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House Lawmakers Request Info on OSTP’s AI Workforce Development Efforts
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House Lawmakers Request Info on OSTP’s AI Workforce Development Efforts

A group of House lawmakers has asked the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to provide information on its efforts to further develop the federal workforce on artificial intelligence in line with the priorities outlined in the most recent AI executive order.

In a Tuesday letter to Arati Prabhakar, director of OSTP and a previous Wash100 awardee, the lawmakers presented a list of questions requesting details about the office’s plans to coordinate collaborative efforts for AI-related programs across the federal government and work with the programs and fellowships run by the National Science Foundation to deliver on the EO’s workforce development goals.

The legislators serving as members of the New Democrat Coalition wanted to know how the National AI Talent Surge will evolve to support long-term goals for the federal AI workforce.

They also asked how OSTP intends to coordinate with the Department of Labor and other relevant agencies to mitigate the potential harmful impacts of AI on workers and use other best practices to expand the diversity of the AI workforce.

The letter was signed by 40 lawmakers led by Reps. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Haley Stevens, D-Mich.

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Army Futures Command Forms All-Domain Sensing Cross-Functional Team
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Army Futures Command Forms All-Domain Sensing Cross-Functional Team

Army Futures Command has established an all-domain sensing cross-functional team that will advance four lines of effort for the service branch.

The four lines of effort of the team, dubbed ADS CFT, are multisensor dominance, sensing architecture, advanced processing and dissemination and operational enablers, the Army said Tuesday.

The creation of the new CFT came after the service’s assured positioning, navigation and timing/space CFT completed its original mission.

“Our team swiftly delivered on our last mission, proving the CFT concept is effective in accelerating capability delivery. We look forward to helping the Army and Joint enterprise converge understanding and deliver all-domain sensing solutions,” said Mike Monteleone, director of ADS CFT.

The new cross-functional team is expected to achieve full operational capability by the second quarter of fiscal year 2025.

All-domain sensing supports the optimization and synchronization of intelligence collection, processing and dissemination efforts and sensor-to-shooter activities.

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DIU, AUKUS Pillar II Unveil Electronic Warfare Innovation Challenge; Doug Beck Quoted
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DIU, AUKUS Pillar II Unveil Electronic Warfare Innovation Challenge; Doug Beck Quoted

The Defense Innovation Unit and AUKUS Pillar II have partnered to launch the inaugural trilateral prize challenge to identify electromagnetic spectrum technologies that could offer protection against adversarial electromagnetic-targeting capabilities.

AUKUS Pillar II is a defense and security partnership between the U.S., Australia and the U.K., DIU said Tuesday.

The challenge is seeking key capabilities that could help identify targets using EMS, monitor target movement using EMS, select and apply EMS assets and enabled weapon systems and evaluate attack effects using EMS, among others.

A team of subject matter experts will assess and pick the winning companies in July.

“There is enormous potential in collaborating with our allies and partners, and our AUKUS electromagnetic warfare (EW) Challenge is an example of this,” said DIU Director Doug Beck.

“A strong international community of defense innovation entities can help nurture and harness these new capabilities,” Beck added.

The trilateral prize challenge will be carried out by DIU, Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator in Australia and the U.K. Defence and Security Accelerator in three synchronized competitions.

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AFWERX, SpaceWERX Launch Notice of Opportunity for Space Applicable Technology Submissions
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AFWERX, SpaceWERX Launch Notice of Opportunity for Space Applicable Technology Submissions

Department of the Air Force commercial investment arm AFWERX AFVentures has released, on behalf of SpaceWERX, the program year 24.2 Strategic Funding Increase — or STRATFI — and Tactical Funding Increase — or TACFI — notice of opportunity for space technology submissions.

The STRATFI and TACFI programs seek to facilitate the delivery of capabilities needed by the DAF by providing financial support to help transition onto Phase III work that is being done under Phase II Small Business Innovation Research or Small Business Technology Transfer contracts, the Air Force Materiel Command website reported.

STRATFI provides between $3 million and $15 million in funding over 48 months while TACFI provides between $375,000 and $1.9 million over 24 months.

The programs are open to Small Business Concerns with Phase II SBIR or STTR contracts that have been running for at least 90 days or have been completed within two years of submitting a capability package.

The latest notice of opportunity calls for the submission of a capability package by April 12. Under program year 24 rules, the package can only be submitted by an SBC’s government point of contact.

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Elite GovCon Innovators Shawn Purvis & Candice Ling Selected to 2024 Wash100 List
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Elite GovCon Innovators Shawn Purvis & Candice Ling Selected to 2024 Wash100 List

QinetiQ US CEO Shawn Purvis and Microsoft Federal Sector Leader Candice Ling were recognized by Executive Mosaic on Wednesday in honor of their 2024 Wash100 Award wins.

Wash100 annually celebrates the government contracting industry’s most triumphant executives. Individuals who receive a Wash100 Award represent the spirit of skilled leadership and career success. Winners are also selected for their potential to continue to shape the GovCon field.

Purvis is a four-time Wash100 Award winner, and this year, she was chosen for spearheading technological innovation and delivering key capabilities to defense and national security agencies through various contracts, multiple of which were valued at over $100 million. To learn more about her achievements, read her full profile here.

Ling joined the ranks of Wash100 for the first time this year. She was chosen for her monumental efforts to bring cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology to the U.S. government by fostering partnerships with both federal agencies and other technology providers. Click here to read her full profile and gain more insights on her efforts.

The annual Wash100 popular vote contest is heating up! To cast your 10 votes for your favorite 2024 winners, click here.

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NASA Unveils 3 Lunar Instruments to Fly on Artemis III Mission
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NASA Unveils 3 Lunar Instruments to Fly on Artemis III Mission

NASA has selected the first three lunar instruments to deploy to the moon during the Artemis III mission to collect data about the lunar environment and the moon’s interior and gather information on how to sustain long-term human presence on the moon.

The instruments are expected to launch in 2026 as part of the first crewed moon landing mission of NASA’s Artemis program to help scientists understand planetary processes, investigate and mitigate lunar exploration risks and understand the character and origin of lunar polar volatiles, NASA said Tuesday.

A compact, autonomous seismometer suite called the Lunar Environment Monitoring Station, or LEMS, will fly on the Artemis III mission to demonstrate continuous, long-term monitoring of the seismic environment in the lunar south polar region.

LEMS will characterize the regional structure of the moon’s crust and mantle to inform the development of lunar formation and evolution models.

Another instrument selected for Artemis III is Lunar Effects on Agricultural Flora, a.k.a. LEAF, which will investigate the impact of the lunar surface environment on space crops.

The third instrument is the Lunar Dielectric Analyzer, or LDA, an internationally contributed payload that will measure the regolith’s ability to propagate an electric field.

“With these innovative instruments stationed on the Moon’s surface, we’re embarking on a transformative journey that will kick-start the ability to conduct human-machine teaming – an entirely new way of doing science,” said Pam Melroy, deputy administrator of NASA.

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Clyde Richards Jr. Named Deputy CIO at National Science Foundation
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Clyde Richards Jr. Named Deputy CIO at National Science Foundation

Clyde Richards Jr., former deputy program executive officer at Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, has been named deputy chief information officer at the National Science Foundation, according to his LinkedIn post.

Richards brings to the role more than three decades of defense and government industry experience in program and portfolio management.

In his most recent role at DCSA, Richards helped oversee the development and implementation of the Department of Defense’s information technology systems that enable DCSA mission support objectives.

Before joining DCSA, Richards was the director of the Army Mission Command portfolio at the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army.

He was director of the Army and Marine Corps portfolio at the Defense Contract Management Agency, senior program manager for the defense communications and army transmission systems at the Army Program Executive Office for Enterprise Information Systems.

Richards held various leadership positions during his eight-year service in the Army.

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New DHS Study Evaluates Privacy Risks Posed by Biometrics Research Support System
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New DHS Study Evaluates Privacy Risks Posed by Biometrics Research Support System

The Department of Homeland Security has released a study assessing the impact that its newly-created biometrics research system may have on the privacy of individuals.

Released Tuesday, the assessment says that the Cloud-based Biometric Analytic Environment system was established to support the work being done by the Biometrics and Identity Technology Center within the DHS Science and Technology Directorate to enhance the performance of the various biometric tools being used by the agency to carry out its mission.

The system will be housed within a designated Amazon Web Services S&T GovCloud partition, where it will be employed to test tools like facial, iris and fingerprint recognition.

The risk to privacy stems from the use of real-world biometric data during testing. The DHS opted to use data collected during actual operations due to the limitations and potential problems that synthetic data may introduce.

According to the assessment, the DHS has taken multiple steps to mitigate the risks to privacy. These measures include the de-identification of biometric data up to the point where only the information needed for accurate research and analysis is retained. Encryption and other methods will also be employed to ensure that the data is transferred securely from contributing agency components.

Access to the system, its data sets and associated applications will also be limited to S&T federal personnel and select contractors.

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University of Alaska Fairbanks Books $139M NGA Contract for Geospatial Data, Products
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University of Alaska Fairbanks Books $139M NGA Contract for Geospatial Data, Products

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency will procure geospatial data and products from the University of Alaska Fairbanks using the recently awarded $139 million Summit contract.

NGA said the indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract covers data and product development, maintenance and delivery over a five-year period of performance.

In December 2022, the agency released a sources sought notice for the Summit program. It requested information about industry capabilities focused on global collection, manipulation, processing and maintenance of elevation and 3D data.

The recent award was not the first collaboration between NGA and the university. In 2018, the latter was part of a team tasked to provide the agency with geospatial intelligence data on the Arctic region to help with its persistent surveillance of the location.

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Pentagon Concludes 9th Global Information Dominance Experiment for CJADC2
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Pentagon Concludes 9th Global Information Dominance Experiment for CJADC2

The Department of Defense’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office has concluded its ninth Global Information Dominance Experiment, or GIDE 9, delivering an initial version of the Pentagon’s Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control initiative, also known as CJADC2, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

GIDE 9 demonstrated a new minimum viable capability for CJADC2 that enables a vendor-agnostic data integration layer designed to allow DOD components and international partners to access and exchange data that can be integrated into the military’s technology development pipeline.

“The data mesh services that we are trying to bring to bear allow us to be able to have data in common between the combatant commands so that one command doesn’t have their kind of program of record that they’re working with that has data in a stovepipe. They may have, for example, some logistics data or munitions data that is relative to that force that they have,” said Air Force Col. Matthew Strohmeyer, who leads the GIDE series.

During GIDE 9, Strohmeyer’s team tested and demonstrated data mesh services for the U.S. military’s joint operating system, which enables combatant commands to analyze data they use for decision-making.

In February, Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of defense and a 2024 Wash100 awardee, said DOD has delivered its initial iteration of the CJADC2 initiative representing a minimum viable capability combining live data integration, software applications, real-world networks and cross-domain operational concepts.

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