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DARPA Picks 2 Companies to Aid Supply Chain R&D Program
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DARPA Picks 2 Companies to Aid Supply Chain R&D Program

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency has chosen Exiger and MetalMiner to aid a supply chain-focused research and development program.

The Open Price Exploration for National security — a.k.a. OPEN — program is designed to strengthen the supply chain and homeland defense by creating a technology that offers accessible information on pricing and supply, demand and capacity, DARPA announced Wednesday.

Brandon Daniels, CEO of Exiger, said the company is honored to collaborate with MetalMiner to provide supply chain transparency that impacts national security.

“Base and rare earth metals and other key minerals are vital to U.S. defense operations and national security,” Daniels said. “But, opacity in these complex markets creates barriers to supply chain resilience.”

Exiger, a commercial risk artificial intelligence company, will work to leverage its conceptual computing services and experience overseeing multi-layered supply chains with MetalMiner’s knowledge of the commodities market to develop technology throughout the OPEN program.

Lisa Reisman, CEO of MetalMiner, said they look forward to joining forces with Exiger to build new systems for DARPA that promote sustainability and equip the commodities market with critical data.

“The combination of Exiger’s cognitive capabilities and MetalMiner’s time series forecasting ability will introduce a new level of accuracy, insight and sophistication to market pricing and forecasting,” Reisman stated.

Co-founded with the United States Geological Survey, the OPEN program is organized as a single-phase, 24-month effort that yields a seven-month base period with two options.

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White House Unveils Government, Civil Society Commitments to Advance Public Interest Technology
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White House Unveils Government, Civil Society Commitments to Advance Public Interest Technology

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has announced efforts to establish an inclusive technology landscape and highlighted several government, civil society and academic initiatives to build up the public interest technology ecosystem.

The White House said Tuesday the National Science Foundation will allocate approximately $48 million in funding to promote research and learning opportunities, including $32 million to expand the Experiential Learning in Emerging and Novel Technologies program, or ExLENT.

The Department of Defense will introduce the Trusted Advisors Pilot program to establish a pool of artificial intelligence and science, technology, engineering and math experts to support the implementation of the AI executive order and other priorities of the current administration.

The Ford Foundation and Siegel Family Endowment will each invest $20 million in efforts to improve the public interest tech ecosystem.

The White House also announced initiatives and commitments from several institutions, including the Kapor Foundation, the Aspen Institute, Digital Public and the NobleReach Foundation, Georgetown University, Spelman College, the University of Michigan and New York University.

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SentinelOne to Support CISA’s Persistent Access Capability Initiative; Ric Smith Quoted
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SentinelOne to Support CISA’s Persistent Access Capability Initiative; Ric Smith Quoted

SentinelOne has partnered with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency to support a CISA initiative aimed at improving the cybersecurity posture and resilience of federal information technology assets.

The company said Tuesday it will use its Singularity Platform and Singularity Data Lake to support CISA’s Persistent Access Capability initiative, which is key to the agency’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program.

SentinelOne’s Singularity Platform and Singularity Data Lake use artificial intelligence to provide organizations with unified data visibility and help them accelerate data analysis to detect and investigate cyberthreats and speed up threat intelligence sharing and response to such threats.

“SentinelOne is committed to advancing national cybersecurity efforts in the protection of federal, public sector, and critical infrastructure from evolving cyber threat actors, and we are pleased to be deepening our long-standing partnership and collaboration with CISA in support of the PAC initiative to strengthen government-wide cybersecurity posture through innovations in cyber visibility and defense,” said Ric Smith, chief product and technology officer at SentinelOne.

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DOE Develops AI Roadmap to Accelerate Technological Breakthroughs
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DOE Develops AI Roadmap to Accelerate Technological Breakthroughs

The Department of Energy has created a roadmap to advance artificial intelligence adoption within the agency’s 17 national laboratories under the Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence for Science, Security and Technology initiative.

FASST aims to enable AI-ready scientific data repositories at DOE user facilities and build AI supercomputers to create trustworthy AI models that would allow researchers to achieve technological breakthroughs in various scientific and energy applications, DOE said Tuesday.

Advancing AI capabilities could enable new battery material discoveries and smart grid infrastructure deployment and potentially accelerate the development and implementation of new and affordable clean energy technologies, the agency added.

DOE announced the roadmap after Sens. Joe Manchin, I-W.Va., and Lisa Murkowksi, R-Alaska, introduced a bill that would authorize the FASST initiative to advance national security, science and energy missions.

“FASST builds on DOE’s role as the nation’s steward of advanced supercomputing and research infrastructure across our 17 national labs to provide a national capability in AI and enable technological breakthroughs for decades to come,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm.

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GSA Calling for Nominees to Advisory Council on Emerging Technology Use in Federal Acquisition
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GSA Calling for Nominees to Advisory Council on Emerging Technology Use in Federal Acquisition

The General Services Administration Office of Government-wide Policy is calling for nominations for members of the GSA Acquisition Policy Federal Advisory Committee, which the agency established in 2022 and renewed just this year.

GAP FAC is an advisory committee that will convene approximately four times a year to tackle multiple focus areas concerning the application of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence on federal acquisition, including methods and policies enabling the use of such technologies or ensuring their security, according to a notice posted Tuesday on the Federal Register.

The committee will be made up of between 10 to 30 members possessing focus area-relevant expertise, including AI, data learning, big data and analytics and cybersecurity. Members will serve one to three year terms.

Nominations must be submitted by Aug. 15.

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DOD Accepting Applications for 2025 Edition of Commercial Acquisition Training Program for Defense Contracting Officers
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DOD Accepting Applications for 2025 Edition of Commercial Acquisition Training Program for Defense Contracting Officers

The Department of Defense is now accepting applications for the fiscal year 2025 cohort of the Immersive Commercial Acquisition Program.

Launched in 2022 by the Defense Innovation Unit and the Defense Acquisition University, ICAP works to address the need for DOD acquisition professionals to adopt best practices for commercial procurement and keep pace with commercial product cycles, the DOD said Tuesday.

The program’s main goals include DOD contracting officers learning how to acquire commercial technologies from non-traditional contractors, how the commercial market operates and what drives organizations to do business with the government; and contracting officers being equipped with the tools to develop acquisition strategies that would lead to commercial and nontraditional vendors becoming part of the DOD acquisition ecosystem.

ICAP features classroom as well as experiential learning, where participants work on projects with commercial solutions providers and a team from the DIU. Topics covered include using other transaction authorities and the commercial solutions opening process.

Interested contracting officers have until Aug. 7 to submit applications. Up to six applicants will be accepted for the program’s upcoming iteration, which will begin in October and last for 12 months.

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Air Force’s Venture Capital Org Opens Funding Opportunity for Air & Space Tech Development
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Air Force’s Venture Capital Org Opens Funding Opportunity for Air & Space Tech Development

The Department of the Air Force’s venture capital firm is seeking air and space capabilities to support under the Strategic Funding Increase program.

AFWERX AFVentures said Monday in a notice of opportunity that the STRATFI program aims to eliminate the “valley of death,” or the point where the development of a promising technology from concept to prototype is stalled.

The funding opportunity is open exclusively to vendors that have previously secured a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research or Small Business Technology Transfer contract.

The STRATFI program will support the transition of the selected small business’ air or space technology to Phase III, which is deployment. A Phase III contract allows for the commercial application of a product, tool or service.

“The STRATFI program underscores our commitment to transitioning dual-use commercial technologies into the hands of our airmen and guardians, ensuring that our military forces have access to the most advanced state-of-the-art capabilities that are emerging in our private sector,” according to Col. Elliott Leigh, AFWERX director and chief commercialization officer at the DAF.

Interested parties must have a current SBIR/STTR Phase II contract with at least 90 days of performance executed or have completed a Phase II contract in the past two years to qualify.

Submissions for capability packages are open until Sept. 18.

Join the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Air Defense Summit on July 23 to hear important updates on cutting-edge technology adoption, modernization initiatives and more. Register here.

POC - 2024 Air Defense Summit
New OSTP Guidelines Require Improving Research Security
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New OSTP Guidelines Require Improving Research Security

New guidelines from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy require federal research agencies to implement research security policies amid increasing military and economic competition.

The OSTP memorandum indicated that the agencies must obligate certain research institutions to certify that they have established a functioning research security program designed to protect sensitive information, in compliance with the National Security Presidential Memorandum-33 and certain provisions of the CHIPS and Science Act, the White House said Tuesday.

The certification must include elements relating to cybersecurity, foreign travel security, research security training and export control training.

While the guidelines apply to research institutions of higher education, federally funded research and development centers and nonprofit research institutions receiving over $50 million in funding annually, the agencies are encouraged to adopt similar research security requirements for non-covered institutions that meet the funding threshold.

According to OSTP, China is exploiting international research collaboration to advance its strategic objectives and military modernization and to reshape the international order.

Improving research security is critical to maintaining the United States’ science and technology leadership, economic competitiveness and national security, OSTP said.

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DOE Offers Access to INL Supercomputer Bitterroot to Accelerate Nuclear Innovation
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DOE Offers Access to INL Supercomputer Bitterroot to Accelerate Nuclear Innovation

The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy is seeking to accelerate the development of advanced nuclear reactors by providing access to a new supercomputer called Bitterroot at Idaho National Laboratory.

After installing and testing the machine, Bitterroot was made available to researchers starting on June 18, INL said.

The supercomputer is envisioned to help the nuclear industry develop new reactor technologies and speed up their commercial deployment, the laboratory added.

Offered under the DOE’s Nuclear Science User Facilities program, Bitterroot and other INL supercomputers allow organizations to conduct nuclear energy modelings and simulations.

According to Matthew Anderson, manager of the High-Performance Computing group at NSUF, the INL’s supercomputing capabilities support nuclear innovation in the United States, noting that up to 90 percent of the laboratory’s compute cycles are focused on nuclear energy research.

INL built the Collaborative Computing Center that now houses Bitterroot and another NSUF supercomputer known as Sawtooth, which was installed in 2020.

The laboratory noted that C3 is home to advanced computing machines that provided users with 939 million core hours on over 3.7 million jobs in 2023.

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Pam Melroy Offers Update on NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy Implementation
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Pam Melroy Offers Update on NASA’s Space Sustainability Strategy Implementation

NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy said the agency has made strides in implementing key aspects of its Space Sustainability Strategy, including the development of a “widely accepted framework” for the assessment of space sustainability, SpaceNews reported Sunday.

In April, NASA issued the strategy’s first volume, which is focused on Earth orbit.

“Since April, we’ve been surveying recent frameworks. We’ve been gathering and collecting information on metrics and models,” Melroy, a previous Wash100 awardee, said during her speech at a summit Friday in Tokyo.

According to the deputy administrator, NASA expects to release a draft of the framework in November.

Melroy said the agency has been working on interagency and international coordination efforts to meet the strategy’s other goals and named Trudy Kortes, an official within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, as interim director of space sustainability.

“She’s just going to help take those initial steps while we’re going through a very broad search,” Melroy said of Kortes.

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