities. That program generally offers billions of computer core hours annually to the Pentagon to support research and development, as well as testing of military systems and platforms.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have recommended measures for public and private sector organizations to protect data and infrastructure across the health care sector from targeted attacks. 

CISA Cross-Functional Planning and Coordination Chief Sana Saleh and HHS Health Sector Cybersecurity Coordination Center Chief Greg Singleton wrote in a joint blog entry posted Tuesday that heightened public awareness can reduce the impact of security incidents in the sector amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Both agencies urged the health care and public health sector to scan information technology networks regularly and fix vulnerabilities through patching, create an incident response plan for remote environments and modernize IT systems.

CISA and HHS also called on the government to craft standard operating procedures for state of emergency situations, establish federal-level disaster response roles and implement the Cyber Solarium Commission's appropriate recommendations.

The two agencies produced infographics about COVID-19 cybersecurity trends in the HPH sector.

A new Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report says the rate at which new companies formed or entered the market dropped from 10 percent in 1982 to 8 percent in 2018.

CBO said in the report published Tuesday that new firms operating for less than five years accounted for 29 percent of all businesses in 2018, down from 38 percent in 1982, and that their share of employment fell from 14 percent nearly four decades ago to 9 percent in 2018.

“The decline in new firms’ share of employment was fairly consistent in both the retail and services sectors throughout the period, whereas the share of employment attributed to new businesses in the information and high-tech sectors rose in the 1990s, falling thereafter,” the report reads.

CBO cited economic uncertainty, financing constraints and demographic trends as factors that play a role in causing a decline in entrepreneurship with the regulatory environment showing mixed evidence with regard to its impact on the growth and formation of new firms.

The office suggested a number of federal policies the government can consider to address factors hampering entrepreneurship. These include the possible expansion of the Small Business Administration’s credit programs to provide new companies access to credit, an increase in financial support for new firms and efforts to make regulations less burdensome for such businesses.

“Policymakers could also increase the scrutiny of incumbent firms’ potentially anticompetitive actions directed toward rival start-ups. Finally, concerns about the impact of diminished competition on the formation and growth of new firms could be addressed by restricting the use of noncompete contracts,” the CBO report states.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has awarded 17 research grants to U.S. and international participants as part of the lab’s tech accelerator program with a focus on quantum-based communications, computing, sensing and timing.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) said Monday it downselected the awardees for the Million Dollar International Quantum U Tech Accelerator during a three-day “virtual pitch” event that took place from Sept. 1st to 3rd. 

AFOSR received white papers from 22 countries and selected 36 proposers to present their concepts during the event before choosing the 17 finalists eligible to apply for $75,000 in seedling grants to cover a one-year period.

Shery Welsh, director of AFOSR, said the tech accelerator serves as entry point for identifying researchers seeking to address issues beyond traditional quantum information science.

“AFOSR has a long history of collaborating with academia and industry on breakthrough science critical to the future of the Air Force and Space Force capabilities,” she noted.

Funding for the accelerator effort will be shouldered by AFOSR and the Office of Naval Research as well as the New York State Technology Enterprise Corp., Griffiss Institute and SUNY Research Foundation. 

AFOSR opened the window for applications on Aug.4 .