Sumo Logic will host a virtual conference, Illuminate, to help customers harness the power of real-time the continuous intelligence needed to build, run and secure modern applications and accelerate digital business transformation. The company will support executives across the public sector to improve Agency DevSecOps workloads Sumo Logic's virtual conference will be held on Oct. 6th and 7th.    

Attendees at the Illuminate user conference will learn from Sumo Logic customers who  are accelerating digital business transformations. The event will also offer certification opportunities. Illuminate will provide deeper knowledge through customer and expert led technical and thought leader sessions, various levels of certifications, expert speakers and discussions with Sumo experts and peers in a virtual experience.

A leader in the cloud sector, Sumo Logic has received the AWS Public Sector Big Data Partner Award for 2019. Additionally, Executive Mosaic has recognized Sumo Logic for its position on the Forbes’ Cloud 100 list, marking the fifth consecutive year the company has been recognized for this honor.

Cloud 100 recognizes influential company’s emerging technologies from small startups to private-equity-backed giants, from Silicon Valley to Australia and Hong Kong. The companies on the list are selected for their growth, sales, valuation and culture, as well as a reputation score derived in consultation with 43 CEO judges and executives from their public-cloud-company peers.

“Five years ago, when Sumo Logic first hit the Forbes Cloud 100 list, we defined a new category of software called continuous intelligence and companies were in large part just starting their cloud journey,” said Aaron Feigin, chief communications officer of Sumo Logic, in regards to the 2020 award. “Today, the world is firmly cloud-first and Sumo Logic, along with our community, is working hard to help every business from every industry digitally transform and thrive in the Intelligence Economy.”

Lt. Gen. David Thompson, vice commander of the U.S. Space Force, said the service plans to establish a new command focused on acquisition programs in 2021, C4ISRNET reported Thursday.

“We anticipate standing that up in 2021, probably sooner rather than later. We’re working on those final details,” Thompson said Thursday of Space Systems Command (SSC) during a Defense One event.

The service announced in June 2020 that it will be composed of three field commands and one of those is Space Systems Command. Space Systems Command will be responsible for the development, acquisition and sustainment of platforms for the Space Force and provide oversight for the Space Rapid Capabilities Office and Space and Missile Systems Center. 

The Space Development Agency (SDA) is also set to transition to Space Systems Command by October 2022. Thompson said the new acquisitions command will serve as a unifying entity, address unnecessary duplication and promote competition in some areas.

“We’re not going to duplicate, but we’re certainly interested in the energy that comes from competing ideas and competing designs and competing approaches to a problem,” he added.

President Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to declare a national emergency to help address the threat posed by the country’s dependence on critical minerals from foreign adversaries to U.S. national security, economy and foreign policy.

The executive order directs the secretary of the Department of the Interior to work with other secretaries with other federal agencies to investigate the country’s reliance on critical minerals from adversaries and submit a report on the investigation within 60 days.

The report should “recommend executive action, which may include the imposition of tariffs or quotas, other import restrictions against China and other non-market foreign adversaries whose economic practices threaten to undermine the health, growth, and resiliency of the United States, or other appropriate action, consistent with applicable law,” the document reads.

The secretary of the State Department should hand over to the executive branch a report that details planned and existing initiatives and policy options to establish resilient critical mineral supply chains, reduce the country’s vulnerability to the disruption of those supply chains and promote responsible minerals sourcing, business practices and labor.

The policy also calls for the secretary of the Department of Energy (DOE) to come up with guidance “clarifying the extent to which projects that support domestic supply chains for minerals are eligible for loan guarantees pursuant to Title XVII of the Energy Policy Act of 2005."

Cynthia Mendoza, chief architect at the intelligence community, said the reference architecture framework (RAF) seeks to be a “cradle to grave” model that could enable IC to implement information technology programs through standard integration and business approaches, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

“Today, the RAF has advanced interoperability and safeguarding in three foundational areas. I like to call these the bedrock: Collaboration services, identity, credential and access management and the data reference architecture,” Mendoza said on the network’s Ask the CIO. 

“These foundational architectures provide collaboration capabilities and tools across our community shared space. The RAF success in the IC has been promulgated globally to the Five Eyes enterprise with our international partners as well.”

She cited the importance of building trust across the community’s IT enterprise and described RAF as a people process.

“It begins with developing a stakeholder engagement strategy that is inclusive of all the key enterprise stakeholders and together we focus on a gap,” she said of the framework.

The CIO Council has partnered with ACT-IAC to update a framework intended to help agencies improve transparency and financial management in their information technology initiatives.

The IT spending maturity model comes as part of a joint effort between the council’s Federal Technology Investment Management (FTIM) community of practice (CoP) and ACT-IAC’s IT Management and Modernization (ITMM) community of interest (CoI), FTIM CoP said Wednesday.

ACT-IAC and the CIO Council’s free model works to visualize IT spending and quantify metrics for financial management while ensuring compliance with Technology Business Management (TBM) standards.

Both government and commercial best practices were also considered as part of the tool’s development, according to FTIM CoP. Modernization ofthe spending model comes as part of efforts to address a directive under the Federal Data Strategy 2020 Action Plan to improve standards for financial management data.

The U.S. Space Force is providing alternative contracting methods through which technology companies may secure opportunities more easily, Space News reported Wednesday. Col. Eric Felt, director of the Air Force Research Laboratory's space vehicles directorate, said at AFWERX's EngageSpace event that his group is searching for technologies that have dual uses.

Companies interested in addressing this need may apply for cooperative research and development agreements, an alternative contracting method that provides companies access to government expertise, mentorship and facilities, Felt said.

“We can do testing and evaluation, and give you advice on how to mature your technology," he said. Felt added that AFRL allows companies to directly engage with government customers to provide more insight into market preferences.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) has offered a $50,000 prize pool for novel approaches that employ artificial intelligence to detect circular-shaped elements in satellite images. 

NGA said Monday that it is seeking automated approaches that can trace, delineate and describe circles in satellite imagery as part of the Circle Finder challenge. The agency cited fuel storage tanks, agricultural irrigation areas, traffic circles and fountains as examples of circular features.

"This particular challenge is difficult because many circular features are not going to be perfectly circular nor similar in size," said Jack Brandy, geospatial intelligence capabilities integration officer at NGA.

"The difficulty lies in an algorithm’s ability to property identify any size circular object while rejecting obfuscating elements that could prevent proper detection," added Brandy.