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DARPA Launches 2 New Efforts to Boost Defenses Against Manipulated Media
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DARPA Launches 2 New Efforts to Boost Defenses Against Manipulated Media

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has announced two new initiatives to help the government and industry boost their defenses against manipulated and synthesized media, known as deepfakes.

DARPA said Thursday it will launch an open community research effort to create machine learning models designed to detect synthetic images generated by artificial intelligence.

The AI Forensics Open Research Challenge Evaluation will feature a series of mini challenges to develop models that can identify the difference between authentic and fully synthetic AI-generated images.

Another effort is an analytic catalog that offers government and industry researchers access to open-source resources developed under DARPA’s Semantic Forensics, or SemaFor, program.

Now in its final phase, SemaFor develops new approaches to using semantic technologies to detect, attribute and characterize fraudulent media.

DARPA selected SRI International and PAR Technology‘s government subsidiary to support the development of semantic approaches to media assets potentially manipulated for malicious purposes.

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Navy Seeks to Improve IT Investment Evaluation With New Memo on WAM Framework
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Navy Seeks to Improve IT Investment Evaluation With New Memo on WAM Framework

The Department of the Navy has released a memorandum providing information on a framework designed to better assess information technology investment and performance by linking data to mission outcomes.

The memo seeks to incentivize enterprise adoption of the World Class Alignment Metrics framework, dubbed WAM, to prioritize IT investments and assess the business value, the office of the DON Chief Information Officer said Thursday.

The Program Executive Office for Digital and Enterprise Services, a.k.a. PEO Digital, will oversee the WAM framework by creating implementation guidance.

The memo signed by Justin Fanelli, acting chief technology officer at DON, lists five outcome-driven mission metrics. The first is time lost or the amount of time customers wait for IT services.

The other four mission metrics driven by outcomes are operational resilience, customer satisfaction, cost per user and adaptability and mobility.

The document also outlines several implementation best practices, including prioritizing IT investments based on the impact they have on five outcome-driven mission metrics and considering the WAM framework for system rationalization and other divestiture decisions related to IT portfolio management and Operation Cattle Drive.

POC - 5th Annual CIO Summit

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Verizon’s Maggie Hallbach & VA’s Michael Parrish Spotlighted for 2024 Wash100 Wins
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Verizon’s Maggie Hallbach & VA’s Michael Parrish Spotlighted for 2024 Wash100 Wins

Executive Mosaic on Friday recognized Verizon’s Maggie Hallbach and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Michael Parrish for their 2024 Wash100 Award wins.

Each year, Wash100 highlights the government contracting industry’s most notable executives. Those who join the ranks of Wash100 represent the highest tier of leadership in the field and are hand-picked using a selection process that illuminates the past success and anticipated future impact of each winner.

Hallbach, who serves as president of Verizon Frontline and senior vice president of the company’s public sector arm, received her second Wash100 Award this year for landing key contract wins, including awards from the VA and U.S. postal service valued at over $100 million. Her leadership strength led to her appointment as chair of Executive Mosaic 4×24 5G Group, which connects 5G experts to share their insights on advanced network capabilities in the U.S. government. Read her full profile here.

Parrish, chief acquisitions officer and principal executive director for the VA’s Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction, earned his first Wash100 Award for enhancing the department’s acquisition processes. One of his past accomplishments was the successful rollout of the VA’s Pathfinder website, which is designed to help contractors “break that black hole mold of trying to figure out how to do business,” with the department. Click here to read his full profile.

Don’t forget to vote for Hallbach and Parrish in the annual Wash100 popular vote contest! To participate in this exciting competition, visit Wash100.com.

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Radha Plumb to Succeed Craig Martell as DOD Chief Digital & AI Officer; Lloyd Austin Quoted
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Radha Plumb to Succeed Craig Martell as DOD Chief Digital & AI Officer; Lloyd Austin Quoted

Radha Plumb, currently deputy under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, will take on the role of chief digital and artificial intelligence officer at the Department of Defense on April 8.

She will succeed 2024 Wash100 awardee Craig Martell, who has served as the inaugural CDAO since 2022.

“Plumb’s technical expertise and strategic acumen will enhance the CDAO’s innovative efforts, and help accelerate the DoD’s adoption of data, analytics, and AI to generate decision advantage from the boardroom to the battlefield,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement published Thursday.

Austin, a three-time Wash100 awardee, commended Martell for his contributions advancing data and AI at DOD.

“Craig and the entire CDAO team had a monumental task of bringing together the diverse talents and cultures of four organizations to advance data, AI, and analytics for our national security, and deliver tangible results in a short time,” the secretary said. “Dr. Martell and the CDAO team have delivered on those goals and his work will have a lasting impact on how the Department approaches every data and AI driven task.”

In April 2023, Plumb received Senate confirmation to serve as deputy under secretary for acquisition and sustainment at the Pentagon.

Plumb previously served as chief of staff to the deputy secretary of defense.

Prior to DOD, she was director of research and insights for trust and safety at Google with oversight of teams responsible for technical research, data science and business analytics.

She held senior staff positions at the White House National Security Council, DOD and the Department of Energy and was a senior economist at RAND Corp. and global head of policy analysis at Facebook.

POC - 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit

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DHA’s Brian Lein on Importance of Standardization to Military Health System
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DHA’s Brian Lein on Importance of Standardization to Military Health System

Brian Lein, assistant director for health care administration at the Defense Health Agency, said standardization is needed to help stabilize the Military Health System’s core, Health.mil reported.

“Standardization is the key to getting there quickly. Without standardization, you’re never going to get optimization,” he said during an event in February.

Lein noted that organizational advancement marks the maturation of an agency and that the Defense Health Support Activity has done a great job collaborating with operations leads and establishing relationships with the three services and within DHA headquarters.

“Prior to this organizational change, there was no standard process to communicate and task; work was being done in silos,” said Lein.

“Now, everything that needs to leave the headquarters—every requirement, task, question—gets filtered through the DHSA. And the same is true for information coming from military hospitals and clinics, and networks. It comes to the headquarters … and they determine who should receive the information,” he added.

The DHA assistant director cited operating room optimization, staffing models and MHS Genesis as the areas where standardization plans are being implemented.

“We did a great job of fielding MHS GENESIS and now we have the largest and the most robust electronic health record system anywhere in the U.S.,” said Lein.

“Now we will prioritize optimization of the workflow within MHS GENESIS. We should standardize the process and then adopt it across the enterprise,” he stated.

Col. Michelle Idle on New Space Force Personnel Management Structure
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Col. Michelle Idle on New Space Force Personnel Management Structure

Col. Michelle Idle, deputy commander of Space Systems Command, said she looks forward to the implementation of the Space Force Personnel Management Act, which will offer both full-time and part-time active-duty service options to Guardians and Air Force reservists.

“Looking at what skills our people have who have chosen to go part-time and making sure that we’re leveraging those talents and expertise. That’s a huge soapbox for me – to make that work,” Idle said.

“There are a lot of part-time members with good ideas, and the fact that we are trying to do something different with the Space Force is really motivating,” she added.

As SSC celebrates its upcoming third year of inception, Idle highlighted changes that enabled SSC to transition from a center into a field command, including the establishment of individual program executive officers, which is “the right way to get after the threat” from China and other adversaries.

“Having program executive offices each with one leader who is responsible for a specific range of capabilities, making the right business decisions: exploit what we have, buy what we can – either commercially or partnering with another agency – and build what we must,” Idle said.

The organization started under the leadership of Gen. Michael Guetlein, who served as the first commander of SSC, to improve leadership decision-making speed, reduce bureaucracy and build a system-of-systems integration.

Idle said that handing down certain decision-making authorities to individual PEOs has enabled the roles of the commander and deputy commander to focus more on organizing, training and equipping the PEOs, directors and the overall SSC workforce to ensure successful mission execution.

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VA Names Finalists in AI Tech Sprint for Clinician Burnout Reduction
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VA Names Finalists in AI Tech Sprint for Clinician Burnout Reduction

The Department of Veterans Affairs has named the 25 finalists to move forward with the Artificial Intelligence Tech Sprint competition that aims to develop AI-powered tools designed to reduce burnout among healthcare workers.

The finalists will present AI designs for the Ambient Dictation for Clinical Encounters track, which focuses on speech-to-text tools for medical appointments, and the Community Care Document Processing track, which looks to create document processing systems to integrate non-VA medical records into VA records.

Track 1 finalists are Abridge; Althea Health; ARETUM; Cognosante Military and Veterans Health; Commure; Contrast AI; Credence Management Solutions; DeepScribe; TranscribeMD AI; Knowtex; Nuance; QuantumTechIT; Sourceree; Tali AI; and Veterans EZ Info.

Finalists for track 2 are Abstractive Health; Booz Allen Hamilton; Commure; Healow and eClinicalWorks; Instabase; Joint Venture iCatalyst and Semiring; TranscribeMD AI; Palantir Technologies; Wellovate; and Wired Informatics.

The finalists were downselected from over 200 submissions received for the AI Tech Sprint after VA tested their AI programs.

POC - 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit

Join the Potomac Officers Club’s 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit on March 21 to hear more about cutting-edge AI innovations from government and industry experts. Register here!

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US Army xTech Program Launches xTechScalable AI 2 to support Project Linchpin
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US Army xTech Program Launches xTechScalable AI 2 to support Project Linchpin

The U.S. Army xTech Program is bringing back the xTechScalable AI competition for artificial intelligence innovations.

The contest’s second iteration is centered on Project Linchpin, which is the service branch’s strategy to integrate AI and machine learning into its intelligence, cyber and electronic warfare operations, xTech announced Tuesday.

xTechScalable AI 2 is seeking scalable tools and techniques for AI risk management, testing and evaluation and algorithmic analysis.

Chosen vendors will have an opportunity to bid for Phase I or Direct to Phase II Army Small Business Innovation Research contracts. The Phase I projects are valued at up to $250,000, while Direct to Phase II SBIR could be worth up to $2 million.

The competition, which also includes $603,000 in cash prizes for eligible vendors, has three elimination stages, an accelerator program and a final demonstration event in October.

Interested parties may submit their proposals until May 17.

The 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit is taking place on March 21 and registration is still open. Join this event hosted by the Potomac Officers Club. Register now!

POC - 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit
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Barbara Jackson Joins NASA as Goddard Space Flight Center’s Deputy CIO
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Barbara Jackson Joins NASA as Goddard Space Flight Center’s Deputy CIO

Barbara Jackson, a government information technology leader, has taken on the role of deputy chief information officer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

She announced the move in a LinkedIn post published Wednesday.

In addition to her role as deputy CIO, Jackson will also serve as deputy director of IT and communications at Goddard.

Prior to NASA, she was deputy CIO for IT strategy, policy and governance at the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency, where she also served as chief technology officer and head of certification and engineering.

Her government career included time as chief information security officer within the DC Army National Guard and senior communications planning officer within the U.S. Army.

POC - 5th Annual CIO Summit

Register here to join the Potomac Officers Club’s 5th Annual CIO Summit on April 17 and learn more about the latest modernization strategies and how industry can help meet the priorities of federal CIOs.

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Mitre Survey: Public Worried About Critical Infrastructure Security, With Cybersecurity a Leading Cause of Concern
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Mitre Survey: Public Worried About Critical Infrastructure Security, With Cybersecurity a Leading Cause of Concern

Nearly all the respondents of a recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of Mitre agreed that ensuring the security of critical infrastructure is key to national security and maintaining daily life activities.

Mitre said Wednesday that the survey on public perceptions about securing critical infrastructure was conducted online using the Harris On Demand omnibus product from Feb. 13 through 15, with a sample size of 2,046.

The same survey showed that 81 percent of respondents were worried about critical infrastructure security, even though 64 percent considered U.S. critical infrastructure to be one of the safest in the world.

Of the various kinds of threats that critical infrastructure faces, cyberattacks ranked highest among the respondents in terms of cause for concern. Terrorism ranked second while aging infrastructure ranked third.

As to who should be responsible for securing critical infrastructure from threats, 29 percent of respondents said the federal government is fully responsible, 12 percent said state or local governments while 9 percent said the owners and operators of CI.

Meanwhile, 49 percent said all three groups should be responsible.

Mitre Survey: Public Worried About Critical Infrastructure Security, With Cybersecurity a Leading Cause of Concern

Cyber experts, government leaders and industry visionaries will speak about the dynamic and evolving role of cyber in the public sector at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2024 Cyber Summit, which will take place in June. Register now to attend this important event!

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