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Army PEO EIS Adopts Agile Approach to Software Development
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Army PEO EIS Adopts Agile Approach to Software Development

The U.S. Army Program Executive Office Enterprise Information Systems is increasingly adopting Agile methodologies in a push to align with the service branch’s vision to enable more efficient delivery of software capabilities to the warfighters.

Speaking at a recent digital transformation forum, EIS Program Executive Officer Ross Guckert highlighted the importance of implementing Agile and DevSecOps approaches to addressing soldiers’ specific needs and requirements.

The office’s Agile and DevSecOps implementation is founded on several key pillars including workforce development, contracting management, distributed testing, funding and continuous authority to operate.

PEO EIS also establishes a global cloud environment, automates data migration, conducts rapid prototyping and technology demonstrations and collaborates with industry partners to advance its Agile and DevSecOps efforts.

According to Guckert, Agile approaches will be incorporated into the Army’s forthcoming solicitation for the Enterprise Business Systems – Convergence program, which aims to streamline and standardize the service branch’s business operations.

Bonnie Jenkins Announces Members of International Security Advisory Board
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Bonnie Jenkins Announces Members of International Security Advisory Board

Bonnie Jenkins, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, has announced the members of an advisory board that provides independent insight and advice on matters related to arms control, critical infrastructure, cybersecurity and national security of emerging technologies.

The 22 members of the International Security Advisory Board will initially focus on areas including the threat to international security posed by climate change and scarcity of resources, the State Department said Tuesday.

The members are:

  • Daniel Byman, professor at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service
  • Edwin Dorn, professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin
  • Julie Fischer, technical director for global health at CRDF Global
  • James Goldgeier, visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation
  • Sherri Goodman, secretary general of the International Military Council on Climate and Security
  • Gigi Kwik Gronvall, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
  • Gregory Hall, associate professor at the University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce
  • Eboni “Nola” Haynes, professor of international relations at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service
  • Michael Horowitz, director of the Emerging Capabilities Policy Office in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
  • Heather Hurlburt, chief of staff to the U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai
  • Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  • Laura Kennedy, elected member of the American Academy of Diplomacy
  • Susan Koch, a distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction
  • Edward Levine, member of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation board of directors
  • Jeffrey Lewis, professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies
  • Jamie Morin, vice president of defense systems operations at the Aerospace Corporation
  • Eric Rosenbach, co-director of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
  • Ian Simon, senior adviser for pandemic preparedness for the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
  • Lyric Thompson, vice president of policy, advocacy and strategy at the International Center for Research on Women
  • Paul Walker, vice chair of the Arms Control Association board of directors
  • Heather Williams, senior fellow in the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
  • Jon Wolfsthal, senior adviser for policy and advocacy at Global Zero

ISAB makes recommendations to the secretary of state through the undersecretary for arms control and international security.

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Heritage Foundation Assesses Status of US Military Power With 2023 Index
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Heritage Foundation Assesses Status of US Military Power With 2023 Index

The Heritage Foundation’s 2023 Index of U.S. Military Strength has assessed the global operating environment as “favorable” to U.S. interests, which means that the country can project military power to defend its vital interests in Europe, Asia and the Middle East without significant opposition.

Amid the regional threats posed by China and North Korea, the 2023 Index gave the Asian operating environment an overall score of “favorable” to U.S. interests in terms of the presence of U.S. military personnel, alliances, military infrastructure and overall political stability, the foundation said Tuesday.

The Index classified the threats from Russia and China as “aggressive” in behavior and “formidable” when it comes to capabilities.

The Washington, D.C.-based think tank also gauged the status of U.S. military power in terms of capability, capacity and readiness and overall, rated the country’s military posture as “weak.”

“The 2023 Index concludes that the current U.S. military force is at significant risk of not being able to meet the demands of a single major regional conflict while also attending to various presence and engagement activities,” the report reads.

The 578-page report attributed the score to several factors, including underfunding, poor discipline in program execution and shifting security policies.

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GSA, DAU Develop Tool to Facilitate Comparison of Acquisition Regulations
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GSA, DAU Develop Tool to Facilitate Comparison of Acquisition Regulations

The General Services Administration and the Defense Acquisition University have collaborated to develop an acquisition regulation comparator that could enable Acquisition.gov users to compare up to three acquisition regulations by providing them side-by-side view of multiple regulations. 

Acquisition personnel were required to open multiple tabs and see each regulation individually before the ARC tool was implemented, according to a GSA blog post published Tuesday.

With the ARC, users can now compare specific sections of other agencies’ regulations, assess how supplemental regulations are being implemented by agencies and find examples that could be used to guide others in implementing regulations.

GSA said there are 32 regulations that have been integrated into the ARC, including the Federal Acquisition Regulation used by all executive agencies.

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NIST-Lightcast-CompTIA Report Shows Cybersecurity Labor Demand Growth Over 12 Months
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NIST-Lightcast-CompTIA Report Shows Cybersecurity Labor Demand Growth Over 12 Months

The demand for cybersecurity professionals in the U.S. grew 2.4 times faster in the last 12 months than the rate across the national economy, according to data analyzed by the CyberSeek platform from a partnership between the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Lightcast and the Computing Technology Industry Association.

CompTIA released the findings of the study Monday that showed 769,736 new job openings from September 2021 to September 2022 focused on or requiring skills in internet security and postings in the third quarter of the current calendar year were 30 percent higher compared to the same period a year ago.

Meanwhile, supply and demand ratio indicated that for every 100 job posts, there were 65 of those professionals in the labor market, most of them already employed.

IT security skill requirements significantly expanded in the past year amid the emergence of more job specializations, CompTIA reported.

“The data should compel us to double-down on efforts to raise awareness of cybersecurity career opportunities to youth and adults, especially during Cybersecurity Career Awareness Week which is an international campaign to inspire individuals to explore the variety of types of cybersecurity-related roles that are needed in both the public and private sectors,” said Rodney Petersen, director of the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education.

CyberSeek functions as an analytics tool designed to help stakeholders examine supply and demand data in the job market.

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Heidi Shyu: DoD Keeps Abreast of Hypersonic Tech Despite Workforce Challenges
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Heidi Shyu: DoD Keeps Abreast of Hypersonic Tech Despite Workforce Challenges

Heidi Shyu, undersecretary for research and engineering at the Department of Defense, said every service branch under DOD is developing hypersonics weapons in order to keep up with the accelerating pace of the technology’s adoption by governments such as Russia and China.

She told The Hill editor-in-chief Bob Cusack at a Raytheon Technologies-sponsored event Tuesday the department agency is heavily invested in hypersonics training and fielding efforts, and is in fact on track for deployment in the mid-2020s.

“It is important to keep abreast of what’s going on in hypersonics, but it’s equally important to keep abreast of many different technology area that’s important to us as well,” Shyu said during the Q&A session.

Shyu, a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, noted the Pentagon plans to spend a significant portion of its fiscal 2023 budget to increase testing capability.

When asked about the obstacles currently facing hypersonics, she cited staffing as a major concern especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. She cited various programs the department created to boost recruitment, such as the SMART scholarship program, Special Immigration Visa for post-doctorate graduates, as well as projects that promote science, technology, engineering and mathematics in higher education.

The DOD official added that one of the department’s commitments moving forward is to collaborate with commercial companies to help scale up production while lowering the cost of developing and testing hypersonic and other defense weapons.

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US Chamber of Commerce Report: Government Digitization Could Generate $1T Annually
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US Chamber of Commerce Report: Government Digitization Could Generate $1T Annually

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce report has found that the federal government uses 9,858 unique forms and handles more than 106 billion forms on an annual basis to process government services requests of U.S. citizens.

The report titled Government Digitization: Transforming Government to Better Serve Americans showed that the public spent 10.5 billion hours on government paper forms in 2021 and the cost to citizens of using such forms reached $117 billion.

The document also listed areas where agencies can prioritize digitization: individual income tax return; health records; passport applications and renewals; social security applications; and green card applications.

According to the report, government digitization could generate approximately $1 trillion annually worldwide and help agencies eliminate waste, reduce costs, enhance efficiency, build up resilience and improve the ability to serve Americans.

“Increased government digitization doesn’t just mean saved time and money, it also means providing greater accountability and access to underserved communities when it comes to utilizing government services,” said Jordan Crenshaw, vice president of the Chamber Technology Engagement Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The report offers recommendations for Congress to advance government services digitization, such as using its oversight authority to determine barriers to government modernization and continuing to appropriate funding for the Technology Modernization Fund.

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Former Red Hat Exec Tricia Fitzmaurice to Lead New Accounts as VP of Sales at Rancher Government Solutions
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Former Red Hat Exec Tricia Fitzmaurice to Lead New Accounts as VP of Sales at Rancher Government Solutions

Experienced government technology executive Tricia Fitzmaurice has joined Rancher Government Solutions, a company that provides open source and security-focused products to the public sector, as its vice president of sales.

At RGS, Fitzmaurice will be responsible for seeking new accounts and expanding the market impacts of the company’s Kubernetes, cloud and technology evolution services, the Reston, Virginia-based company said Monday.

Lynne Chamberlain, CEO of RGS, commented that Fitzmaurice’s addition to the company is well-timed with the company’s growth, as the organization underwent a rebranding and restructuring in 2021, changing from Rancher Labs to their current name and gaining new ownership under SUSE.

Chamberlain went on to say that Fitzmaurice’s reputation in the U.S. government and adjacent industries in addition to her track record, career history and unique insights are likely to propel RGS toward new successes while working to best satisfy clientele.

Fitzmaurice began her almost three-decade career as an account manager at IBM overseeing OCR services for businesses in the U.S. and Canada. Subsequently, she headed up government accounts at i2 Technologies and served in positions such as public sector senior account executive and director of national security programs, law enforcement and justice at Red Hat, where she worked for a total of eight years.

While at Red Hat, the executive collaborated with high-ranking government officials on information technology modernization and cloud migration initiatives. She also won honors at the company like Account Manager of the Year, Chairman’s Award Winner and Deal of the Year as well as earning placement in the President’s Club multiple times over.

Prior to coming aboard at RGS, Fitzmaurice was regional vice president of federal civilian agencies and national security programs at software company UiPath, where she was in charge of assisting government personnel with the implementation and adoption of automated technologies across enterprises.

Fitzmaurice is poised to share her expertise in secure supply chain operations and government mission execution in her new role at RGS.

“The work Lynne and the entire RGS team has put into ensuring the Rancher solution stack is supported with security and operational readiness as the highest priorities for our federal customers is extremely impressive,” Fitzmaurice remarked, adding, “I’m excited for the opportunity to join this very talented organization.”

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Vendors Demo VTOL Systems for Future Navy Expeditionary Combat Operations
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Vendors Demo VTOL Systems for Future Navy Expeditionary Combat Operations

More than a dozen vendors showcased a range of systems designed to provide vertical takeoff and landing capabilities to the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps during a two-week demonstration event held at an unmanned aircraft systems test site at the University of Maryland.

A team from the Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical UAS Program Office subjected the VTOL systems, which represented different configurations, to standardized tests in a push to determine their potential applications in expeditionary combat operations, Naval Air Systems Command said Monday.

The Family of Small UAS team also assessed the systems’ range, endurance, electro-optical and infrared imagery quality, audibility and other set of capabilities.

The team seeks to use the performance data to identify systems that can be considered for operational testing and inclusion in the FoSUAS programs of record.

“We want to show off what is available right now for future procurements to our Navy expeditionary community,” said Col. Victor Argobright, program manager of PMA-263.

During the demonstrations, participating vendors engaged with representatives from various Navy components including the Naval Special Warfare Command and Naval Construction Force.

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Pentagon Seeks Information on Updated AI Talent Procurement Contract
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Pentagon Seeks Information on Updated AI Talent Procurement Contract

The Department of Defense is seeking information on potential industry sources capable of providing staffing support for its artificial intelligence, machine learning and data science initiatives.  

The Pentagon’s Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, together with the Army Contracting Command-Rock Island, is exploring options for a new AI Talent blanket purchase agreement, according to a notice posted Thursday on SAM.gov.

AIT 2.0 seeks to address some roadblocks identified in the original BPAs awarded in September 2020 to scale up the procurement process for AI and data science staffing support.

CDAO determined that the labor pool established for the initial AIT contract does not provide enough scope to support the Pentagon’s all AI activities.

The $7.5 million call order ceiling of the existing contract has impaired orders from larger agencies and limits existing orders to less than five-year periods of performance.

In addition, AIT 1.0 is not a fully decentralized agreement, resulting in lengthy procurement timeline.

CDAO aims to remove these challenges by allowing DOD agencies to ask for any positions within the task scopes, eliminating limit on call order amounts and making AIT 2.0 fully decentralized from award.

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