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Kemba Walden Says Companies Pledged to Build US Digital Ecosystem
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Kemba Walden Says Companies Pledged to Build US Digital Ecosystem

Kemba Walden, acting national cyber director, has commended the commitments made by technology companies, defense manufacturers, financial institutions, non-profits and other organizations to build the U.S. cyber workforce in support of the Biden administration’s cybersecurity workforce strategy.

Walden said in a statement published Friday that Cisco Systems, Palo Alto Networks, Boeing and Visa have responded to the administration’s call to action to create a more defensible and resilient digital ecosystem.

Defense and aerospace contractor Boeing has launched the second cohort of its paid apprenticeship program that prepares candidates to gain technical skills for emerging and in-demand job opportunities.

Cisco Systems has unveiled the Cisco Networking Academy to train 200,000 people with cybersecurity skills in the U.S. by July 2025 and Palo Alto Networks has launched a competition for college students to identify and address cyber threats in vulnerable sectors.

Meanwhile, credit card company Visa has introduced the Visa Payments Learning Program to provide learning courses and certifications to upskill underutilized talent.

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Young Bang: Army Eyes Digital Contracting CoE to Back Digital Engineering Pursuit
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Young Bang: Army Eyes Digital Contracting CoE to Back Digital Engineering Pursuit

Young Bang, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology, said the service branch is establishing a digital contracting center of excellence that will serve as a hub and resource to streamline the contracting process and facilitate training of officers, Federal News Network reported Friday.

The move comes as the military branch seeks to further advance digital engineering.

Bang said that digital twins and digital engineering play a role in the Army’s digital transformation efforts.

“Digital engineering is the process throughout the whole lifecycle spanning more than just acquisition, spanning concepts, requirements, wargaming, modeling and simulations, into the material development to include everything in acquisitions, designs, testing, to the point of soldier feedback, and then going back through the whole cycle of testing and models and simulations,” Bang said at an event on Wednesday.

“So, the outcome becomes more than a paper-based way of doing things. It becomes a digital instantiation of the concepts that we can take to accelerate,” he added.

He cited the importance of upskilling and enhancing recruitment and retention initiatives and taking lessons from industry in advancing digital transformation.

Bang noted that the service is encouraging industry to pursue digital transformation by offering incentives.

Army Acquisition Priorities: Balancing Readiness and Modernization Forum

Bang will serve as a keynote speaker at the ExecutiveBiz’s Army Acquisition Priorities: Balancing Readiness and Modernization Forum on Nov. 8. Register now to hear him, other Army officials and industry experts talk about the service branch’s efforts to align its acquisition and procurement processes with modernization priorities.

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First-ever DHS Connected Community Governance Guide Focuses on Strategies for Local Leaders
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First-ever DHS Connected Community Governance Guide Focuses on Strategies for Local Leaders

The Department of Homeland Security published guidelines to help municipalities develop a strategy for building a secure “connected community,” which includes the digitalization of local government services.

The Connected Community Governance guide is the first of its kind and aims to help define smart service areas, set cybersecurity and privacy perimeters and establish performance metrics for urban, rural and all other types of communities, DHS announced Friday.

Smart services may be categorized in terms of ecological impact, public safety, transportation, government transparency, entrepreneurship and digital technology for individual residents. Municipalities can align their projects based on these areas.

To ensure that digitalization does not compromise consumer and government data, agencies must implement secure-by-design and secure-by-default principles in acquiring hardware and software systems.

DHS endorsed adoption of the CIA Triad, which prioritizes information integrity, confidentiality and restricted accessibility. Local leaders should install endpoint protection tools and prepare incident response and recovery plans to ensure resilience of connected communities, DHS said.

National security will be the center of the Potomac Officers’ Club’s event on Nov. 15. Join the 2023 Homeland Security Summit by registering now.

POC - 2023 Homeland Security Summit
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AI Easier to Exploit Than Expected, Defense Officials Say; Kathleen Hicks Quoted
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AI Easier to Exploit Than Expected, Defense Officials Say; Kathleen Hicks Quoted

Defense officials have warned that artificial intelligence models are easier to exploit than previously thought and are not yet qualified for full deployment in the military, the Washington Times reported on Friday.

At a National Defense Industrial Association symposium held last week, Alvaro Velasquez, a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, stated that large language models are “a lot easier to attack than they are to defend.”

“I’ve actually funded some work under one of my programs at DARPA where we could completely bypass the safety guardrails of these LLMs, and we actually got ChatGPT to tell us how to make a bomb, and we got it to tell us all kinds of unsavory things that it shouldn’t be telling us, and we did it in a mathematically principled way,” he explained.

Generative AI tools, which can create text that appears to be written by a human, have gained traction in the past year with the increasing popularity of tools like ChatGPT, a model that can solve problems and generate content when prompted.

The Department of Defense began experimenting with generative AI before ChatGPT was released, according to Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, a three-time Wash100 Award winner.

On Thursday, Hicks told reporters that some DOD units have developed their own AI models that are being tested with human supervision.

“Most commercially available systems enabled by large language models aren’t yet technically mature enough to comply with our ethical AI principles, which is required for responsible operational use,” Hicks said.

She added that the department has identified more than 180 scenarios in which generative AI technologies could be valuable for oversight, citing debugging and developing software faster, speeding analysis of battle damage assessments and verifiably summarizing texts from both open source and classified data sets as some examples.

The DOD released a new AI strategy on Thursday, which said that U.S. competitors will keep pursuing advanced AI technologies as their range of military use cases grows.

The plan states that the DOD will develop new technologies in a way that protects U.S. advantages from foreign theft and exploitation while maintaining compliance with relevant laws.

Hicks assured that the department is not seeking a conflict with any nation over AI or technological superiority.

“With AI and all our capabilities, we seek only to deter aggression and defend our country, our allies and partners and our interests,” she said.

AI Easier to Exploit Than Expected, Defense Officials Say; Kathleen Hicks Quoted

Interested in learning more about how the Department of Defense is exploring AI? At the Potomac Officers Club’s 5th Annual Artificial Intelligence Summit, experts from both the public and private sectors will dive into numerous topics related to AI in the federal government. Click here to learn more, and click here to register for the event.

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Engineering Solutions-Meadowgate Technologies Merger Launches Vibrint; Tom Lash Quoted
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Engineering Solutions-Meadowgate Technologies Merger Launches Vibrint; Tom Lash Quoted

Vibrint has been established following an April merger between Engineering Solutions and Meadowgate Technologies.

The new brand aims to develop and deploy intelligent systems for government clients looking to gather and utilize data, Vibrint announced from its Hanover, Maryland headquarters on Monday.

“Our national security customers are constantly challenged to improve the speed and quality of mission-critical decisions. We’re excited to introduce Vibrint as a new partner in solving that problem,” said Tom Lash, the organization’s CEO.

Vibrint is focused on four areas: high-performance computing; software, systems and infrastructure; signals intelligence operations, research and analytics; and mission resilience. The company’s work will center emerging technologies influencing national security, such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, and it will leverage its Collaboration Lab environment to build new partnerships between customers, manufacturers and data specialists to address mission challenges.

Lash said that despite being a new brand, Vibrint is “not a brand-new business” and clients can “depend on the continuing quality of service and the personal touch they have come to expect over the years from ESi and Meadowgate.”

Vibrint, he said, incorporates “two best-in-class, proven leaders in building, testing and sustaining the systems pivotal to effective and timely intelligence gathering and analysis.”

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Jane Rathbun Named Department of the Navy CIO; Carlos Del Toro Quoted
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Jane Rathbun Named Department of the Navy CIO; Carlos Del Toro Quoted

Jane Rathbun, formerly principal deputy chief information officer at the Department of the Navy, has been appointed DON’s special assistant for information management and CIO.

She officially assumed responsibilities as SAIM and DON CIO on Oct. 29, supporting the secretary of the Navy on matters related to digital modernization, information technology, data management and cybersecurity, the service branch said Friday.

“Jane’s leadership, technical acumen, and personal character stood out amongst a very competitive field of candidates and represent the best of our ongoing efforts to build a culture of warfighting among our one Navy-Marine Corps team,” said Carlos Del Toro, secretary of the Navy and a 2023 Wash100 awardee.

Rathbun assumed the role of acting DON CIO in March and previously served as deputy secretary of the Navy for information and chief technology officer.

She also served within the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment as deputy director for defense business systems.

“I take seriously our mission to build a modern, agile, and adaptive naval information environment that can be leveraged anytime and anywhere to meet the challenges during all phases of competition, crisis, and conflict. I look forward to working with the CNO and Commandant to achieving the operational and business outcomes articulated in the NAVPLAN and Force Design 2030,” Rathbun said.

The freshly appointed DON CIO delivered the keynote address at Potomac Officers Club’s 2023 Navy Summit in June. Register now for 2024’s Navy Summit to hear more illuminating insights.

Jane Rathbun Named Department of the Navy CIO; Carlos Del Toro Quoted
CBP Eyes Maritime Patrol Aircraft Maintenance & Logistical Services Recompete Contract
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CBP Eyes Maritime Patrol Aircraft Maintenance & Logistical Services Recompete Contract

The Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations has announced its intent to launch a full and open competition for a potential 10-year, recompete contract covering maritime patrol aircraft maintenance and logistical services.

AMO requires organizational and intermediate-level maintenance support services for CBP’s fleet of Lockheed Martin-built P-3 maritime surveillance aircraft and DHC-8 multi-role patrol aircraft, according to a notice posted Thursday on the Acquisition Planning Forecast System.

The selected contractor will support aircraft systems and subsystems, aircrew systems, support equipment and ground support equipment.

CBP anticipates releasing the solicitation for the contract on Feb. 20, 2024, with award expected in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025.

Northrop Grumman maintains CBP’s P-3 Orion maritime surveillance aircraft fleet under a potential $896.1 million contract awarded in June 2020.

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House Bill to Modernize Authorization Process for Commercial Space Activities
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House Bill to Modernize Authorization Process for Commercial Space Activities

Reps. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., and Brian Babin, R-Texas have introduced legislation to modernize government oversight of the commercial space sector to ensure U.S. leadership in space activities.

The Commercial Space Act of 2023 aims to streamline the authorization process for commercial space activities to reduce administrative burden while ensuring compliance with international regulations, Lucas’ office said Thursday.

Under the bill, the Office of Space Commerce will serve as the single authority responsible for the authorization and supervision certification process and work as its own entity within the Department of Commerce.

To encourage commercial space innovation, the bill will establish the Private Space Activity Advisory Committee to monitor the effectiveness of the new certification process and identify gaps in the sector.

“This bill crafts a favorable and competitive environment right here at home by streamlining our regulatory process and clarifying federal roles in licensing commercial space activities,” Lucas said.

DARPA Creates Program to Better Assess, Predict DOD Team Training Performance
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DARPA Creates Program to Better Assess, Predict DOD Team Training Performance

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched a new program to improve the performance assessment of Department of Defense teams after training.

The Objective Prediction of Team Effectiveness via Models of Performance Outcomes, or OP TEMPO, program will be conducted over a 30-month period and could serve as a foundation for future methods to measure training effectiveness, DARPA said Thursday.

OP TEMPO will use bio-behavioral signatures and unobtrusive sensor suites to diagnose performance and calibrate training efficiency. The project will observe heart rate variability, communication dynamics and other biological signatures.

“DOD teams are not simply the sum of their collective parts, but have highly specialized and dynamic roles, and performance relies on collaboration, communication, and coordination,” OP TEMPO Program Manager Dr. Joeanna Arthur commented. “With OP TEMPO, we aim to solve the problem of ‘how do we turn a team of experts into an expert team?'”

DARPA has launched a presolicitation for OP TEMPO, with deadline for responses set on Jan. 31, 2024.

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NASA Project Concludes 1st Step in Aviation Safety Tech Development Effort
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NASA Project Concludes 1st Step in Aviation Safety Tech Development Effort

A NASA project has completed a key step in developing a new technology designed to improve aviation safety by predicting and detecting hazards long before they emerge.

The team working on NASA’s System-Wide Safety project concluded Technical Challenge 1, Terminal Area Risk Management, which could help inform the development of an In-Time Aviation Safety Management System, the space agency said Thursday.

The system is designed to prevent aviation-related accidents by quickly identifying risks and delivering actionable safety procedures to address such hazards.

Work on the technology comes as the National Airspace System prepares to see an influx of drones, air taxis and other new types of aircraft in the future.

Through TC-1, researchers were able to use machine learning algorithms to analyze data from airlines, study human performance and fatigue and gather data on how pilots, air traffic managers and other stakeholders interact with safety procedures, among others.

“What we’ve accomplished with TC-1 is really just beginning to scratch the surface of what’s possible,” said Kyle Ellis, System-Wide Safety project manager at NASA. “Developing these systems enables a new economy for aviation uses that will benefit us all in the future.”

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