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SMX Cloud President John Sankovich Discusses Trusted Partnerships, Innovation Strategies with Potomac Officers Club
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SMX Cloud President John Sankovich Discusses Trusted Partnerships, Innovation Strategies with Potomac Officers Club

John Sankovich, president of the cloud business at SMX, was featured recently in an Executive Spotlight interview with the Potomac Officers Club to discuss how he creates value for SMX customers, what drives his leadership style and why trusted partnerships across organizational ecosystems are integral to successful innovation. At SMX, formerly Smartronix, Sankovich helps customers become more agile through cloud managed solutions and consulting services.

In this excerpt from his interview, Sankovich highlights his company’s commitment to customer missions, evident through close collaboration and holistic innovation approaches:

“We see one of our primary missions as bringing innovation to our customers. We’ve heard from them repeatedly that it’s not about cloud or on premise, or one software platform versus another – it’s more about working with trusted partners to deliver outcomes with the greatest value to their mission. So our focus continues to be on innovation where we work together across a broad ecosystem to bring together the right tools into scalable, secure, compliant platforms that meet the requirements of today and can also be leveraged and adapted as those needs change and evolve in the future. 

We often find one of the biggest challenges has nothing to do with technology but rather just making sure that we’re communicating effectively across all stakeholders and having a well-designed change management approach. We really encourage our customers and our organization to take a 360-degree view of innovation and change from all stakeholder perspectives and then keep an open communication dialogue for feedback so that everyone really buys in on the process and our mutual success.”

Click here to read the full Executive Spotlight interview with SMX’s John Sankovich, and visit PotomacOfficersClub.com to learn more about the platform’s membership options and benefits.

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Navy Finishes Implementation of New Procurement Tracking Tool for Contracting Officials
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Navy Finishes Implementation of New Procurement Tracking Tool for Contracting Officials

The Naval Supply Systems Command has fully implemented a tool that enables its contracting officials around the world to follow the progress of their procurement requests, DVIDS reported Wednesday.

The Procurement Tracker system aims at reducing the procurement action lead time, as well as increasing transparency and promoting standardization throughout the contracting process, across the NAVSUP enterprise.

Aside from its package tracking technology, ProTrack also features common digitized web forms used in submitting procurement requests and storage for information on previous contracting actions that can be used to automatically populate contracting information in the future.

“When ProTrack users go back in to submit their follow-on contracts, they’ll be able to bring forward previously submitted requests and 80% of the work is done for them,” explained Ryan McGowan, a NAVSUP procurement analyst.

ProTrack is currently used by nearly 3,000 personnel within the Department of Defense and is compatible with the U.S. Navy’s financial management document and small business coordination record tools.

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ICE Seeks Info on Consulting Services for Zero Trust Architecture Implementation
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ICE Seeks Info on Consulting Services for Zero Trust Architecture Implementation

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released a request for information on companies that can provide business technology and cybersecurity advisory services to support the implementation of a zero trust infrastructure.

ICE is interested in services aimed at visualizing zero trust reference architectures, explaining the capabilities required for designing such cybersecurity systems and assessing its existing access management technologies, according to a sources sought notice on SAM.gov.

The agency explained that zero trust is among the cybersecurity directives outlined in an Executive Order released on May 2021 that requires federal organizations to plan out how they will implement authentication and encryption.

Related stakeholders can submit their feedback on the RFI on or before Tuesday.

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DOE GO Competition to Expand Technology Coverage in Next Challenge
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DOE GO Competition to Expand Technology Coverage in Next Challenge

The Department of Energy has unveiled a new software-focused challenge under the Grid Optimization Competition, which aims to help the Biden Administration boost the U.S. electric grid’s resiliency.

Challenge 3 of the GO Competition will task participants to develop software that can address issues associated with the power grid, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, which manages the challenge, said Wednesday.

The new challenge will apply data on weather, intermittent generation, unit commitment constraints and consumption to address a problem associated with security-constrained optimal power flow.

The GO Competition’s first two challenges also aimed to address the SCOPF issue, and challenge three expands on those by including new models for distributed energy resources, renewables, consumer participation and other emerging technologies.

“As the grid accepts new technologies, it will need to maintain the flexibility, reliability and resiliency we need,” said Jennifer Gerbi, deputy director for technology at ARPA-E.

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PSC Submits Comments on USAID Proposed Digital Information Management Policies; Stephanie Kostro Quoted
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PSC Submits Comments on USAID Proposed Digital Information Management Policies; Stephanie Kostro Quoted

The Professional Services Council has submitted comments on the U.S. Agency for International Development’s proposed new policies on digital information management to support the planning, monitoring and evaluation of the agency’s foreign assistance missions.

Stephanie Kostro, executive vice president for policy of PSC, said in a statement published Wednesday the national trade association supports the intent of the proposed rule to increase efficiency and enhance the use of data and other forms of digital information across USAID’s programs and operations.

“PSC recognizes both the value of digital information in international development programming and those privacy concerns related to gathering, using, and storing such information,” Kostro said.

“It is worth noting that several countries in which the United States engages in development activities currently have non-democratic governments,” she continued.

According to Kostro, such governments may not be receptive to data-related security requirements established by USAID and its implementing partners and therefore it is critical to carefully develop data policies for IPs that lead programs in health, education, human rights, environment and other fields.

She also noted that complicated submission requirements may put a burden on small business IPs that lack personnel and financial resources to comply with multiple, complex submission rules.

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Joy White: SSC to Boost U.S. Company Engagement
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Joy White: SSC to Boost U.S. Company Engagement

Joy White, executive director of Space Systems Command, said SSC will send representatives to locations across the U.S. to engage with technology companies not usually working with government agencies, Space News reported Wednesday.

The “SSC front door” initiative aims to expand the U.S. Space Force’s opportunities for high-potential technology investments, White said the same day at a virtual event.

“We’ve got to get a more clear access point for commercial industry to come in and to bring us their ideas, and bring us their technologies,” she said about the initiative.

The executive director stated that SSC seeks to transition the focus of the Department of Defense’s space architecture from geostationary Earth orbit to lower and higher orbits. This transformation goal aims to make satellites less prone to attacks.

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Daniel Mesimer: VA Experimenting With 5G at 3 Sites
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Daniel Mesimer: VA Experimenting With 5G at 3 Sites

Daniel Mesimer, the director of network engineering at the Department of Veterans Affairs, said VA is conducting experiments on 5G modernization at medical centers in Palo Alto, California; Seattle, Washington; and Miami, Florida, Federal News Network reported Tuesday.

He noted that these experiments, which VA launched in recent years, are still in the earlier stages of development. Mesimer said VA seeks to eventually integrate these experimental 5G networks with operational ones at the medical centers.

The director said he expects this integration to improve the application experience of medical staff and patients. 

“We’re also exploring and expanding our footprint around software-defined wide-area networks,” he added.

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NIST-NOAA Study: Minority, Women, Vet-Operated Businesses Face Greater Negative Impacts From Pandemic
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NIST-NOAA Study: Minority, Women, Vet-Operated Businesses Face Greater Negative Impacts From Pandemic

A study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows that historically underrepresented group operated (HUGO) businesses or companies operated by veterans, minorities and women were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

NIST and NOAA researchers surveyed over 1,350 companies from July to August in 2020 and found that HUGO businesses reported greater negative impacts from COVID-19 alone than non-HUGO companies that experienced natural disasters during the pandemic, NIST said Monday.

“Based on the self-reported responses, we found that businesses belonging to the HUGO group are more likely to experience things like business closure, decreased revenue or decreases in the number of customers,” said Payam Aminpour, a NIST postdoctoral research fellow and co-author of the study.

According to the study, the proportion of HUGO businesses that strongly agreed that the health crisis would leave their organization unable to deal with a natural disaster in the next year was significantly larger statistically than the proportion of non-HUGO companies who did so.

“It is critical that we understand how climate events amplify existing social and economic vulnerabilities,” said Ariela Zycherman, a co-author of the paper at NOAA’s climate program office. “For HUGO populations in particular, research like this demonstrates the ways preexisting social inequities threaten resilience. This information is essential for supporting just climate futures across communities.”

The study was published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.

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White House Appoints Alondra Nelson to Perform Duties of OSTP Director
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White House Appoints Alondra Nelson to Perform Duties of OSTP Director

Alondra Nelson, deputy director for science and society at the Office of Science and Technology Policy, has been appointed by President Joe Biden to serve as OSTP’s director on an interim basis.

Nelson has led efforts to maintain the integrity of the federal government’s scientific activities, fortify the U.S. research infrastructure and boost participation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, the White House said Wednesday.

She also helped the Biden administration implement early directives focused on scientific integrity and evidence-based policymaking.

The White House added that Francis Collins, former director at the National Institutes of Health, will concurrently perform the roles of science adviser to the president and co-chair the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.

Collins led NIH for over 12 years and is the agency’s longest-serving director appointed by a president. He is also a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which the government granted him in late 2007.

Both appointments come after Eric Lander resigned as head of OSTP and as the president’s top science adviser amid investigations into his conduct while in office, according to a Politico report.

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CISA, FBI, NSA Warn of Russian State-Backed Actors Targeting Cleared Defense Contractors; Jen Easterly Quoted
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CISA, FBI, NSA Warn of Russian State-Backed Actors Targeting Cleared Defense Contractors; Jen Easterly Quoted

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, National Security Agency and the FBI have released a joint advisory saying cleared defense contractors and subcontractors have been targeted by Russian state-backed cyberthreat actors over the past two years.

Threat actors are targeting CDCs to gain access to export-controlled and unclassified proprietary data related to weapons development, scientific and technological research and communications infrastructure using brute force techniques, spearphishing emails and harvested credentials, among other tactics, CISA said Wednesday.

According to the advisory, these cleared contractors are supporting contracts with defense and intelligence agencies in various areas, including software development and analytics, weapons and missile development and vehicle and aircraft design.

“Over the last several years, we have observed and documented a host of malicious activity conducted by Russian state-sponsored cyber actors targeting U.S. critical infrastructure,” said Jen Easterly, director of CISA and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner.

“Today’s joint advisory with our partners at FBI and NSA is the latest report to detail these persistent threats to our nation’s safety and security. Everyone has a role to play to combat this and other Russian cyber threats, and we encourage all organizations of every size to take action to mitigate risks to their networks,” added Easterly.

Some of the mitigation measures outlined in the advisory are enabling multifactor authentication; introducing account lockout and time-based access features; establishing centralized log management; initiating software and patch management program; and using endpoint detection and response tools.

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