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1901 Group Partners with VA Ready to Provide Job Training in Lieu of COVID-19; Sonu Singh, Caren Merrick Quoted
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1901 Group Partners with VA Ready to Provide Job Training in Lieu of COVID-19; Sonu Singh, Caren Merrick Quoted

1901 Group has become a Business Partner of the Virginia Ready Initiative (VA Ready) to help unemployed Virginians across the Commonwealth return to work, the company announced on Tuesday. 

"1901 Group looks forward to working closely with VA Ready to strengthen our economy, support career pathways, and fulfill thousands of open positions by identifying, training, and employing Virginians impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic," said Sonu Singh, CEO of 1901 Group. 

Under the VA Ready Initiative, 1901 Group will help equip people who are out of work with the required skills for in-demand jobs in high-growth sectors. Demand for specialized jobs in the fields of technology, healthcare and manufacturing/skilled trades is projected to grow.

VA Ready Scholars will be able to earn a credential in selected training programs through FastForward, a state-led short-term workforce credential program to train Virginians for top, in-demand jobs across the Commonwealth. 

FastForward is offered through the Virginia Community College System's (VCCS) 23 community colleges. Upon achieving their credential, VA Ready Scholars receive a $1,000 Credential Achievement Award and are offered opportunities to interview with VA Ready's business partners.

"The goal of VA Ready is not just to give our scholars a credential, but a clear path to a high-quality job at one of Virginia's best companies," said Caren Merrick, CEO of VA Ready. "Likewise, companies will have access to talent they know have been through a credential program that reflects their needs, which will enable them to grow their businesses, remain competitive and stimulate our state's economy. It is a win-win for everyone." 

About 1901 Group

1901 Group develops innovative IT services and solutions for the public and private sector. We improve service delivery with our FedRAMP-authorized Enterprise IT Operations Center (EITOC) for 24×7 user, complex IT infrastructure, and mission-critical systems support. 

Our capabilities include cloud, cybersecurity, and enterprise-scale managed services to transition customers from traditional on-premise IT infrastructure models to hybrid cloud solutions that improve performance and reduce costs. We proudly serve customers in federal, state, and local governments, including law enforcement agencies and commercial markets. Customers benefit from our 24×7 Cloud Factory with FedRAMP authorization, ISO 9001 certification, and CMMI Maturity Level 3 appraisals.

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Maria Roat on Cross-Agency Collaboration Tech
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Maria Roat on Cross-Agency Collaboration Tech

Maria Roat, deputy federal chief information officer at the Office of Management and Budget and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, said the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for more cross-agency collaboration platforms, Nextgov reported Wednesday.

“I’d really like to see more cross-government usage of the collaboration capabilities,” Roat said Wednesday at the IBM Think Gov Digital event. “The same things I was able to do in my agency, why can’t I do that with another agency?”

Roat, who joined OMB in May from the Small Business Administration, said the ongoing health crisis has demonstrated the significance of a digital federal government.

“I think the need to be digital was even more evident than people anticipated,” Roat said Wednesday at the IBM Think Gov Digital event. “Everybody’s got a mobile phone. Everybody expects that digital interaction, not just with their friends and family but with their government. I think this really put a big spotlight on that.”

She also mentioned SBA’s adoption of document sharing, video, chat and other digital collaboration tools to facilitate coordination within the agency.

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Gen. David Goldfein: Pentagon May Need Separate Account for Strategic Nuclear Deterrence
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Gen. David Goldfein: Pentagon May Need Separate Account for Strategic Nuclear Deterrence

Gen. David Goldfein, chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, said the Department of Defense may need a separate account to fund nuclear weapons, Defense One reported Wednesday.

“There are either going to be some significant trades made or we’re going to have to find a fund for strategic nuclear deterrence, that we can use to modernize,” Goldfein said Wednesday at a Brookings Institution event.

He said the current defense budget does not allow the Pentagon to simultaneously fund the procurement of new nuclear weapons and modernization of conventional forces.

“I think a debate is that this will be the first time that the nation has tried to simultaneously modernize the nuclear enterprise while it’s trying to modernize an aging conventional enterprise,” Goldfein said. “The current budget does not allow you to do both.”

The White House’s fiscal year 2021 budget request for DoD includes nearly $29B in funds for nuclear weapons, including ballistic missile submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles and stealth bombers. The Department of Energy’s requested budget seeks $15.6B in FY 2021 funds for nuclear warheads.

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Sean Connelly on Microsegmentation, Zero-Trust Architecture
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Sean Connelly on Microsegmentation, Zero-Trust Architecture

Sean Connelly, Trusted Internet Connections program manager at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), said the TIC 3.0 guidance for network security encourages agencies to segment networks into “trust zones” as part of zero-trust architecture, FedScoop reported Wednesday.

“We are starting to talk to a number of agencies to look at microsegmentation architectures. It’s one step toward that modernization of their environment,” Connelly said Wednesday at IBM’s Think Gov digital event. “We look at it as a way for them to secure their traffic across the enterprise, as opposed to focusing on the traditional network perimeter.”

He called on agencies to allow zero-trust architecture to coexist with conventional strategies for network security as they continue to deal with on-premise data centers, multicloud or hybrid networks.

“Right now zero trust is not a complete architecture, where a lot of agencies are in a position to adopt zero trust across the entire enterprise,” Connelly said.

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Microsoft Launches New Technology Initiative to Support Economic Recovery; Satya Nadella, Brad Smith Quoted
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Microsoft Launches New Technology Initiative to Support Economic Recovery; Satya Nadella, Brad Smith Quoted

Microsoft Corp. has launched its global skills initiative to add more digital skills to 25 million people worldwide by the end of the year  in response to the global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the company announced on Tuesday.

"COVID-19 has created both a public health and an economic crisis, and as the world recovers, we need to ensure no one is left behind," said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "Today, we're bringing together resources from Microsoft inclusive of LinkedIn and GitHub to reimagine how people learn and apply new skills — and help 25 million people facing unemployment due to COVID-19 prepare for the jobs of the future."

Microsoft will expand access to digital skills to accelerate economic recovery and will assist in job training. The company will provide data to identify in-demand jobs and the skills needed to fill them, free access to learning paths and content to help people develop the skills these positions require and low-cost certifications to develop a skilled workforce. 

The company’s technology initiative will build on data and digital technology by partnering with job seeking tools. The resources can all be accessed at a central location and will be available online in English, French, German and Spanish.

In addition, Microsoft will allocate $20 million in cash grants to help nonprofit organizations worldwide. $5 million will be provided in cash grants to community-based nonprofit organizations that are led by and serve communities of color in the United States. 

Microsoft also announced it is creating a new learning app in Microsoft Teams designed to help employers skill and upskill new and current employees as people return to work and as the economy adds jobs.

"The biggest brunt of the current downturn is being borne by those who can afford it the least," said Microsoft president Brad Smith. "Unemployment rates are spiking for people of color and women, as well as younger workers, people with disabilities and individuals with less formal education. Our goal is to combine the best in technology with stronger partnerships with governments and nonprofits to help people develop the skills needed to secure a new job."

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

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Joint Tactical Networking Center Renames DoD Comms Product Marketplace
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Joint Tactical Networking Center Renames DoD Comms Product Marketplace

The Joint Tactical Networking Center (JTNC) has updated the Tactical Communications Marketplace to reflect the inclusion of an inventory for commercial joint communications products. The Joint Communications Marketplace will work to present waveform technologies, tactical radios and other offerings via a virtual interface, the U.S. Navy said Tuesday.

The portal also delivers actionable data for informed purchase decisions to help government customers meet capability needs. The service branch seeks to update the Department of Defense's (DoD) procurement approach for communications offerings through the product hub.

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U.S. Navy Plans More Cyber Baseline Deliveries This Fiscal Year
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U.S. Navy Plans More Cyber Baseline Deliveries This Fiscal Year

Naval Information Warfare Systems Command (NAVWAR) plans to deliver cyber baseline applications across 56 ships in the current fiscal year to boost the service branch's cyber readiness. The effort aims to equip more ships with the cyber baseline, a web-based application that supports a ship's compliance with the cybersecurity requirements imposed by the Department of Defense (DoD), the Navy said Monday.

The cyber baseline provides a library of afloat and ashore networks operated by the U.S. Navy. NAVWAR intends to exceed the last fiscal year's delivery count of 40 cyber baselines.

“Despite today’s current circumstances, our Navy and our nation are continuing to experience an unprecedented degree of competition in the maritime environment,” said Mike Spencer, executive director of NAVWAR's Fleet Readiness Directorate.

FRD's cybersecurity office has delivered a total of 80 cyber baselines since 2018 and aims to bring that number up to 180 by fiscal 2022.

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Air Force to Hold Virtual IT Conference
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Air Force to Hold Virtual IT Conference

The U.S. Air Force is slated to hold a virtual event in an effort to build strategies and approaches that may address digital technology gaps.

The four-day Air Force Information Technology and Cyberpower conference will tackle various topics such as cyber operations, artificial intelligence and multi-domain effects, the service branch said Tuesday.

Arthur Hatcher, acting deputy chief information officer at the Air Force, said the conference will feature panels, breakout sessions and keynote speeches.

USAF seeks to gather various information technology professionals from industry, academia and the government in the event.

The virtual conference will run from August 24 through 27.

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HHS Public Health Service to Form Ready Reserve Corps
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HHS Public Health Service to Form Ready Reserve Corps

The U.S. Public Health Service (USPHS) will soon establish a group of reserve personnel to support efforts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ready Reserve Corps would support clinical and health care activities for COVID-19 response efforts across the globe, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said Tuesday.

"Creating a Ready Reserve for the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps will improve our capability to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and future public health emergencies," said Alex Azar, HHS secretary.

The corps will consist of trained personnel who are deployable on short notice as needs arise. Interested individuals who wish to become part of the corps may send applications starting this fall. The corps' first batch of officers will undergo commissioning in spring next year.

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U.S. Navy Deploys AWS-Based Resource Planning System to Manage $70B in Transactions
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U.S. Navy Deploys AWS-Based Resource Planning System to Manage $70B in Transactions

The U.S. Navy has concluded the migration of its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system to an Amazon Web Services (AWS) environment and is processing transactions worth over $70 billion in the cloud infrastructure, Nextgov reported Tuesday.

The cloud migration effort serves as the Navy’s largest one to date and saw terabytes of data across various ledger systems in legacy on-premises infrastructure transition toward the AWS GovCloud environment.

The migration comes as part of the Navy’s plans to use a single ledger system to modernize financial transactions for over 70,000 users around the world, according to the report.

Edward Quick, program manager for the Navy’s enterprise business solutions program, said during an AWS virtual event that the migration helped the Navy make “timely and informed decisions” around financial operations, maintenance logs and advanced analytics activities.

“Putting Navy ERP in the cloud also adds a layer of protection to the data—with only one cloud-based depository of data to protect instead of a myriad of computing hardware,” he noted.

According to Quick, the Navy deployed an AWS-built edge storage tool called Snowball and SAP’s maintenance technology to speed up the migration process.

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