Renee Wynn, the retiring chief information officer at NASA, said the implementation of a new strategy aimed at improving how the agency oversees its information technology systems, resources and personnel will be one of the priorities of the next CIO, Federal News Network reported Friday.

“We are really coming along in using a blank sheet to reimagine what we should look like,” Wynn said on the network’s Ask the CIO. “Then from the July to December timeframe, they will have to write that out as an organization, put the boxes on the piece of paper, and develop the implementation plan for how do we go from our current state to the to-be state after the agency blesses the to-be state.”

She said part of the IT reorganization effort this year is to quantify the money, technology, people and other resources and noted that customer experience will be another priority for the next CIO.

“We will be assigning an individual—yet to be named—who will lead an effort across our different program areas, applications, end user support, communications and other traditional CIO areas to work across that to deliver a much better, more value-added customer experience,” she said. “I’m very excited that we got this started and not waiting until our transformation project to rethink customer experience.”

Wynn is set to retire by the end of April after three decades of federal service.

Gen. John Raymond, chief of space operations within the U.S. Space Force and a 2020 Wash100 Award winner, said the newly created service branch continues to carry out its missions amid the coronavirus pandemic, DoD News reported Friday.

"The men and women in U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Space Force are executing our 24/7, no-fail missions to protect and defend our nation's space centers," Raymond said Friday during a telephone news conference at the Pentagon.

He said Spacecom has launched efforts to provide additional bandwidth to respond to the request of Navy hospital ship USNS Mercy as it travels to Los Angeles to oversee trauma patients to help civilian hospitals accommodate those who are infected with COVID-19. "We optimize the constellation or the payloads to be able to provide that support," he said. "We're doing that for every request that we may get."

Raymond said 64 cadets at the Air Force Academy are expected to be commissioned into the Space Force in May. The new military branch is also “on track” to onboard up to 16,000 personnel from other services.

About The Wash100

This year represents our sixth annual Wash100 Award selection. The Wash100 is the premier group of private and public sector leaders selected by Executive Mosaic’s organizational and editorial leadership as the most influential leaders in the GovCon sector. These leaders demonstrate skills in leadership, innovation, achievement, and vision.

Visit the Wash100 site to learn about the other 99 winners of the 2020 Wash100 Award. On the site, you can submit your 10 votes for the GovCon executives of consequence that you believe will have the most significant impact in 2020.

President Donald Trump has issued a new strategy to ensure the security of the country’s 5G wireless networks.

The National Strategy to Secure 5G outlines the administration’s vision for the U.S. to lead the development, management and deployment of reliable and secure 5G communications infrastructure in collaboration with allies and closest partners.

The strategy has four lines of effort: facilitate the domestic rollout of 5G; assess risks to and determine core security principles of 5G infrastructure and capabilities; address risks to U.S. national and economic security during the development and deployment of 5G worldwide; and promote responsible development and deployment of 5G.

The president signed on March 23 the Secure 5G and Beyond Act that requires the executive branch to come up with a strategy to ensure the security of 5G networks.

Intel and Emeryville, Calif.-based semiconductor manufacturer Ayar Labs have developed a light-based chip connectivity technology as part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s  Photonics in the Package for Extreme Scalability effort.

DARPA said Wednesday that Intel and Ayar Labs demonstrated the use of optical signaling for microelectronics to replace traditional electrical input/output components and support high-speed datalinks through single-mode optical fibers.

As part of the PIPES effort, the two firms used Ayar Labs’ TeraPHY optical I/O chiplet which has a bandwidth capacity of 2 terabits per second. The team also used Intel’s chiplet packaging processes and low-power signaling capabilities that the company developed under DARPA’s CHIPS effort.

Gordon Keeler, PIPES program manager for DARPA, said the agency aims to produce photonics technology capable of handling more than 100 Tbps to support applications like artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, next-generation radars and large-scale emulation.

According to DARPA, the Intel-Ayar Labs team will work on furthering the development of integrated photonics technologies to support high signaling rates and address demands for latency and bandwidth density throughout the PIPES effort’s subsequent phases.