NIST Opens Public Comment for Draft Guidance on March-in Rights to Federally Funded R&D; Gina Raimondo Quoted
Published on
NIST Opens Public Comment for Draft Guidance on March-in Rights to Federally Funded R&D; Gina Raimondo Quoted

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is inviting external comment on its draft guidance for federal march-in authority to license patents of products of government-funded research.

The proposed guidelines urge agencies to consider the practical and potential impact of exercising their rights to march in and retain patent ownership of inventions in certain circumstances and areas such as national security and safety, NIST said Thursday.

March-in rights are part of the University and Small Business Patent Procedures Act of 1980, or Bayh-Dole Act. Earlier this year, NIST amended regulations to align the law with the Biden administration’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, but excluded the prohibition of using march-in rights in pricing decisions.

“With this draft guidance and request for comment, we are seeking continued stakeholder input to ultimately provide greater clarity on march-in rights and maintain a balance between incentivizing companies to innovate and making sure those innovations serve the American people,” Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo remarked.

NIST will discuss the framework and the request for comment requirements in an informational webinar to be held on Dec. 13. Interested parties may submit their feedback until Feb. 6, 2024.

/
INSA Chair Letitia Long Underscores Importance of FISA Section 702 Reauthorization
Published on
INSA Chair Letitia Long Underscores Importance of FISA Section 702 Reauthorization

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act should be renewed to support and protect the critical national security partnerships between government and industry, said Letitia Long, chair of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance.

The law, which compels the assistance of communication companies in acquiring intelligence data on foreign persons outside the U.S., is vital to defending domestic critical infrastructure, borders and information networks, Long wrote in a commentary published Wednesday on Federal News Network.

Section 702, which is set to expire this month, has reportedly helped the private sector strengthen their cybersecurity capabilities through government-backed identification of online threats and hackers. The law has been instrumental in discovering malware signatures, network vulnerabilities and attack techniques that target critical infrastructure, Long said.

“In the modern strategic competition environment, nation-state adversaries will continue employing innovative tools in cyberspace to penetrate American critical infrastructure and other sensitive networks,” according to Long, a Wash100 awardee. “To provide an adequate defense of both private and public sector infrastructure key to our national security, Section 702 must be renewed — and in a form that maintains, rather than diminishes, the essential value that it provides.”

OMB’s Loren DeJonge Schulman: Better Customer Service Starts With Building Trust in Federal Workforce
Published on
OMB’s Loren DeJonge Schulman: Better Customer Service Starts With Building Trust in Federal Workforce

Loren DeJonge Schulman, associate director of performance and personnel management at the Office of Management and Budget, said government agencies looking to improve customer service should provide the federal workforce with the support and tools that they need, Federal News Network reported Thursday.

She also called on agencies to empower federal employees and build trust with them.

“We have to not only build trust with our customers. We have to trust our employees as well. And that means listening to them — listening to our frontline employees who are sometimes the best source of information and advice on how do we get better,” DeJonge Schulman said Thursday at a summit.

“They’re also the ones that we have to empower, to take risks and try new things. So, building that trust loop with them is just as important as building that trust loop with the customers as well,” she continued.

Other agency leaders, including Noreen Hecmanczuk, digital experience adviser to the Federal Chief Information Officer, and Simchah Suveyke-Bogin, chief customer experience officer at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, also shared their thoughts on federal employee satisfaction and customer experience.

https://potomacofficersclub.com/register/?event=7018X000001f5yCQAQ&src=marie

Join the Potomac Officers Club’s CX Imperative Forum on Jan. 25 to hear federal officials and industry experts discuss how digital transformation strategies could help agencies as they redesign customer experience in accordance with a 2021 executive order. Register here.

/
DISA Unveils 1st Iteration of Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Capability
Published on
DISA Unveils 1st Iteration of Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Capability

The Defense Information Systems Agency has launched the first iteration of a cloud-based electromagnetic spectrum platform designed to improve the U.S. military’s situational awareness of the EMS battlespace.

DISA said Thursday it released Electromagnetic Battle Management – Joint as a minimum viable capability in support of the Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control initiative.

EMBM-J seeks to provide warfighters with a single visual display by integrating EMS functions into a unified system and employs a common data layer to facilitate interoperability with the U.S. Army’s Electromagnetic Warfare Planning and Management Tool and other EMS systems of service branches.

“EMBM-J provides critical and accurate electromagnetic spectrum spontaneous data to combatant commands and Joint Task Force Headquarters Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations Cells,” said Christopher Argo, Spectrum Program Executive Office director at DISA.

“This tool ensures a commander’s ability to rapidly act by visualizing the EMS common operating picture and the first step toward achieving EMS superiority,” added Argo.

DISA and U.S. Strategic Command worked together to develop EMBM-J and will continue to further develop the platform’s analytical features and ability to detect EMS issues.

/
NSA Warns Against Spear-Phishing Tactics of Russian Cyber Group Star Blizzard
Published on
NSA Warns Against Spear-Phishing Tactics of Russian Cyber Group Star Blizzard

The National Security Agency, in collaboration with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the U.K. National Cyber Security Center, has released a cybersecurity advisory warning organizations against specific spear-phishing techniques used by the Russian hacking group Star Blizzard.

Star Blizzard, formerly known as SEABORGIUM or BlueCharlie, uses the open-source framework EvilGinx in spear-phishing activities to harvest credentials and session cookies to bypass multifactor authentication, the NSA said Thursday.

The group targets government and military agencies, think tanks, academic institutions and other organizations in the U.K. and the U.S. for espionage and cyber influence activities.

Rob Joyce, director of NSA’s Cybersecurity Directorate and a two-time Wash100 awardee, said the Russian Federal Security Service-linked group aims to target personal email accounts, where they can still access “sensitive information but often with a lower security bar.”

The NSA recommended that organizations use strong passwords, enable multifactor authentication, complete network and device updates, avoid clicking suspicious links, enable automated email scanning features and disable mail forwarding.

/
CDC Chief Data Officer Alan Sim Highlights Communication Workstream Element of AI Roadmap
Published on
CDC Chief Data Officer Alan Sim Highlights Communication Workstream Element of AI Roadmap

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s roadmap for artificial intelligence implementation will involve deploying collaborative communication workstreams across the organization to define and uphold best practices for responsible AI use.

CDC Chief Data Officer Alan Sim gave an overview of the roadmap on the GovAI Summit in Arlington, Virginia, saying that his team will regularly solicit feedback on experience-based AI best practices from the agency’s employees.

The CDC AI development roadmap will include a 15-page generative AI guidance as well as an artificial intelligence/machine learning consultation group that will gather input within the agency as well as advise on proposed AI use cases, according to Sim.

He said that they will strengthen guardrails to minimize risks associated with AI development by fostering innovation leveraging their existing infrastructure.

“When you can innovate and try things, and things break or fail and it doesn’t result in harm to the public, go ahead. But when you recognize it’s something that potentially could be dangerous, then you have to create that safe environment,” Sim said. “In some cases, you have to limit it. Test it out and learn from those activities…Then you increase the aperture, the scope and implementation to do more. But it is a challenge.”

House Select Committee Seeks Classified FBI Briefing on TikTok & Parent Company
Published on
House Select Committee Seeks Classified FBI Briefing on TikTok & Parent Company

A House select panel has called on the FBI to provide a briefing on its investigation of video hosting platform TikTok and its parent company ByteDance and state the measures it is taking to safeguard the sensitive data of U.S. citizens from being accessed by the Chinese government.

In a Thursday letter addressed to FBI Director Christopher Wray, the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the U.S. and the Chinese Communist Party stated that ByteDance provided the Chinese government’s cybersecurity regulators access to TikTok’s backend system containing the social media platform’s most sensitive data.

“Just last December, an internal ByteDance investigation found that employees tracked multiple American journalists covering TikTok and gained access to their IP addresses and user data on TikTok. It is our understanding that DOJ and FBI are investigating these allegations,” the letter writes.

The lawmakers are asking the FBI to provide a classified briefing on the matter no later than Dec. 22.

The letter was signed by 24 House lawmakers, including Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill. Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi respectively serve as chairman and ranking member of the House Select Committee.

/
HealthScape Advisors’ Dave Nelson Highlights Lessons in Leadership, Shares Thoughts on GovCon Ecosystem
Published on
HealthScape Advisors’ Dave Nelson Highlights Lessons in Leadership, Shares Thoughts on GovCon Ecosystem

As principal at HealthScape Advisors, Dave Nelson leads the organization’s healthcare consulting activities in the areas of client growth, government procurements and value-based care models. Before assuming this position, he founded Inovacus, the Veterans Accountable Care Group and xG Health Solutions.

Nelson recently participated in an interview with the Potomac Officers Club, in which he discussed his career background, described his leadership style and shared his ideas for transforming the federal contracting environment.

In this excerpt from the interview, Nelson reflects on what he his career has taught him about leadership:

“Having been mentored by several highly accomplished military leaders, CEO’s and athletic coaches, I learned early on that each team member responds differently to various motivational techniques, so it is critically important to recognize the individuality of persons on any leadership team. I have also learned that oftentimes, the successful completion of work efforts is only accomplished because of a total team effort. It has been my experience that a sense of connectedness to team members and the formation of a culture emphasizing ownership of ideas and company initiatives is vitally important for a leader to communicate throughout the organization.”

To learn more about Nelson’s approach to leadership, read the full Executive Spotlight interview on the Potomac Officers Club website.

Do you want to participate in your own Executive Spotlight interview? Potomac Officers Club members have exclusive access to this exciting brand-building opportunity and even more benefits. To browse our membership options and decide which one is right for you, click here.

CDAO to Host Multi-Classification Hackathon Inside Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii
Published on
CDAO to Host Multi-Classification Hackathon Inside Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii

The Department of Defense’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, or CDAO, will host a multi-classification hackathon from Feb. 5 to 9 at a DOD AI Battle Lab in Oahu, Hawaii, to develop data-driven tools designed to address combatant command challenges.

The BRAVO 11 Bits2Effects hackathon will be the first BRAVO hackathon to be held inside a combatant command and will use Indo-Pacific operational theater data to accelerate learning and capability development, DOD said Thursday.

Hackathon participants may play one of three roles: hacker, hacker subject matter expert or supporter.

The hacker role is open for participants with operational and warfighter expertise and experience in software development, machine learning, data science, data visualization, design and user interface and product management.

HackerSMEs must be government workers and government contractors with experience leading teams on a use case or dataset.

Members of the government and government contractors who have experience providing administrative support can apply as supporters.

CDAO will host the hackathon with the Defense Innovation Unit, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, U.S. Army Pacific Command and the U.S. Air Force.

/
Derek Tournear Says SDA to Launch Tranche 1 Data Transport Satellites in 2024
Published on
Derek Tournear Says SDA to Launch Tranche 1 Data Transport Satellites in 2024

Derek Tournear, director of the Space Development Agency, said the SDA will start a monthly launch campaign in September 2024 to deploy the first tranche of data-transport satellites to orbit, SpaceNews reported Thursday.

The 11-month launch campaign aims to send a total of 161 operational satellites that will comprise Tranche 1 of the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture’s transport layer.

The first tranche will include 126 Link 16 data relay satellites built by York Space Systems, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman and 35 missile-tracking sensor satellites from L3Harris Technologies, Northrop and RTX.

Tournear, a previous Wash100 awardee, said that expanding the global Link 16 network to space will enable the U.S. military to support terrestrial missions from space.

The SDA launched the 23 demonstration satellites, dubbed Tranche 0, on two missions aboard SpaceX rockets in April and September. The satellites have established space-to-ground connectivity using the Link 16 tactical data network.

A third launch is set in early 2024 to launch the four L3Harris-built Tranche 0 missile-tracking satellites to orbit.

1 … 385 386 387 388 389 … 2,597