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DARPA Develops Software to Enable Secure Info Exchange via Mobile Devices
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DARPA Develops Software to Enable Secure Info Exchange via Mobile Devices

A Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program has concluded the development and integration of software and networking technologies designed to facilitate the secure exchange of sensitive information in tactical operations through a handheld device.

The Secure Handhelds on Assured Resilient networks at the tactical Edge software, which runs on military end-user mobile devices, has been integrated with the Tactical Assault Kit, a software suite that provides situational awareness to warfighters, DARPA said Thursday.

“Our performer teams developed new technology based on routing individually secured data packets and created software to rapidly configure user devices operating on any type of network, whether commercial Wi-Fi, cellular, or military networks,” said Mary Schurgot, SHARE program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office.

DARPA initiated the SHARE program in 2017 but officially transitioned the technology to the Defense Department’s TAK Product Center this year.

Two Six Technologies teamed up with Eucleo Software Corporation and MAPPS for the third and final phase of the program.

PSC Survey: 67% of Federal Acquisition Officials Seeing Improved Industry Collaboration
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PSC Survey: 67% of Federal Acquisition Officials Seeing Improved Industry Collaboration

A Professional Services Council survey has found that 67 percent of federal acquisition leaders said they believe collaboration and communication with industry has improved in the past two years and 70 percent of respondents said they think their organizations’ collaboration with vendors will get better in the next two years.

PSC said Thursday the Biennial Acquisition Policy Survey is based on nearly 200 detailed discussions and 22 post-discussion data responses from acquisition professionals across 13 federal agencies.

Requests for information landed the top spot when it comes to the most effective modes of communication with industry, followed by one-on-ones and reverse industry days.

The study showed that 50 percent of respondents said they prefer a hybrid work environment and only 5 percent said they prefer in-office work.

Sixty percent of respondents said departing employees leave for another federal agency and 77 percent of officials said their agencies find it difficult to employ or train personnel with the needed skills.

Apart from workforce and industry collaboration, acquisition strategies and budget challenges emerged as the other two major themes of the PSC survey.

“The key themes from the survey highlight that the government can and should demonstrate clear leadership to address federal marketplace challenges,” said Sebastian Beau Herrick, senior associate for public policy at PSC and primary researcher for the survey.

“Ultimately, there’s ample opportunity in government to collaborate with industry for smarter contracting, better communication, and more seamless acquisition processes,” Herrick added.

DOD Manufacturing Technology Program Hosts Exhibit of American-made Innovations
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DOD Manufacturing Technology Program Hosts Exhibit of American-made Innovations

The Department of Defense Manufacturing Technology Program held a meet-and-greet event on Wednesday exhibiting more than 85 production innovations developed in the United States.

The show featured technologies from the program’s nine manufacturing innovation institutes as well as various military service branches, the DOD announced Thursday.

Dubbed DOD ManTech, it was established to promote domestic capabilities for military supply chain sustainment, while maintaining the country’s global competitive edge in the industry.

The event included a copper alloy rocket nozzle created through additive manufacturing, and a self-healing fibrous material made from the protein structure of squid tentacles. Another exhibitor displayed a space thruster tile composed of glass, metal and ceramics.

The U.S. Navy and Air Force were among the participants, as well as the Missile Defense Agency and the Defense Logistics Agency.

“DOD ManTech serves as the Department’s investment mechanism for identifying, developing, and maturing manufacturing processes that enable affordable production and repair of defense systems and equipment for the Joint Force,” said Tracy Frost, the program’s director.

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DHS Chief of Staff Kristie Canegallo Appointed Acting Deputy Secretary
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DHS Chief of Staff Kristie Canegallo Appointed Acting Deputy Secretary

Kristie Canegallo, chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security since January 2022, has been appointed to serve as deputy secretary of DHS on an interim basis.

She will assume the position on July 21 and succeed John Tien, who is stepping down after two years in the role, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced Thursday.

Canegallo has held various national security, domestic policy and management roles throughout her government career, including as deputy chief of staff to former President Obama from 2014 through 2017.

“In that role, she was charged with cross-agency implementation of many of the U.S. government’s most complex issues, including the successful implementation of the Affordable Care Act that expanded health care to tens of millions of Americans,” Mayorkas, a previous Wash100 awardee, said.

Before joining DHS, Canegallo was vice president of trust and safety at Google, where she oversaw the implementation of the company’s product safety policies.

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Frank Kendall: USAF Looking at Potential Military Applications of Generative AI
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Frank Kendall: USAF Looking at Potential Military Applications of Generative AI

Frank Kendall, secretary of the U.S. Air Force and a 2023 Wash100 awardee, has requested the service’s Scientific Advisory Board to examine the potential military applications of generative artificial intelligence, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot, Breaking Defense reported Thursday.

Kendall said he tasked the advisory board to put together a small team to “take a look at the generative AI technologies like ChatGPT and think about the military applications of them.”

He also directed the creation of a more permanent, AI-focused group to figure out how to bring the emerging technology into military operations as quickly as possible.

According to Kendall, there are currently limited applications of ChatGPT and other generative AI for the military.

“I’m looking, and we’re all looking, right? But having it write documents for you, which is what ChatGPT does? [It] is not is not reliable, in terms of the truthfulness of what it produces,” Kendall said.

“We got ways to go, before we can rely on tools like that to do operational orders, for example,” he added.

Frank Kendall: USAF Looking at Potential Military Applications of Generative AI

Kendall is scheduled to speak at the Potomac Officers Club’s 2023 Air Force Summit on July 18 at the Hilton-McLean in Virginia. Click here to register and hear from other Department of the Air Force leaders about the service branch’s objectives, capabilities and programs for 2023 and beyond.

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CACI Among 5 Companies Chosen to Participate in DON, USSOCOM Joint Threat Warning System Project
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CACI Among 5 Companies Chosen to Participate in DON, USSOCOM Joint Threat Warning System Project

Applied Signals Intelligence, CACI, DRS Advanced ISR, Resonant Sciences and Roke USA have been selected by the Department of the Navy and U.S. Special Operations Command for the Joint Threat Warning System Directional Finding/Omnidirectional Antenna project.

Under the $9.3 million award — which was issued through the Strategic & Spectrum Missions Advanced Resilient Trusted Systems Other Transaction Authority — the five chosen companies will collaborate to create a direction-finding antenna for joint threat warning systems, NSTXL shared with ExecutiveGov in an email sent earlier this month.

“These early threat warning systems are an invaluable tool for the protection of our nation, and as technological capabilities advance, we must upgrade these systems as well. This helps to protect the safety and security of our nation, our citizens and our infrastructure, said Tony Kestranek, deputy director of S²MARTS.

Joint threat warning systems are designed to pinpoint threats using electromagnetic signals, an important capability for providing military personnel and related organizations with advanced warning and protection. This project has a goal of sharing identified threats with the services, evaluating the direction of arrival of signals and providing this information to those at risk.

Participants in the JTWS Directional Finding/Omnidirectional Antenna initiative will upgrade the most up-to-date commercially available antenna technology to enhance JTWS’ ability to collect, process, locate and exploit Signals of Interest and deliver timely, relevant and responsive threat avoidance information.

When provided, the information collected by the JTWS will help notify both government leaders and the public of potential security risks and enable them to determine the best course of action. The JTWS is also intended to assist the public sector with coordinating responses between government and military organizations while helping them share information.

House Appropriations Panel OKs FY 2024 Defense Spending Bill
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House Appropriations Panel OKs FY 2024 Defense Spending Bill

The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday voted 34-24 to pass a fiscal year 2024 bill that would fund the agencies and programs within the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community.

The FY 2024 defense measure would provide $826 billion in discretionary spending, reflecting a 3.6 percent increase from the FY 2023 enacted level and about $286 million higher than the president’s proposed budget.

Included in the bill is funding for the F-35 and Next Generation Air Dominance program; nuclear triad modernization; and the office of strategic capital to advance the development of emerging technologies for defense applications.

The legislation would allocate funding for the Defense Innovation Unit and service branches to help speed up the acquisition processes.

The measure proposes a 5.2 percent salary increase for servicemembers, earmarks over $9 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and includes security cooperation funding for Taiwan.

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NSF-Backed Study Creates Prototype Method for Supercomputer Energy Efficiency Maximization
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NSF-Backed Study Creates Prototype Method for Supercomputer Energy Efficiency Maximization

A study supported by the National Science Foundation yielded a novel method to significantly reduce the energy needed to control the temperature of photonic chips, a critical component of supercomputers and data centers.

The findings of Oregon State University and Baylor University show promise in boosting energy efficiency in data centers, which account for 2 percent of total electricity consumption in the U.S., NSF said Wednesday.

The performance of photonic chips are optimized through thermal heaters, but they require several milliwatts of electricity per device, according to Alan Wang, a Baylor University researcher who co-developed the method.

Their team was able to reduce the heaters’ energy consumption by more than 1 million times using gate voltage, “which means using virtually no electric current,” noted John Conley, co-author of the study from OSU.

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DOD Could Send Additional Military Aid to Ukraine Based on $6.2B Valuation Error
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DOD Could Send Additional Military Aid to Ukraine Based on $6.2B Valuation Error

The Department of Defense overestimated the value of U.S. military equipment it handed over to Ukraine in support of the latter’s defense efforts against Russian invasion by about $6.2 billion, Axios reported Wednesday.

According to the report, the misvaluation could enable DOD to deliver more military assistance to Ukraine.

Sabrina Singh, deputy press secretary at the Pentagon, said DOD uncovered inconsistencies in the valuation of equipment during the department’s oversight of the presidential drawdown authority for the European country, overestimating the equipment by $2.6 billion in fiscal year 2022 and $3.6 billion in FY 2023.

“In a significant number of cases, services used replacement costs rather than net book value, thereby overestimating the value of the equipment drawn down from U.S. stocks and provided to Ukraine,” Singh said Tuesday during a press briefing.

On March 31, she noted that the DOD’s comptroller moved to address the accounting error by reissuing guidance to clarify how to value equipment.

“These valuation errors in no way limit or restricted the size of any of our PDAs or impacted the provision of support to Ukraine, and while the DOD — while the DOD retains the authority to utilize the recaptured PDA, this has no bearing on appropriated USAI or Ukraine PDA replenishment funding approved by Congress,” Singh added.

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Sen. Chuck Schumer Presents Safe Innovation Framework for AI Policy
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Sen. Chuck Schumer Presents Safe Innovation Framework for AI Policy

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has proposed a new framework that would establish guardrails to ensure safety when it comes to artificial intelligence innovation.

Schumer said the proposed Safe Innovation Framework for AI Policy seeks to encourage innovation while advancing security, accountability, foundations and explainability.

For the security aspect, he cited how foreign adversaries could exploit AI for illicit activities.

“But we also need security for America’s workforce, because AI, particularly generative AI, is already disrupting the ways tens of millions of people make a living,” Schumer said Wednesday during his speech at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event.

The senator also suggested a legislative approach that would turn the framework into legislative action.

“Later this fall, I will convene the top minds in artificial intelligence here in Congress for a series of AI insight forums to lay down a new foundation for AI policy,” Schumer said.

He said those forums will address AI innovation, intellectual property, risk management and use cases, national security, workforce, transparency, liability and privacy, among other issues.

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