The Department of Veterans Affairs is working to extend the sense of urgency it adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic to continue to accelerate information technology modernization efforts and Paul Brubaker, deputy chief information officer for the account management office at VA, said that mindset involves keeping ahead of demand, Federal News Network reported Friday.

“Our motto was, basically, ‘let’s stay ahead of demand no matter what the demand was.’ If it was the telehealth visit issue, we want to make sure that we had, no matter what the circumstances were, sufficient bandwidth to support this rapidly growing demand on the infrastructure,” said Brubaker. “The cloud helped. The infrastructure upgrades helped.”

He discussed how VA’s office of information and technology adopted that mindset to equip a Baylor University hospital with network connections and other tech platforms within weeks. 

“We were able to accelerate the plans that we had for digital transformation by at least two years by living through this pandemic. … And it wasn’t just about accomplishing the mission, but it was really about measurably improving our mission and operational performance as a result of this pandemic,” he noted.

Brubaker also talked about the importance of linking IT investments to outcomes and VA’s adoption of a portfolio management approach.

The U.S. Army will begin a six-week, multi-domain exercise that aims to demonstrate the performance of new technologies and tactical concepts.

The Army said Thursday that its large-scale Project Convergence 2021 exercise will take place at New Mexico-based White Sands Missile Range and Arizona-based Yuma Proving Ground, starting this week.

The U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force will also participate in the exercise, which will test the use of over 100 new technologies in joint operations.

"We are learning how to converge all of the Joint capabilities together to enable the best sensor to the best shooter, regardless of service,” said Gen. John Murray, commanding general of U.S. Army Futures Command and two-time Wash100 Award winner.

The Army plans to showcase the exercise's results this fall at Yuma Proving Ground, during an event to be known as Project Convergence 21 Live.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recommended the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to provide annual progress reports on the agency’s implementation of the 2020 strategic plan, which succeeded the 2016 National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) road map. 

GAO indicated in its report published Thursday that the OSTP and other agencies did not consistently communicate their progress on NSCI’s 2016 strategic plan implementation, offering the academic and industry partners limited data on their respective accomplishments. 

The NSCI is a whole-of-nation approach aimed at sustaining the country’s edge in high-performance computing. 

As part of its five 2016 strategic objectives, the effort sought to advance exascale computing technologies and holistically advance the capabilities of an HPC ecosystem. 

Officials from ten agencies that presented to execute the initiative reported that they “generally did not receive funding to implement the 2016 strategic plan.” 

They added that they shouldered the efforts under existing projects and researches that matched with the plan’s objectives. 

The congressional watchdog further recommended the OSTP and other offices to address the valuable qualities of a national strategy in the impending implementation road map or by other means. 

“By more fully addressing the desirable characteristics of a national strategy through the implementation plan or other means … OSTP and agencies could improve efforts to sustain and enhance U.S. leadership in high-performance computing,” GAO said. 

The Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology (DHS S&T) Directorate is testing technologies designed to secure the U.S.-Canada border's airspace.

S&T said Thursday it partnered with the U.S. Coast Guard,  U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) to establish testing standards and demonstrate various air domain awareness technologies in Limestone Hills, Montana.

These technologies include radio frequency detectors, electro-optical and infrared cameras and radars. Montana's National Guard, Mitre and the Northern Plains UAS Test Site also supported the test, wherein unmanned aircraft systems flew in a testing environment with domain awareness technologies. 

“S&T is excited about this opportunity to conduct these air domain awareness demonstrations and test these unique technologies, sensors and capabilities in realistic environments,” said Shawn McDonald, S&T program manager.