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Melissa Oh, DHS Program Managing Director, Discusses Value of Startups
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Melissa Oh, DHS Program Managing Director, Discusses Value of Startups

The Department of Homeland Security‘s Silicon Valley Innovation Program has had continued success in acquiring technologies from startup companies that would otherwise not pursue the government space, said Melissa Oh, managing director of SVIP.

In an interview with Government Matters, Oh said that all of the technologies that surpassed Phase IV trials through SVIP have been commercialized.

Established in 2015, the program prioritizes small businesses with no previous participation in federal contracts but have less than 200 employees and a revenue of under $1 million, Oh explained. She distinguished SVIP from the Small Business Innovation Research program, saying that they focus on meeting DHS challenges and are able to fund international startups.

Oh discussed that DHS intentionally set up SVIP in Silicon Valley to be closer to their target tech firms. She noted that some of those entrepreneurs have landed multimillion-dollar federal projects as a result of their partnership.

Working primarily with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration, Oh’s efforts concentrate on identifying pain points that need to be addressed with new technologies.

The Silicon Valley Innovation Program was created under the DHS Science and Technology Directorate.

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CSIS: BIS Needs to Improve Digital Infrastructure to Strengthen Export Control Enforcement
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CSIS: BIS Needs to Improve Digital Infrastructure to Strengthen Export Control Enforcement

The Center for Strategic and International Studies has recommended that the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security improve its digital and data infrastructure to strengthen the U.S. government’s enforcement of export controls.

In a recent report, CSIS said that BIS could adopt modern data science and machine learning technologies to enhance the productivity and efficacy of export controls and boost its enforcement capabilities amid export control evasion attempts by Russian and Chinese organizations.

“Improved technology would go a long way toward strengthening BIS’s ability to manage its key administrative lists, rapidly assess license applications, and effectively enforce export controls,” the report reads.

According to CSIS, the adoption of modern technology at BIS “would be a major force multiplier” because it offers a range of benefits including increased analyst productivity, swifter identification of circumvention, enhanced enforcement capabilities and reduced regulatory burden.

“Digitizing licensing and enforcement would increase productivity, reduce private sector burdens, and directly impact the Russian war machine by allowing the real-time cross-checking of large data sets, such as the interagency Automated Export System (AES), against BIS’s internal system, classified intelligence, and open-source intelligence,” according to the analysis.

The report also noted that a lack of funding poses a barrier to improving BIS digital and data infrastructure and suggested an appropriation of $25 million annually to support technology modernization efforts at the agency.

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US-EU Trade and Technology Council Unveils Actions to Advance Cooperation on Emerging Tech
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US-EU Trade and Technology Council Unveils Actions to Advance Cooperation on Emerging Tech

The U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council conducted its third ministerial meeting Monday and launched a number of initiatives to advance transatlantic cooperation in various areas, such as supporting digital connectivity in third countries, cooperating on new and emerging technologies and establishing resilient semiconductor supply chains.

The U.S. and the European Union are releasing a joint AI roadmap to inform the approaches to trustworthy AI and AI risk management, publishing a joint study on AI’s impact on the workforce and collaborating on a pilot project on synthetic data in medicine and health and privacy-enhancing technologies as part of efforts to advance cooperation on emerging technologies, the White House said Monday.

The EU and the U.S. plan to create an expert task force aimed at addressing barriers to collaboration on research related to quantum information science and technology and come up with joint recommendations for implementing electro-mobility charging infrastructure to advance the adoption of electric vehicles.

The council announced the launch of the Strategic Standards Information mechanism to facilitate data sharing on international standardization activities.

The U.S. and EU will implement an early warning system to mitigate disruptions to semiconductor supply chains.

The council also cited a number of measures to promote values online; strengthen trade, security and economic prosperity; and pursue efforts to support trade-related environment, health and labor initiatives.

State Secretary and previous Wash100 awardee Antony Blinken, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai co-chaired the meeting with European Commission Executive Vice Presidents Valdis Dombrovskis and Margrethe Vestager.

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Ann Lewis Named GSA Technology Transformation Services Director
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Ann Lewis Named GSA Technology Transformation Services Director

Ann Lewis, formerly chief technology officer at advisory firm Next Street, has been appointed director of the Technology Transformation Services at the General Services Administration.

She previously served as senior adviser for technology and delivery at the Small Business Administration and CTO at MoveOn.org and has over two decades of experience in technical leadership and software engineering.

Lauren Bracey Scheidt, deputy director at TTS, served as interim chief after TTS Director Dave Zvenyach stepped down from the role in September.

TTS works to design and deliver a digital government to the American public through modern applications, software offerings and processes. The organization is composed of several offices and programs, including the digital consulting office 18F, United States Digital Corps and the IT Modernization Centers of Excellence.

Gordian Report Shows 19.5% Increase in Construction Material Costs
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Gordian Report Shows 19.5% Increase in Construction Material Costs

Construction material costs have increased by 19.5 percent on average in the past year, according to a Gordian analysis of data from the RSMeans estimating platform.

The software provider said Monday that the majority of equipment costs and labor wages rose by 5 percent and 3.4 percent, respectively.

RSMeans has been a source of information on construction equipment, labor and material costs for 81 years. The latest estimates from the database showed price hikes in all three segments, most notably in materials.

Gordian cited an increase in a vast majority (82.5 percent) of material costs, some of which fluctuated quarterly. It also stated that 85.7 percent of equipment expenditures rose at an average of more than 5 percent, while labor wages went up by 3.4 percent since 2021.

Chris Gaudreau, chief technology officer of Gordian, said the company invested in manpower, research operations and data automation to improve the accuracy of their datasets.

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Bradley Flick, Dave Mitchell to Lead 2 NASA Research Centers; Bill Nelson Quoted
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Bradley Flick, Dave Mitchell to Lead 2 NASA Research Centers; Bill Nelson Quoted

NASA has expanded its research center leadership team with the appointment of Bradley Flick as director of the Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California and Dave Mitchell as acting director of Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Flick, who has led Armstrong on an acting basis since July, will continue to oversee overall management, strategy and operation functions at the center, which focuses on advancements in aeronautics, aerospace technology and Earth and space science, NASA said Tuesday.

The executive previously served as director of Amstrong’s Research and Engineering Directorate, where he managed the development and testing of research and experimental aerospace systems in multiple discipline areas.

“Under Brad’s leadership, NASA Armstrong will continue to innovate and keep America at the forefront of aviation and aerospace advancements,” said Bill Nelson, administrator of NASA.

Mitchell, who currently serves as chief program management officer at NASA, will assume his new position at Goddard on Jan. 1. Prior to his present job, he was director of Goddard’s Engineering and Technology Directorate and Flight Projects Directorate. In addition, Mitchell served in the U.S. Navy from 1984 to 1987.

“He will be all-in at Goddard to ensure a seamless transition as we work to not only fill the center director position permanently, but also the position of associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, which is so closely intertwined with Goddard’s work,” Nelson commented.

Accenture Federal Services Co-Authors Report Calling for Customer-Centric Government Services; Megan Peterman Quoted
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Accenture Federal Services Co-Authors Report Calling for Customer-Centric Government Services; Megan Peterman Quoted

A new report released by Accenture Federal Services and the Partnership for Public Service, “Designing a Government for the People: Collaborative Approaches to Federal Customer Experience,” details the two organizations’ recommendations for improved customer experience in federal agencies.

According to the report, government entities should tailor their CX systems to fit users’ lives to provide a simple, seamless and secure process, Accenture disclosed from Arlington, Virginia on Tuesday.

“Truly shifting from a culture of waivers and workarounds to a deeply embedded, customer-centric mindset requires greater collaboration and investment among multiple stakeholders beyond the core CX community – including finance, human resources, legal, and beyond – to address long-standing barriers,” explained Megan Peterman, customer experience and design leader at Accenture Federal Services. 

To create the report, the two organizations interviewed customer experience professionals, individuals involved with designing and implementing services in federal agencies and experts from research institutes and universities.

Content from these interviews indicates a gap between federal processes and organizational methods and customer needs. The report states that these systems, which were built with agency use in mind, do not serve customers with the same efficiency.

A 2021 Executive Order referenced in the report called upon government agencies to reduce the burden these processes place on customers, which the White House states was over nine billion hours in recent years. According to the report, the shift to customer-centric systems requires a transformation of the way the government conducts business.

The report recommends using root cause analysis as opposed to focusing on symptoms of the issues when determining customer’s problems and possible solutions.

Accenture Federal Services and the Partnership for Public Service identified seven steps federal agencies should take when moving to a customer-centric mindset, which span the areas of agency leadership, technology and most importantly, communication.

“When we give federal agencies the correct tools to implement positive change in their customer experience systems, they do so effectively,” said Loren DeJonge Schulman, vice president of research, evaluation and modernizing government at the Partnership for Public Service.

The first two steps, empowered leadership and an engaged and accountable agency enterprise, suggest that insights on customer experience should be distributed within organizations and agency-wide standards for customer experience performance should be established.

Steps three, four and five call for a knowledge mobilization strategy to solve customer problems, a data-sharing policy infrastructure and a digital enterprise to ensure a consistent customer experience.

The last two recommendations push for external partnerships and collaboration with customers, which would enable federal agencies to consider information from important resources outside of the government during this process.

“If agencies listen to customers first, they can overcome historic physical, emotional, and resource barriers,” DeJonge Schulman stated.

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ICF Secures 2 CMS Contracts for Digital Modernization Services; Mark Lee Quoted
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ICF Secures 2 CMS Contracts for Digital Modernization Services; Mark Lee Quoted

ICF has landed two contracts from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to aid in the center’s digital modernization endeavors.

The contracts share the goal of improving access to key public health data and will expand the work of SemanticBits, which was acquired by ICF this year, the Reston, Virginia-based organization announced on Nov. 21.

“As the single largest payer for healthcare in the U.S., CMS generates and collects enormous amounts of data. We bring a full suite of scalable digital modernization services to help CMS rapidly improve data quality and accessibility by healthcare professionals and the public, empowering the agency to better meet its overall mission of enhancing patient care and reducing costs,” said Mark Lee, executive vice president of ICF’s public sector.

The first award is valued at $25 million and tasks ICF with developing, operating and maintaining the agency’s health data sharing website to ensure that both healthcare professionals and the public can easily find, access and use important information. It has a six-month base period with four one-year option periods.

Under the second contract, a $20 million expansion with a one-year term, the company is responsible for modernizing CMS’ Internet Quality Improvement and Evaluation System, which is utilized by healthcare providers and over 60 federal and state agencies.

Additionally, ICF will continue building systems that meet Medicare survey requirements and implement modifications in compliance with federal reporting standards.

The two task orders follow ICF’s win of a previous Department of Health and Human Services award for providing the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration with digital modernization services.

Prior to the acquisition by ICF, SemanticBits was awarded two contracts, both of which are ongoing, by CMS last year. Under the first award, SemanticBits is currently developing the End Stage Renal Disease Quality Reporting System Portal. Under the second award, which falls under the CMS Quality Improvement Organization program, the company is supporting the enhancement of Medicare services’ effectiveness, efficiency, economy and quality.

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GAO Cites Regulatory Lapses in IoT Device Use in Critical Infrastructure
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GAO Cites Regulatory Lapses in IoT Device Use in Critical Infrastructure

The Government Accountability Office is urging lead agencies to measure the effectiveness of cybersecurity programs they established to protect Internet of Things and operational technology use in critical infrastructure sectors.

In a report released Thursday, GAO reviewed cybersecurity initiatives launched by the Departments of Energy, Health and Human Services, Transportation and Homeland Security, which govern the electricity, transportation and health care industries.

IoT and OT devices are widely used to deliver services in critical infrastructure. To ensure data privacy and safety, agencies including the DOE, HHS, DOT and DHS launched IT protection programs based on guidelines from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. They are required by the Internet of Things Cybersecurity Improvement Act of 2020, which bans the purchase and use of IoT products that are not compliant with NIST standards.

GAO found that the agencies did not have metrics to evaluate their initiatives’ effectiveness. The government watchdog also learned that the Office of Management and Budget does not have a standardized process for waiving the ban on non-compliant devices who meet certain criteria under the Act.

The reviewed agencies said they have noted GAO’s recommendations and will coordinate to formulate an action plan. OMB explained that it intended to release the waiver guidance in November.

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Institute of Defense Analyses Report Evaluates DOD Hiring Process
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Institute of Defense Analyses Report Evaluates DOD Hiring Process

The Department of Defense should consider additional compensation funding, create a requirements process and metrics, and build relationships in its recruitment of workers with skills critical to national security, the Institute of Defense Analyses said.

A recent IDA report focused on the efficacy of DOD’s human resources programs for hiring, developing and retaining skilled workers, such as specialists of science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

DOD invested in various outreach, education and recruitment initiatives to target students, interns and professionals equipped with capabilities in STEM, technological innovation, computer science and critical languages. However, differences in civilian and military hiring processes within individual commands and branches have sometimes resulted in the programs’ apparent shortfalls.

Based on data from interviews with 127 HR employees, IDA found that local DOD branches are often under-resourced when it comes to civilian recruiting, and fail to match the applicant to the work that needs to be performed. Meanwhile, defense commands only base employee selection on existing skill sets and career paths instead of new and emerging STEM-related capabilities.

The institute recommended that military services coordinate with civilian recruiting to access STEM talent. It also called for additional training of HR staff on direct hiring and fielding specialized teams to help reduce bureaucratic bottlenecks.

To avoid losing skilled talent to the private sector, DOD must implement incentives and redistribute financial resources to attract employees through compensation, IDA said.

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