Raj Shah, head of the Defense Department‘s Defense Innovation Unit Experimental, has said DIUx expects to transition some of the 25 prototype projects to operational use by service branches over the next two months, Defense News reported Tuesday.

“Some of the earlier [projects] are getting closer to validation of the prototypes, and we’ll have a lot more to say about that in the next two months when they transition,” he told reporters Monday.

Aaron Mehta writes DIUx has awarded 25 contracts worth approximately $48.4 million combined as of March, a figure that represents a $12.3 million increase since the fourth quarter of fiscal 2016.

Some of DIUx’s prototype projects include a Sensofusion-built anti-drone weapon system for the Joint Improvised-Threat Defeat Organization and U.S. Marine Corps’ warfighting laboratory, Orbital Insight’s analytics development project for DoD and Shield AI’s mapping software for the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command’s unmanned system, the report added.

Rob Joyce, White House cybersecurity coordinator, has said his office will be involved in the new Office of American Innovation’s effort to integrate cybersecurity into a program to modernize the federal government’s information technology platforms, Nextgov reported Monday.

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, leads the new White House office the president established in March.

Joseph Marks writes Joyce said in his speech Monday at Georgetown University’s International Conference on Cyber Engagement that he will work to ensure that cybersecurity and innovation are “intertwined.”

Joyce, who assumed his post in March, noted that the White House is “very close” to releasing an executive order on cybersecurity that would reflect the Trump administration’s three priorities.

Those cyber priorities include the need to protect government technologies and networks, safeguard critical infrastructure and ensure rules and good behavior in international cyber space, he noted.

Joyce added that Trump also plans to increase adoption of shared services, make agency leaders accountable for cyber attacks at their organizations and create a “comprehensive enterprise risk management approach” in the federal government, the report added.

The General Services Administration has kicked off an initiative to make public service information available through a consumer technology dubbed intelligent personal assistants.

Justin Herman, manager of social media and digital engagement programs at GSA’s Technology Transformation Service, wrote in a blog post published Monday that the Emerging Citizen Technology program looks to deliver public service information via IPAs such as Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, Google Assistant and Facebook Messenger.

The program aims to address the need for automated, self-service access to public services as well as study the impact of IPA-related services, Herman added.

GSA will work with federal agencies to explore all aspects of the implementation of self-service citizen technologies such as privacy, security, accessibility and performance.

The program also seeks to give the technology industry an increased transparency into collaborations with the federal government, Herman wrote.

GSA will publicly share program findings as well as the next steps required to establish a more automated, self-service access to public service information.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has launched a challenge that seeks to encourage military students to create and demonstrate defensive and offensive strategies for swarms of small unmanned aerial vehicles.

DARPA collaborated with the U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Military Academy and the U.S. Naval Academy to begin the three-day live-fly contest Sunday at Camp Roberts in California as part of the Service Academies Swarm Challenge, DARPA said Sunday.

“It’s not just about the platforms or the links or the communications – it’s about behaviors,” said Timothy Chung, DARPA program manager and head of the challenge.

“That’s one of the key takeaways for the Service Academies Swarm Challenge: that we’re really zeroing in on swarm tactics as a battle skill,” Chung added.

At least 40 cadets and midshipmen participated in the live-fly competition that seeks to test each team’s swarm tactics for small drones.

The competition calls for each of the two teams to deploy a mixed fleet of up to 25 quad-rotor and fixed-wing UAVs in order to protect their own flag inside a battle cube with an airspace of up to 78 meters above the ground as well as earn scores in three ways in two battle rounds.

These ways include air-to-air “tags” through the use of a virtual weapon to target a sensor on a rival’s in-flight drone, air-to-ground tags through physical drone landing on the competitor’s ground-based flag as well as swarm logistics performance.

The U.S. Navy has started to transition access for all contractors, service providers, subcontractors, suppliers and vendors who use the Navy Commercial Access Control System to a new base access control system.

The service branch said Friday that NCACS cardholders have until July 15 to obtain a Defense Biometric Identification System credential from the local base Visitor Control Center.

Government contracting partners who do not yet have an NCACS card have up to 180 days to acquire a DBIDS pass, the Navy added.

DBIDS is designed to boost access control security at Navy bases through database updates on credential and personnel status changes, force protection conditions, law enforcement warrants and lost card reports.

The Navy will implement the system at the branch’s facilities in the continental U.S., Guam and Hawaii.