The U.S. Air Force wants to utilize a classified network for a data platform that officials expect to help the service enhance its cybersecurity, FCW reported Tuesday. Sherri Hanson, director of operations for the Air Force’s Chief Data Office, announced at a recent event hosted by AFCEA DC that the service branch aims to place the platform in the classified Secret Internet Protocol Router Network by the end of the summer. 

“We’re not going to have a simple repository for data, we just need to know where it is so that we can do that [data extraction] process, bring it in and do the analytics,” she said.  

Hanson added that access, placing analytic tools in a common environment and managing vast data are among the major challenges facing her office in establishing the platform. Aside from cybersecurity, the Air Force’s data lead said the platform would also help determine the service’s readiness. 

The Department of Defense is expanding opportunities for startups to enter the defense contracting market. Rcently, DoD hosted an industry day where nontraditional companies pitched new artificial intelligence tools to support the military, National Defense Magazine reported Tuesday. The National Security Innovation Network within the Pentagon led the event at 10 Hudson Yards in New York City in support of the agency’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. 

Air Force Lt. Gen. John N.T. Shanahan, director of JAIC and 2019 Wash100 Award winner, said the event highlighted DoD’s interest in working with startups and efforts to cut acquisition-related bureaucratic red tape. He noted the Pentagon held the industry event outside Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley as both areas have most major companies and contractors.

Greg Ingram, director of business development at Massachusetts-based startup Forge.AI, said DoD is making an effort to work with nontraditional companies. Forge.AI is among the companies that proposed their technology to DoD officials during the New York event, which included Kyndi, Virtualitics, Slingshot Aerospace, Omelas and EpiSys Science.

“Everything I heard today has some applicability to what we’re trying to do in the department and the Joint AI Center,” Shanahan told National Defense. “This was the beginning of I would say many, many engagements where it really shows a level of collaboration and integration with a much broader community.”

The National Commission on Military, National and Public Service recommends that the federal government optimize its hiring processes and modernize civil service preferences to sustain the information technology workforce, Fedscoop reported Tuesday. The commission advised that the government needs to develop technical skill standards, create a civilian group comprised of former government IT employees and grow the Federal Cyber Reskilling Academy.

Additionally, the agency noted that the government may offer a 12-month noncompetitive eligibility to federal internship graduates and assess around 35 percent of general schedule and senior executive service performance on recruitment, personnel management and human capital roles.

The memorandum was released during a recently concluded hearing for critical skills on May 15. The agency intends to host 13 more hearings before it delivers a final report to Congress in March 2020. The commission has also encouraged the public to send their suggestions in light of the report.

Legal challenges and implementation problems could emerge as a result of the potential merger of the Office of Personnel Management with the General Services Administration, Nextgov reported Tuesday. Recently, the White House submitted a legislative proposal to Congress to reorganize OPM into GSA and establish a new office of federal workforce policy within the Office of Management and Budget. The office will be headed by a non-Senate confirmed appointee with the rulemaking authority.

“A search on the Code of Federal Regulations for ‘Office of Personnel Management’ reveals [more than 700 references] across 41 titles. So the question of the rulemaking fix required to attend to the administration’s proposal is huge,” said Donald Kettl, professor and academic director at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.

Kettl also cited legal issues that could surface from regulations that could be introduced by the workforce policy director.

“Any effort to do so seems certain to generate legal challenges, which could well tie up the reorganization in court,” he said. “The simplest answer is [retaining an] OPM director as a figurehead. But that, in turn, raises the question of why go through all of this, without defining the basic problem to be solved and devising a strategy that seems most likely to solve it.”

The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress accepted a set of five recommendations to increase the public transparency of the Congress’ internal activity. The committee said Thursday that it will document these recommendations into a report to serve as guidance for involved groups within congress.

Recommendations include the standardization of a legislation writing format and the allotment of resources needed to complete legislation comparisons on schedule. Another recommendation emphasizes the modernization of a lobbying disclosure system for simplified disclosure tracking.

The last two recommendations push for the development of electronic hubs to centralize information on reauthorization expiration dates and committee vote counts. U.S. citizens would be able to access these hubs and view corresponding information.

“These bipartisan recommendations are just the first step towards making the legislative branch more effective and accessible for the American people,” Reps. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Tom Graves, R-Ga., said in a joint statement. Kilmer was appointed to chair the committee in January.

The Department of Agriculture is modernizing its services as part of the Trump administration’s 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, Federal News Network reported Friday. The IDEA Act, signed into law in December 2018, directed agencies to establish a strategy to modernize their websites by June 20 and provide electronic access to all paper-based documentation by 2020.

Gary Washington, chief information officer of USDA, told attendees at an Adobe symposium in Washington, D.C. that the department wants to update its information technology infrastructure and consolidate call center operations by July to quickly address farmers’ loan applications. USDA also plans to modernize its Farmers.gov citizen services site and reduce the number of data centers from 38 to two under the General Services Administration’s Centers of Excellence program.

“I love the fact that people can get on their devices now, thanks to this legislation — or will be able to, once it’s fully implemented — and actually access government websites, and actually be able to navigate them,” noted Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, at the Service to the Citizen awards gala.