The Office of Personnel Management has initiated an information technology pilot program with some federal agencies to help improve the customer experience for its retirement systems, Federal News Network reported Friday.

“The initial focus of the pilot is really on the front end of the experience, allowing future annuitants to go through a digital application process,” Catherine Manfre, chief transformation officer at OPM, told FNN’s Federal Monthly Insights in an interview.

“We really want to make sure that we’re thinking about all the people involved. Our customers are a primary input to understanding both their pain points and how the pain points can be solved. But we are also asking how any of our technology changes, whether they’re about our retirement systems or in other places, impact our workforce,” she noted.

According to the report, OPM has been collecting quantitative and qualitative data to gather insights on how to improve the systems and will continue to perform data gathering efforts through the end of 2024.

Manfre stated that the agency is working to gather high-quality data using external dashboards. She also cited the importance of high-quality data when it comes to artificial intelligence.

The Biden-Harris administration has laid out steps toward an industry-led development of standardization of critical and emerging technologies, or CETs, to protect and support national and economic security.

The White House said Friday that foreign adversaries see the strategic value of CETs and are working toward influencing international standards to their advantage and curtail American innovation.

The U.S. Government’s National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technology implementation roadmap is based on feedback collected by the National Institute of Standards and Technology on a draft issued in June.

The document identifies short- and long-term objectives to engage with the private sector in creating an inclusive, research-backed standards system. According to the document, the Departments of Commerce and State and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will continue to work with private organizations such as the American National Standards Institute to engage with international partners on the standards.

The government will also evaluate current CET standards education grants and programs to remove barriers and encourage greater participation.

In the long term, the United States plans to offer sustained funding for CET research and development, and coordinate with the private sector and academia about standardization efforts.

“Standards are essential to commerce and to the safe, reliable, and interoperable functioning of a broad array of essential products and services,” the White House said in a press release. “Standards provide industries and innovators with a common language that facilitates trade, simplifies transactions, accelerates innovation, and enables people to work across disciplines and borders toward common goals.”

The USG NSSCET was published in 2023 establishes four guiding principles for standards development efforts.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has released a new Digital Policy that promotes the secure adoption of digital and emerging technologies to accelerate development progress and humanitarian response.

New funding worth $14.6 million is expected to be awarded to support policy goals, including enhancing development and humanitarian outcomes through infrastructure investments; improving digital knowledge, skills, policies and technology; and promoting privacy, security, transparency, equity and human rights in USAID programming and across digital ecosystems, USAID said Thursday.

With the funding, the agency aims to achieve responsible AI adoption, build partner countries’ cybersecurity capacity and strengthen foundational digital connectivity infrastructure and financial services.

USAID Administrator Samantha Power announced the new Digital Policy during a keynote speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she highlighted the role of technology in improving people’s lives.

In support of a vision to harness technology’s potential to advance development and humanitarian efforts, Power also announced the establishment of the DigitalDevelopment.org knowledge hub, which gives external stakeholders access to digital development resources from various countries to simplify how they support digital transformation efforts worldwide.