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CDAO Accomplishes Key Deliverable of Responsible AI Strategy With Toolkit for RAI Ethics
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CDAO Accomplishes Key Deliverable of Responsible AI Strategy With Toolkit for RAI Ethics

The Department of Defense advanced its 2022 responsible artificial intelligence, or RAI, strategy with the release of an RAI toolkit to improve ethical compliance of its AI projects.

DOD’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office formulated the toolkit, which is based on several standards including the Defense Innovation Unit’s RAI Guidelines and Worksheets, the agency announced Tuesday.

The online platform is a key deliverable of the 2022 DOD RAI Strategy and Implementation Pathway, which discusses 64 lines of effort to execute the agency’s AI ethical principles. It provides guidance for modular assessments as well as parameters for developing AI technologies moving forward.

CDAO’s RAI Division will oversee the continuous enhancement of the toolkit, with plans to conduct information sessions and external feedback through its website.

“Responsible AI is foundational for anything that the DoD builds and ships,” Chief Digital and AI Officer Craig Martell remarked. “We promised to establish processes to design and employ human fail-safes in AI development and deployment, and we’re excited to provide this applied Toolkit for our end users.” the Wash100 awardee added.

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Wendy Piazza Appointed Director of Contracts at Platform Aerospace
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Wendy Piazza Appointed Director of Contracts at Platform Aerospace

Wendy Piazza has been selected by Platform Aerospace as its new director of contracts.

She brings over two decades of contracting experience to Platform, the Hollywood, Maryland-based company shared with ExecutiveGov in an email on Monday.

Platform Aerospace President and CEO Kurt Parsons said the organization is “extremely excited” to welcome Piazza to its team.

He shared Piazza’s responsibilities in her new position, which include laying out the strategic vision for Platform’s contracts department and determining how the enterprise can add value for current and potential clients.

Piazza said she is “thrilled to be part of the Platform family” and looks forward to “providing innovative contracting solutions to Platform’s current and future customers.”

Before joining Platform, Piazza held numerous contract-related roles. She most recently served as senior director of contracts at Xator Corporation, which was acquired by Parsons Corporation in 2022. Earlier, she was director of contracts at TSM Corporation, now owned by Xator, and director of contracts and administration at Coalescent Technologies, where she worked for nearly 10 years.

Parsons said Piazza’s broad understanding of relevant business activities, including defense contracts, program management, mergers and acquisitions and more, will make a “valuable impact on our team.”

Her appointment follows Platform’s September appointment of Richard Clarke, a retired U.S. Army general, to its Board of Directors. As a board member, he is responsible for helping to improve the production of the company’s unmanned aerial vehicle for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

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DISA Deploys Classified Cloud Through DEOS Blanket Purchase Agreement; Carissa Landymore Quoted
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DISA Deploys Classified Cloud Through DEOS Blanket Purchase Agreement; Carissa Landymore Quoted

The Defense Information Systems Agency has collaborated with General Dynamics Information Technology and Microsoft to develop and launch a cloud software-as-a-service offering in a classified environment for the Department of Defense.

DISA said Tuesday it launched the DOD365-Sec classified cloud platform using the potential 10-year, $8 billion Defense Enterprise Office Solutions blanket purchase agreement.

In 2020, the General Services Administration and DOD re-awarded the DEOS BPA to GDIT as a result of a corrective action.

Dell Marketing and Minburn Technology Group serve as GDIT’s teaming partners for the DEOS program to support the implementation of Microsoft 365 email, storage, file sharing, spreadsheet, word processing, collaboration and other productivity tools across DOD.

DISA initiated the deployment phase for DOD365-Sec in late May and expects to migrate about 275,000 end users to the secret cloud environment by the end of 2023.

Carissa Landymore, director for the DEOS program at DISA, said one of the agency’s top priorities is delivering DOD365-Sec to warfighters to enable them to facilitate classified data sharing, collaboration and communication.

“By offering solutions for seamless and secure information-sharing across operational boundaries, we’re providing warfighters with modern tools that allow them to operate ahead of the adversary and meet their mission anytime, anywhere,” Landymore added.

DISA is using and testing third-party capabilities to achieve data protection and data separation in the classified cloud environment.

“We’re putting additional security…more fence, more guardrails…around this. We’re moving toward data segregation and zero trust as the long-term objective,” noted Landymore.

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HHS CIO Karl Mathias to Join NASA
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HHS CIO Karl Mathias to Join NASA

Karl Mathias, chief information officer at the Department of Health and Human Services and a 2023 Wash100 awardee, will step down as CIO on Dec. 1 to assume an engineering role at NASA, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

In an email to employees obtained by FNN, Mathias mentioned some of the accomplishments of the CIO office in the past 20 months under his leadership, such as advancing a strategic direction for the department’s cybersecurity posture, creating a strategy for data management and evaluating acquisition packages “to ensure proper use of information technology.”

Prior to joining HHS in March 2022, Mathias was CIO of the U.S. Marshals Service. He is a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel who served as deputy head of the electrical engineering department at the Air Force Institute of Technology.

Jennifer Wendel, deputy CIO at HHS and a 17-year FBI veteran, will take over as acting CIO until the department appoints a permanent replacement.

La Monte Yarborough, chief information security officer at HHS, will serve as the department’s deputy CIO on an interim basis, according to the report.

House Approves Bill to Keep Government Funded Past Saturday
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House Approves Bill to Keep Government Funded Past Saturday

The House of Representatives has passed a continuing resolution that aims to keep the U.S. government funded past 12:01 a.m. this coming Saturday through early 2024, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The CR features what has been described as “laddered” deadlines, providing funding for about 20 percent of the government — including military and veterans programs — through Jan. 19 and funding for the remaining 80 percent — including the Department of Defense — through Feb. 2.

The House approved the legislation under suspension of the rules to overcome opposition from some conservative Republican lawmakers who are calling for deep spending cuts.

Under the suspended rules, two-thirds of the House was required to pass the measure. The bill cleared the chamber via a 336-95 vote.

The CR will now be taken up by the Senate, with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., saying the upper chamber would act on the legislation “as soon as possible.”

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Denton Gibson Assumes New Role Within NASA Launch Services Program
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Denton Gibson Assumes New Role Within NASA Launch Services Program

NASA has appointed Denton Gibson as launch director of the Kennedy Space Center Launch Services Program, which he has been a part of since 2004.

Gibson, who previously served as senior mission manager within LSP, succeeds former senior Launch Director Omar Baez, who recently retired, NASA said Monday.

In his new role, Gibson will work with senior Launch Director Tim Dunn in overseeing launches, including those for the Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud ocean Ecosystem; Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U; and Europa Clipper missions.

Gibson holds a master’s degree in industrial engineering from the University of Miami and a doctorate degree in systems engineering from the University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Regarding Gibson’s appointment, Dunn said, “His ability to ensure the readiness of spacecraft and rockets, as well as handling unique mission challenges that pop up, make him ready to lead the team on launch day.”

Amanda Mitskevich, the program manager of the Launch Services Program, said Gibson will lead a team responsible for “launching some of NASA’s most important and valuable missions.”

OMB to Begin MAX Community Transition to USDA Connect
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OMB to Begin MAX Community Transition to USDA Connect

The Office of Management and Budget is transitioning MAX system users to the Department of Agriculture Connect from Nov. 27 until Dec. 4, when the USDA site becomes the official repository for the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program’s document storage and collaboration needs.

FedRAMP said Monday that MAX.gov users can still access their data but cannot upload new information on the website during the transition. Users can log into USDA Connect using their MAX user ID and password.

MAX.gov is a government-wide suite of authentication and collaboration tools and services designed to enable secure sharing of information and business intelligence among 200,000 users across 180 federal agencies.

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Janice Starzyk, Gabriel Swiney Take Leadership Roles at NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce
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Janice Starzyk, Gabriel Swiney Take Leadership Roles at NOAA’s Office of Space Commerce

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has appointed space industry veteran Janice Starzyk as deputy director of the Office of Space Commerce and space law practitioner Gabriel Swiney as head of OSC’s Space Advocacy Division.

Starzyk will bring decades of industry experience to the role as she oversees the operations of OSC with the guidance of Director Richard DalBello, NOAA said Thursday.

She previously served as an adviser at United Launch Alliance and held executive management roles at Virgin Orbit, Bryce Space and Technology, International Launch Services and Futron.

Swiney will lead a team which represents the Department of Commerce in space policy development and in talks with other countries over U.S. space commerce.

He is a lecturer at Harvard Law School who previously served as a staff attorney at the State Department and held senior policy roles at NASA.

DalBello said Starzyk and Swiney are space community leaders whose appointment will help the office execute its mission responsibilities and serve industry stakeholders.

OSC is also onboarding 20 full-time employees as authorized under the omnibus appropriations measure for fiscal year 2023.

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CISA Releases Updated Secure Tomorrow Series Toolkit for Critical Infrastructure Sector
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CISA Releases Updated Secure Tomorrow Series Toolkit for Critical Infrastructure Sector

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has released the latest version of its Secure Tomorrow Series Toolkit, a set of interactive products to identify and mitigate emerging risks in the critical infrastructure, or CI, sector.

CISA said Monday the updated toolkit provides access to game templates, facilitator and player guides and other resource materials to help CI stakeholders self-facilitate and conduct scenarios workshops, matrix games, cross-impacts sessions and threat timelines activity.

These strategic foresight activities focus on six topic areas: anonymity and privacy; trust and social cohesion; data storage and transmission; brain-computer interfaces; synthetic biology; and quantum technologies.

CISA’s National Risk Management Center collaborated with subject matter experts from the private sector, academia and national laboratories to develop the first edition of the toolkit in 2022.

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House Bipartisan Bill Seeks to Limit US Government’s Access to China-Linked Blockchain Tech
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House Bipartisan Bill Seeks to Limit US Government’s Access to China-Linked Blockchain Tech

Reps. Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., and Zachary Nunn, R-Iowa, have proposed a bipartisan bill that seeks to protect national security by prohibiting the U.S. federal government from using blockchain network infrastructure and distributed ledger technology developed and owned by the Chinese Communist Party and other international competitors.

The proposed Creating Legal Accountability for Rogue Innovators and Technology, or CLARITY, Act would direct the federal government to take a coordinated approach to countering potential threats posed by adversarial threats to safeguard U.S. intellectual property and sensitive data, Spanberger’s office said Thursday.

The CLARITY Act would require the Director of National Intelligence and the Secretary of State and the Treasury to submit a congressional report that addresses risks associated with adversarial technologies.

Spanberger said she is proud to join Nunn in introducing the CLARITY Act to protect the federal government from CCP-owned blockchain and counter China’s influence on the global economy.

“Our bipartisan bill ensures that the federal government is not giving China a backdoor to access critical national security intelligence and Americans’ private information,” Nunn said.

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