NAVAIR Finalizes 5th Iteration of Hardware Open Systems Technology Technical Standard
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NAVAIR Finalizes 5th Iteration of Hardware Open Systems Technology Technical Standard

The Naval Air Systems Command’s Air Combat Electronics program has completed the Hardware Open Systems Technology 5.0 technical standard.

HOST 5.0, which will be released later this year, was presented by NAVAIR’s Avionics Architecture Team at the Embedded Tech Trends media forum in Arizona, the service branch said Tuesday.

The HOST framework serves as a guide in ensuring modularity and interoperability of fielded aircraft component production, design and redesign. The open architecture standard streamlines and expedites a production’s lifecycle, avoiding one-time engineering expenses and reducing overall costs in the process. 

The latest version of the standard was presented at the forum “to keep our partners up to date on Modular Open Systems Approach (MOSA) practices, which are critical to the overall success of Open Architecture in NAVAIR,” said Capt. Margaret Wilson, Air Combat Electronics program manager.

“MOSA progress like the newly completed HOST 5.0 standard will allow NAVAIR programs to save money on embedded technologies and allow industry the opportunity to expand potential work across the enterprise,” she added.

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NIST to Update Guidance on Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information
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NIST to Update Guidance on Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is updating its guidance on protecting the confidentiality of controlled unclassified information to include insights gathered from industry.

NIST said Wednesday it is considering several changes to its Special Publication 800-171 outlining cybersecurity requirements and standards for non-federal organizations that handle non-classified government data.

Among the proposed changes are the withdrawal of outdated and redundant requirements and addition of new standards based on updates to the moderate security control baselines in SP 800-53B.

Industry partners also recommended revising the structure of the document’s acronyms, glossary and references sections for greater clarity; streamlining the introduction and fundamentals portions; and changing key words and terms to remain consistent and achieve greater clarity.

NIST announced its intent to update its series of special publications in July 2022 and subsequently requested industry input to gather insights on streamlining the security requirements.

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White House Unveils Conventional Arms Transfer Policy
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White House Unveils Conventional Arms Transfer Policy

The White House has issued a memorandum updating its policy on conventional arms transfers as part of efforts to enhance the security of allies and partners, improve global deterrence, promote research and development efforts and adhere to international nonproliferation norms.

Under the new policy, the U.S. government will not authorize an arms transfer if it finds that it is “more likely than not” that the recipient will use the weapons systems to crimes against humanity, genocide, breaches of the Genova conventions or serious violations of the international human rights law, the White House said Thursday.

The U.S. will continue to promote arms transfer control and transparency, including the development of controls on the international transfer of weapons systems containing sensitive technologies.

“The United States will exercise restraint in international arms transfers that may be destabilizing or threaten international peace and security and will also exercise restraint in transfers involving materials that might be used as delivery systems for WMD or result in adversaries obtaining capabilities that could threaten the security of the United States or of our allies and partners,” the memo reads.

According to the document, the U.S. government will pursue arms transfers “when they are in the United States national interest, in line with the considerations of this policy, and consistent with defense trade advocacy procedures.”

A senior official with the State Department said the current administration intends to “focus on four areas in particular where we haven’t seen much progress in ensuring our competitiveness on a global stage” when it comes to arms transfers, according to a report by Defense News.

Those areas are competitive financing, exportability, non-program of record and technology, disclosure and foreign release system.

PSC Report Details GovCon Industry Services to Ukraine
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PSC Report Details GovCon Industry Services to Ukraine

The Professional Services Council has published a compendium of partnerships between PSC’s member companies and federal agencies to assist Ukraine during the Russian invasion.

PSC’s report provides an overview of support services from Amazon Web Services, Amentum, ECS Federal and other U.S. government contractors in the first year of the conflict.

An Amentum “tiger team” supported the delivery of tactical equipment, critical medical supplies and personal protection equipment to Ukraine through the U.S. Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program.

Meanwhile, AWS facilitated the migration of more than 10 petabytes of Ukrainian public and private sector data to cloud infrastructure.

Fairfax, Virginia-based ECS has been working with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s 24/7 Global Crisis Support Team in GEOINT data collection and analysis of warzone events.

“Our analysts provide around-the-clock monitoring of the conflict and develop detailed daily intelligence reporting of the disposition and status of combatant forces for U.S. and coalition policymakers,” said John Heneghan, president of ECS and a 2023 Wash100 awardee.

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CIOs Lauren Knausenberger, Aaron Weis Share Insights on Military’s Tech Adoption
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CIOs Lauren Knausenberger, Aaron Weis Share Insights on Military’s Tech Adoption

Lauren Knausenberger, chief information officer of the Department of the Air Force, and Aaron Weis, CIO at the Department of the Navy, said they have seen an increasing recognition among Department of Defense officials of the importance of information technology and other digital platforms in the fight against near-peer adversaries, Signal magazine reported Wednesday.

CIOs Lauren Knausenberger, Aaron Weis Share Insights on Military’s Tech Adoption

“[With] funding cyber and IT too, I feel like I see the respect of this community just go up significantly—this has always been a [stellar] community—but I think that everybody knows it now. Everybody sees this as the foundation for our future competitive advantage,” Knausenberger said Wednesday at a symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Knausenberger also expressed optimism regarding the Air Force’s upcoming tech investments particularly as the service works on the Program Objective Memorandum for the next fiscal year.

“We know that the things zero trust, cloud, connectively, data from anywhere to anywhere, and having the ability to leverage AI to make decisions, that is going to be huge, and we also need cybersecurity at the same time,” she said.

Weis provided updates on digital modernization efforts at the Department of the Navy, including the deployment of 700,000 Office 365 seats during the pandemic.

CIOs Lauren Knausenberger, Aaron Weis Share Insights on Military’s Tech Adoption

“We put the Navy on a path to wholesale modernization. We’re doing Cyber Ready, changing how we approach cybersecurity. And we are at the point now where there are thousands of sailors and Marines and civilians who are working on this, so it’s just gratifying to see,” Weis said.

Weis is set to step down from his role in March after serving as the Navy CIO for five years. Knausenberger will retire from her position in June after a six-year career with the Department of the Air Force. The military CIOs are both 2023 Wash100 Award recipients.

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Executive Mosaic Highlights Achievements of 2023 Wash100 Winner Kathleen Hicks & Reveals Exciting Changes in Popular Vote Standings
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Executive Mosaic Highlights Achievements of 2023 Wash100 Winner Kathleen Hicks & Reveals Exciting Changes in Popular Vote Standings

On Friday, Executive Mosaic showcased the tremendous achievements of Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of defense, in honor of her 2023 Wash100 Award win.

For the 10th year in a row, the highly-competitive Wash100 Award hand-picked the 100 strongest executives in the government contracting industry using an intense selection process. After weighing the past accomplishments and future contributions of each nominee, Hicks’ success in furthering Department of Defense priorities earned her a spot in the Wash100 class for the third consecutive year.

In 2022 alone, Hicks led the creation of the new National Defense strategy, signed the DOD’s Responsible Artificial Intelligence Strategy and spoke with President Biden and top defense industry figures to support the CHIPS-Plus Act. To read her full profile, click here.

As Executive Mosaic continues to spotlight the impressive 2023 Wash100 award winners, you have the opportunity to vote for your favorite GovCon executives in the beloved annual popular vote contest.

This week, Carahsoft’s Craig Abod took the lead in an exciting turn of events. Microsoft Federal’s Rick Wagner currently stands in second place, while Wes Anderson, another Microsoft Federal executive, ranks third. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has remained in the top five, now holding fourth place, and Google Public Sector’s Karen Dahut now ranks fifth.

Click here to read Executive Mosaic’s compelling commentary on this week’s phase of the popular vote competition, and visit Wash100.com to cast your vote and view the top 30 list.

DLA Debuts New Tool to Coordinate Interagency Financial Agreements
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DLA Debuts New Tool to Coordinate Interagency Financial Agreements

The Defense Logistics Agency is set to roll out a new ServiceNow tool that is designed to serve as a single storage location for interagency financial transactions.

The DLA Information Operations developed the tool as a “one-stop shop” for the Department of the Treasury’s government invoicing program, memorandums of understanding, financial agreements and other documents, the agency said Wednesday.

Max Walens, head of DLA’s G-Invoicing Center of Excellence, said the new ServiceNow capability will capture “the evidentiary matter all in one place for DLA” and coordinate financial agreements in the system.

With the tool, DLA will “have the ability to coordinate agreements in the system instead of working them through email or DLA’s Task Management Tracker,” Walens said.

DLA will initially deploy the cloud-based platform as a management tool for developing agreements on the G-Invoicing side.

The announcement comes four months after DLA announced it is working toward completing the implementation of the G-Invoicing platform to standardize intragovernmental buy and sell transactions.

Hanscom AFB Weather Branch Signs MOA to Use DIU’s Commercial Solutions Opening Pathway
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Hanscom AFB Weather Branch Signs MOA to Use DIU’s Commercial Solutions Opening Pathway

The Weather Systems Branch of the Digital Directorate at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts signed a memorandum of agreement to gain access to the Defense Innovation Unit’s Commercial Solutions Opening process.

The CSO pathway will enable the branch to shorten its technology procurement timeline and reach a more diverse pool of vendors, including previous commercial partners, the U.S. Air Force Materiel Command said Wednesday.

DIU’s collaboration with the Weather Systems Branch has so far resulted in five contracts awarded within 122 days of solicitation. Tomorrow.io, a weather technology company, was selected to provide three months of observational weather data, design a prototype featuring numerical data assimilation algorithms and test it through simulation experiments.

DIU also appointed Nirav Patel, its senior scientist and remote sensing program manager, to oversee the MOA and provide CSO procedure training to the Digital Directorate.

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CDC’s Nonprofit Arm Calls for Multi-Sector Collaboration to Modernize Public Health IT Systems
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CDC’s Nonprofit Arm Calls for Multi-Sector Collaboration to Modernize Public Health IT Systems

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s fundraising organization aims to bring together government and industry stakeholders to drive the formation of public health information technology modernization partnerships.

The CDC Foundation said Wednesday it will co-host Industry Days on Feb. 27 and 28 for companies to learn about opportunities to help the agency update national infrastructure used to collect, analyze and disseminate critical health information.

“COVID-19 emphasized the need to have reliable, actionable data in near real time to ensure the delivery of rapid and equitable health care during a pandemic,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said.

Private sector attendees at the foundation’s joint event with CDC and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology will have the chance to share offerings with agency representatives.

Additionally, the nonprofit will launch its President’s Council soon and form a group within that council to recommend models for driving collaboration in the public health IT field.

“These partnerships open new pathways for technology, people and policies to gather and analyze data. The resulting intelligence will improve health and assure thriving and prosperous communities,” said Judy Monroe, president and CEO of the CDC Foundation.

Congress established the foundation in 1995 to help CDC gain access to philanthropic and private resources that can advance the agency’s public health mission.

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Federal IT Officials Cite Need for Collaboration, Better Tools to Detect & Prevent Fraud
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Federal IT Officials Cite Need for Collaboration, Better Tools to Detect & Prevent Fraud

The prevalence of pandemic relief fraud is driving federal information technology leaders to look for ideas across agencies to protect IT systems and public programs from fraud, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.

Federal Chief Information Officer Clare Martorana said at a symposium Tuesday that CIOs should work with chief financial officers, across agencies and with the oversight community to address the challenge associated with fraud detection and prevention.

“This is a critical moment for all of us,” noted Martorana, a previous Wash100 awardee. “This is a combination of the need based on what we have seen occur during the pandemic and the pandemic relief. But we’re also on a really important journey from a cybersecurity perspective, where the federal government, we have put out some really great policies.”

Deidre Harrison, acting controller at the Office of Management and Budget, said federal CFOs should not only focus on identifying and recovering funds lost to pandemic-related fraud but also on having better tools in place to detect and prevent fraud.

“Not ‘if,’ but when we have another event, we need to be better prepared,” Harrison said. “We need to make sure that we can prevent the fraud that we just experienced.”

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