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Accenture Acquires Two International Companies to Advance Technology Capabilities; Ben Morgan, Jeffrey Russell Quoted
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Accenture Acquires Two International Companies to Advance Technology Capabilities; Ben Morgan, Jeffrey Russell Quoted

This week, Accenture has announced the acquisition of Zag, a SAP and cloud solutions technology firm based in New Zealand, and entered an agreement to acquire Avenai, an Ottawa-based provider of consulting and technology services. The two international companies will add to Accenture’s growing technology portfolio. 

Accenture recently acquired Zag to expand New Zealand and Australian digital transformation capabilities. The acquisition will support Accenture’s increased demand from organizations migrating to the cloud and SAP’s next generation products.

Zag has offices in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney and Melbourne with a team of over 200 professionals. The company is a leading SAP specialist provider that offers services including consulting, development, support, testing and cloud migration.

“By pairing Accenture’s global expertise with Zag’s local talent and insight, this acquisition will strengthen our ability to help clients accelerate their business transformation using SAP and Cloud technologies delivering more value from the new platforms. This move demonstrates our ongoing commitment to bringing new thinking, talent and innovation to clients across the region,” said Ben Morgan, Accenture’s New Zealand managing director.

In addition, Accenture has agreed to acquire Avenai to enhance Accenture’s capacity to drive the technology transformation taking place across the public sector in Canada. Avenai supports key aspects of business change, including strategy development, process improvement, IT-enabled business transformation and organization culture transformation.

“COVID-19 is leading many Canadian organizations to accelerate their technology transformations to ensure they come out ahead in this new reality, and that’s why we are adding significantly to our team of experts in Ottawa,” said Jeffrey Russell, president of Accenture in Canada. “We look forward to working with the Avenai team to help our clients transform to meet the challenges of today and the future.”

Financial terms were not disclosed.

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AWS Partners with Carrier to Advance Supply Chain for Vaccines; David Appel, Sarah Cooper Quoted
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AWS Partners with Carrier to Advance Supply Chain for Vaccines; David Appel, Sarah Cooper Quoted

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has partnered with Carrier Global Corporation to co-develop Carrier’s Lynx digital platform, which will increase visibility, connectivity and actionable intelligence across their cold chain operations, AWS reported on Thursday. The partnership will improve outcomes for temperature-sensitive cargo, including food, medicine and vaccines. 

“The Lynx platform will help our customers make faster, data-driven decisions to improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of their supply chains. This digital solution will enhance connectivity across the cold chain, decreasing delays for cargo that is critical to global health and well-being, while reducing cargo damage, loss, and unanticipated costs,” said David Appel, President, Carrier Refrigeration.

The collaboration builds on Carrier’s selection of AWS as its preferred cloud services provider in Feb. 2020. The Lynx platform will combine AWS’s IoT, analytics and machine learning services with Carrier’s refrigeration and monitoring solutions, extending Carrier’s current digital offerings for managing the temperature-controlled transport and storage of perishables. 

Customers using the Lynx platform will benefit from end-to-end tracking, real-time alerts, automated processes and predictive analytics to help them deliver temperature-controlled cargo more efficiently, in turn decreasing the cost of cold chain operations by optimizing resource utilization and reducing cargo loss and spoilage.

Carrier will leverage AWS IoT services to collect, integrate, organize and analyze data from Carrier’s large installed base of refrigeration equipment and monitoring solutions. The Lynx platform will provide a comprehensive view of cargo location, temperature conditions and external events that could impact cold chain operations. 

This information will feed into a data lake built on Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) to enable Carrier to use AWS machine learning services to identify potential issues that could impact cargo AWS will utilize analytics to develop recommendations for improving outcomes. 

“This project, which combines Carrier’s cold chain expertise with AWS’s digital experience and unparalleled portfolio of services, highlights how entire industries stand to benefit from digital transformation through increased efficiency, reduced costs, and greater dependability,” said Sarah Cooper, GM, IoT Solutions at AWS. 

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GAO: 24 Agencies Offer Public Access to Federal Data Inventories
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GAO: 24 Agencies Offer Public Access to Federal Data Inventories

Twenty-four federal organizations covered by the Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act post data on public facing websites and in an online federal repository to comply with transparency requirements under the OPEN Government Data Act, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report says.

GAO reported Thursday those agencies also released datasets about the COVID-19 pandemic or provided coronavirus-related source links as of last month in accordance with the Federal Data Strategy.

However, the office determined that a lack of policy from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the General Services Administration (GSA) to support error identification and correction in electronic records is affecting the availability of agency progress reports.

The government audit organization recommended that OMB provide guidance and report the performance of CFO Act agencies with regard to establishing comprehensive data inventories.

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Former NIST Exec Donna Dodson Honored for Federal Cybersecurity Accomplishments
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Former NIST Exec Donna Dodson Honored for Federal Cybersecurity Accomplishments

Donna Dodson, a 33-year veteran of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), has been selected for the Partnership for Public Service's Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal in recognition of her efforts to help public and private sector organizations address cyber threats.

The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit named Dodson among the 11 medalists and recognized her in the safety, security and international affairs category, the agency said Thursday.

She served as chief cybersecurity adviser to the NIST Information Technology Laboratory and founding director of the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) from 2012 until her retirement on May 8, the agency said Thursday.

Dodson helped develop the agency's framework for protecting critical infrastructure assets from cyber threats and worked on a team that implemented national encryption standards.

As the NCCoE's leader, she drove the adoption of business security platforms across sectors such as the financial, manufacturing, health care and energy industries.

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Sen. Charles Grassley Asks DoD to Respond to Questions About JEDI Cloud Program
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Sen. Charles Grassley Asks DoD to Respond to Questions About JEDI Cloud Program

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has asked the Department of Defense (DoD) to respond by Oct. 19th to several questions in relation to the findings and recommendations by DoD’s office of the inspector general about the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud computing program.

Grassley wrote Monday to DoD Secretary and 2020 Wash100 Award winner Mark Esper asking the latter’s office to address alleged conflicts of interest and other issues in the JEDI cloud procurement process.

The letter contains 14 questions about DoD’s spending on acquisition personnel, administrative support and technical expertise with regard to the JEDI program, debriefing process for vendors and the department’s comment on the OIG report.

Grassley also asked about the measures the Pentagon has initiated to address OIG’s recommendations, such as the development and implementation of policies to require analysis and documentation backing acquisition decisions and administrative actions against individuals for failure to review redacted reports and disclosure of source selection, proposal and proprietary information.

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Pentagon Releases Data Strategy; Dana Deasy Quoted
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Pentagon Releases Data Strategy; Dana Deasy Quoted

The Department of Defense (DoD) has unveiled a new strategy to help DoD transform into a data-centric organization that considers data as a strategic resource critical to maintaining operational advantage on the battlefield.

DoD said Thursday that the Data Strategy will help advance the National Defense Strategy and initially focus on the areas of business analytics, senior leader decision support and joint all domain operations. 

The strategy has eight guiding principles, including data ethics, collective data stewardship, data for artificial intelligence training and data as a strategic asset. 

“Data is the ammunition in the Digital Modernization Strategy and is increasingly central to warfighter advantage on and off the battlefield. … This strategy is our first step to making that ammo persistently available to the men and women of the DOD regardless of echelon or geographic location,” said Dana Deasy, chief information officer at DoD and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner.

Dave Spirk, chief data officer at the Pentagon, will work with Joint Staff and service department CDOs to operationalize the strategy’s seven goals such as making data interoperable, secure and visible.

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DHS Gets DOI’s Help to Assess P25 Public Safety Equipment; Sridhar Kowdley Quoted
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DHS Gets DOI’s Help to Assess P25 Public Safety Equipment; Sridhar Kowdley Quoted

The Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology (DHS S&T) Directorate has authorized the Department of the Interior to assess first responder technologies under a DHS-led effort. DHS said Wednesday that its Project 25 Compliance Assessment Program independently evaluates first responder equipment for compliance with P25 requirements.

A Colorado-based laboratory within DOI has demonstrated subsystem interface testing to support P25 CAP. The laboratory attained the necessary certification requirements to help S&T test inter-radio frequency and console subsystem interfaces.

“This DHS-DOI partnership created significant cost savings by leveraging resources and capabilities of DOI laboratories," said Sridhar Kowdley, S&T's program manager for P25 CAP.

Inter-radio frequency subsystems or ISSIs support the interconnection between P25 and LTE networks, and CSSIs links public safety dispatchers to P25 systems. The P25 program assesses whether the equipment is eligible to become part of S&T’s Approved Equipment list.

“DHS S&T’s partnership with DOI addressed a critical lack of testing laboratories to conduct the ISSI and CSSI conformance testing,” Kowdley also noted.

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U-2 Federal Lab Uses Kubernetes to Boost Dragon Lady; Nicolas Chaillan Quoted
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U-2 Federal Lab Uses Kubernetes to Boost Dragon Lady; Nicolas Chaillan Quoted

U-2 Federal Laboratory, assigned to integrate software in a bounded environment, has used the Kubernetes automation tool in a recent aircraft exercise. 

The laboratory used Kubernetes during a training sortie with a U-2 Dragon Lady reconnaissance aircraft, marking the automation tool's first flight with a major, operational Department of Defense system, USAF said Wednesday.

Kubernetes facilitates computing and other functions to fully automate complex applications. The tool would allow the U.S. military to meet weapon system requirements by maximizing available computing power.

During the training flight, Kubernetes allowed the U-2 aircraft to leverage the combined performance of four onboard computers for advanced machine learning algorithms.

“The successful combination of the U-2’s legacy computer system with the modern Kubernetes software was a critical milestone for the development of software containerization on existing Air Force weapon systems,” said Nicolas Chaillan, chief software officer at USAF.

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NSWC Crane Brings AI-Ready Infrastructure to US Navy
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NSWC Crane Brings AI-Ready Infrastructure to US Navy

Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane fielded a high-performance computing technology as part of efforts to implement deep learning, artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities into the U.S. Navy.

NSWC Crane incorporated the Artificial Intelligence Ready Infrastructure into the center's Research, Development, Test, and Engineering Network and is now available on the Navy High Performance Computing Catalog, the Naval Sea Systems Command said Wednesday.

John Strange, a computer scientist at NSWC Crane, said AIRI serves as a hardware configuration that aims to help scientists and data architects process critical training workloads and lower compute times.

"We leveraged an existing contract to procure all of the required materials and services, as well as coordinate the integration of the new AIRI with NSWC Crane and our vendors," Strange added.

The center procured AIRI and installed it on NSWC Crane's open environment in 2018

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Ryan McCarthy: Army Eyes Budget Realignment Following COVID-19 Efforts
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Ryan McCarthy: Army Eyes Budget Realignment Following COVID-19 Efforts

Ryan McCarthy, secretary of the U.S. Army and a 2020 Wash100 Award recipient, has said the service branch is working to realign its budget priorities to relieve debt related to COVID-19 response.

McCarthy told attendees at a Hudson Institute event that the Army intends to make internal funding cuts after accumulating debt from COVID-related efforts such as the Operation Warp Speed vaccine production program, National Defense Magazine reported Wednesday.

He said that future budget requests will cover reappropriated funds for the Army’s modernization programs including long-range precision fires, next-generation combat vehicles, air-and-missile defense and future vertical lift.

“It’s [a] tremendous amount of debt that we've incurred to deal with COVID and it was necessary, but how do we deal with this going forward?” noted McCarthy. “We're looking very hard at that and we're talking to economists,” he added.

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