Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and 2018 Wash100 Award winner, said DHS will request more funds through a fiscal year 2019 supplemental request and FY 2020 budget request to better implement its immigration policies and perform upgrades to its information technology systems, FCW reported Tuesday. He told a House Appropriations subcommittee the department intends to combine all immigrant processing IT systems used by the Customs and Border Protection and other agencies within DHS through an “immigration portal.”

“The portal will connect various systems to allow tracking throughout the system,” McAleenan said. “It will provide connection to various systems and make sure an individual being processed can be tracked throughout the system efficiently and in an expedited manner, improve our processing and the integrity of the system.”

The U.S. Marine Corps plans to implement a vertical take-off feature for an Insitu-made large unmanned aircraft system, Marine Corps Times reported Wednesday. The service branch intends to boost the aircraft’s performance for expeditionary missions via VTOL as part of the USMC 2019 aviation plan.

The VTOL update would also reduce the aircraft’s logistical footprint. Capt. Christopher Harrison, USMC spokesman, told Marine Corps Times the update would support this reduction by removing the UAS’ launcher and recovery system. USMC additionally plans to equip the aircraft with a new payload for signals intelligence and electronic warfare activities.        

The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate received an award in recognition of a certain government-funded surveillance system. DHS said Tuesday that it garnered the R&D 100 Award for the Immersive Imaging System, a situational awareness tool designed to provide 360-degree surveillance coverage with high-resolution imagery.

The system is made to lengthen surveillance and address security needs of congested and highly populated sites including airport terminals. Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory developed the system with funds from DHS S&T. 

John Fortune, program manager at S&T, said they intend to provide surveillance for the entire airport security process from pre-checkpoint.

The Department of Homeland Security is working on an in-house contract focusing on agile development to accelerate the modernization of information technology for the agency and its components, Nextgov reported Tuesday. The effort comes after Homeland Security Chief Procurement Officer Soraya Correa unveiled the third iteration of the Enterprise Acquisition Gateway for Leading-Edge Solutions contract in December. The Eagle Next Gen requires DHS to use established governmentwide acquisition contracts for its future IT procurements. 

Jaclyn Rubino, director of DHS’ Strategic Sourcing Program Office, said agency components are using the previous EAGLE II contract for agile development work. Eagle Next Gen will help DHS meet agile development requirements over the coming years while the agency works on a specialized agile contract vehicle. The agency hasn’t determined its new procurement strategy. Rubino noted the new vehicle will be specific to the needs of DHS and its components. It would also run in a full and open competition or a blanket purchase agreement.

A top official at the General Services Administration said the Department of Agriculture is moving forward with its modernization efforts to consolidate data and call centers, FedTech Magazine reported Monday. The progress comes after USDA received the federal Center of Excellence designation from the White House. 

The agency reduced its data centers from 38 facilities to two, while its call centers will be consolidated into one by end of July, according to Anil Cheriyan, director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Services and head of Centers of Excellence program.

“That’s progress, and that’s something we’re hoping to achieve,” he said at the 2019 GITEC Emerging Technology Conference in Annapolis, Md. “That whole client experience is about to change.”

USDA also intends to accelerate the process of grant farm loans from 12 months to less than a day. Cheriyan said GSA hopes to replicate the modernization success of USDA as well as the other CoE agency the Department of Housing and Urban Development across the government. He hopes to name another CoE agency in 2019. 

The Small Business Administration and Visa will hold a three-day hackathon to encourage entrepreneurs and designers to develop applications and other platforms to help small businesses recover from natural disasters, FedScoop reported Monday. SBA will give $60,000 in total prizes, including $25,000 for the first place winner.

Participants will have access to the Visa Developer Platform and the U.S. government’s application programming interfaces to develop their apps as part of the Small Business Week hackathon that will kick off Friday, May 3, in Washington, D.C.

The event seeks apps to help small companies restore revenue stream, secure funds for short and long-term recovery, pay employees, find suppliers and deal with service disruptions following a natural disaster. Maria Roat, chief information officer of SBA, will serve as a judge and Chris Pilkerton, acting SBA administrator, will announce the winners Sunday.