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Commerce Department Forms Committee to Advise Federal Government on AI; Gina Raimondo Quoted
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Commerce Department Forms Committee to Advise Federal Government on AI; Gina Raimondo Quoted

The Department of Commerce has begun looking for qualified professionals who can serve on the newly formed National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC) and its AI and law enforcement subcommittee.

NAIAC will advise President Biden and federal agencies on matters related to emerging technology such as research, development, workforce, funding, accountability, legal rights and international partnerships, the department said Wednesday.

A Federal Register notice says the panel will consist of up to nine representatives from different sectors including the communities of academia, business, nonprofit and federal laboratories.

“AI presents an enormous opportunity to tackle the biggest issues of our time, strengthen our technological competitiveness, and be an engine for growth in nearly every sector of the economy,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Raimondo added that she expects committee members to provide the federal government their insights into development and adoption issues associated with AI technology.

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Report: Cordell Schachter Joins DOT as Chief Information Officer
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Report: Cordell Schachter Joins DOT as Chief Information Officer

Cordell Schachter, a longtime public sector information technology official in New York City, joined the Department of Transportation on Aug. 30th as chief information officer, FedScoop reported Wednesday.

He held a 13-year career at the NYC DOT where he most recently served as chief technology officer and led the local government’s IT and telecommunication programs.

Schachter worked at the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation earlier in his career and managed programs and projects at IBM, AT&T, Siemens and Avaya.

The project management professional serves as an adjunct professor at New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress and an adjunct lecturer at Saint Peter’s University.

DOT Deputy CIO Jack Albright led the department’s Office of the CIO in an acting capacity after Ryan Cote left the post in January.

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Kathleen Hicks: DOD’s Joint Experimentation, Modernization Initiatives Seek to Link Mission Objectives, Capabilities
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Kathleen Hicks: DOD’s Joint Experimentation, Modernization Initiatives Seek to Link Mission Objectives, Capabilities

Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary at the Department of Defense and a 2021 Wash100 Award recipient, said she wants to expand joint experimentation efforts that will link the national defense strategy and technologies to address mission challenges for the military, DOD News reported Wednesday.

She told a video news teleconference that defense leaders are working to DOD's strategy, review its nuclear policy and identify spending priorities for fiscal year 2023 through fiscal 2027.

"I firmly believe that national objectives should connect to the budget through concepts and capabilities," said Hicks, a 2021 Wash100 Award recipient.

The deputy defense secretary pointed to the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve as one way to encourage joint initiatives for warfighting systems to achieve information advantage and noted that the department intends to support promising proposals with its FY 2023 budget.

She added that DOD seeks to mature joint concepts that apply artificial intelligence and information processing tools through the AI and Data Acceleration Initiative.

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White House Unveils Plan to Transform Capabilities for Pandemic Readiness
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White House Unveils Plan to Transform Capabilities for Pandemic Readiness

The White House has launched a plan to transform U.S. capabilities when it comes to preparing for and responding to future pandemics and other biological threats

The plan outlined in the document American Pandemic Preparedness: Transforming our Capabilities establishes a set of opportunities and needs across five key pillars to protect the country against high consequence biological threats, the White House said Friday.

These key areas are transforming medical defenses; ensuring situational awareness; strengthening public health systems; building core capabilities; and managing the mission.

For the first key pillar, the U.S. should expand and improve the availability of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics during or before a pandemic.

The plan, which is part of a biodefense and pandemic readiness strategy, also aims to build up core capabilities in the areas of personnel protective equipment, biosafety and biosecurity, stockpiles and supply chains and regulatory improvement.

The move is the latest in a string of efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and improve readiness against future health emergencies and biological threats. In January, President Biden reinstated the National Security Council Directorate on Global Health Security and Biodefense and ordered a review of U.S. biopreparedness policies.

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Tech Leaders Call on DOD to Accelerate Commercial Tech Adoption; Eric Schmidt Quoted
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Tech Leaders Call on DOD to Accelerate Commercial Tech Adoption; Eric Schmidt Quoted

Technology industry executives are urging the Department of Defense (DOD) to increase the adoption of commercial technologies to maintain its military advantage over Russia, China and other near-peer competitors, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

“The government is not prepared,” Eric Schmidt, chair of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI) and former CEO of Google, said in an interview. “There are so many examples where digital technology would completely change the way the systems work.”

In March, the commission issued a 756-page report citing the need to further advance public-private partnerships and offering several recommendations, such as purchasing commercial software and software and accelerating tech-focused recruitment, training and research efforts.

DOD also needs to overcome hurdles with regard to procurement processes and bureaucracy and Schmidt said he believes such challenges could be addressed.

“What I’ve observed about the government bureaucracy is you go in, and you push—and if you push really hard, you can really make something happen," said Schmidt.

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Pentagon Seeks Input on Barriers Facing Small Businesses
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Pentagon Seeks Input on Barriers Facing Small Businesses

The Department of Defense has released a notice in the Federal Register asking small businesses to share insights on the barriers they face in contracting with DOD.

DOD said Wednesday it will use industry feedback to inform the development of its small business strategy and seek ways how to utilize small companies’ capabilities to further build up domestic supply chains, improve competition and advance equity and inclusion in the department’s procurement efforts.

The Pentagon is seeking insights on various topics, including government business practices that might deter small companies from providing goods and services in support of DOD requirements; business practices and regulations that strain the relationship between small businesses and DOD; use of past performance data during source selection and information collection processes; and contracting timelines and the impact of such timelines on small businesses, according to the notice.

Public comments are due Oct. 25th.

The request for comments came a week after Kathleen Hicks, deputy DOD secretary and a 2021 Wash100 Award winner, announced that the department is committed to looking at administration barriers facing small companies seeking to do business with the Pentagon and will initiate measures to address those challenges where it can.

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Col. Timothy Sejba: Space Tech Prototyping Contracts Could Reach $1B During 2021
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Col. Timothy Sejba: Space Tech Prototyping Contracts Could Reach $1B During 2021

Col. Timothy Sejba said the U.S. Space Force expects to award nearly $1 billion in prototyping contracts for the first year of the branch's new other transaction agreement with the Space Enterprise Consortium, Defense News reported Thursday.

USSF selected National Security Technology Accelerator in January to act as the manager of “SpEC Reloaded" and administer up to $12 billion in prototype development funds over a 10-year period.

Sejba, who serves as program executive officer for space development, described the consortium as "a foundational tool" that allows organizations within the Department of Defense to rapidly seek industry proposals and issue awards nearly 40 percent faster than some traditional Federal Acquisition Regulation-based contracting methods.

He told Defense News that 80 percent of the 441 SpEC members reported by the USSF's Space and Missile Systems Center in December 2020 were nontraditional contractors and nearly 60 percent of consortium awards went to such companies.

The U.S. Air Force established the program in November 2017 and USSF sought feedback from industry in August 2019 on the recompete of the consortium management agreement.

“To see where we’ve gone, starting off with just [a] $100 million OTA ceiling and just a couple dozen small businesses and traditionals — last count we were just shy of 600 companies that are a part of the Space Enterprise Consortium,” Sejba said, according to the publication.

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VMware Names Kit Colbert as Chief Technology Officer; Raghu Raghuram Quoted
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VMware Names Kit Colbert as Chief Technology Officer; Raghu Raghuram Quoted

Kit Colbert, who has been with VMware since 2003, has been named the Palo Alto, California-based technology company’s next chief technology officer, VMWare announced on Wednesday. 

In his new role, Colbert’s expertise will inform VMware’s technical future, and the new CTO will helm the company’s transformation to a cloud and subscription-centric Research and Development (R&D) organization. 

In addition, he will oversee the VMware Engineering Services team, the Design/UX team and the company’s ESG commitments in addition to advancing the company’s R&D efforts.

“It is with great pleasure that we welcome Kit into the position of CTO at VMware,” said Raghu Raghuram, who was appointed to chief executive officer of VMware earlier this year. “Kit’s passion, proven technological savvy and excellent leadership capabilities will be instrumental in advancing our innovation engine and research and development efforts.” 

Formerly the company’s Cloud CTO, Colbert has spent his career with VMware creating and developing innovative, foundational technologies for the company’s now multi-billion dollar product lines and businesses. 

Notably, Colbert was responsible for creating, developing, and delivering the vMotion and Storage vMotion features in VMware vSphere, a server virtualization product designed to help companies increase their operational efficiency, control hardware costs, accelerate service delivery and improve security. 

In his nearly two decades at the company, Colbert has been an integral part of the VMware’s technical operations and has served many roles including general manager of VMware’s Cloud-Native Apps business, CTO for VMware’s End-User Computing businesses and lead architect for VMware’s vRealize Operations Suite.

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National Academy of Public Administration Creates Center to Foster Intergovernmental Collaboration; Matthew Chase Quoted
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National Academy of Public Administration Creates Center to Foster Intergovernmental Collaboration; Matthew Chase Quoted

National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA) has created a center that will promote partnerships between executives across all levels of government in the U.S.

The Center for Intergovernmental Partnerships (CIP) will foster collaborative, intergovernmental efforts to address issues faced by the country, NAPA said Tuesday. CIP will initially help agencies manage funds from the CARES Act and other programs that support COVID-19 pandemic response.

The center and its partners will assess the state of coordination between the different levels of government and determine practices that promote the transparency of national recovery efforts. CIP will also create a new information source to augment intergovernmental systems.

“America’s county officials are excited to join the Academy to keep the flame of our nation’s unique intergovernmental system alive for future generations,” said Matthew Chase, CEO and executive director for the National Association of Counties.

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Farooq Mitha: DOD to Reduce Entry Barriers for Small Businesses
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Farooq Mitha: DOD to Reduce Entry Barriers for Small Businesses

Farooq Mitha, who leads the Department of Defense's Office of Small Business Programs (OSBP), said his team is working to reduce the barriers that make it difficult for small businesses to work with the military.

He said DOD seeks industry input on the challenges faced by small businesses, as the department develops a small business engagement strategy, DOD News reported Tuesday. DOD also plans to streamline the entry points through which small businesses can engage with DOD, including the business.defense.gov website.

“We're also looking to increase the connective tissue between these programs so that businesses don't have to go to 10 different places to get 10 different opportunities,” he said, emphasizing how DOD wants to boost the consolidation and coordination of small business programs.

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