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MerITocracy 2021 Bipartisan Congressional Leaders Vote for Tech Innovation at MerITocracy Forum November 16
Congress is about democracy – and congress understands that tech and innovation are changing everything – and that change holds peril and promise for all Americans and global democracy.
Recent News
  1. Rural Broadband Expansion Requires Government Help, Witnesses Say
    Witnesses at today’s House Agriculture Committee hearing agreed that involvement of the Federal government is a prerequisite to any successful expansion of broadband service access in rural areas of the United States.
  2. Improved Cost and Schedule Estimating Could Bolster VA’s FMBT Program
    The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is replacing its aging financial and acquisition systems with an integrated system after two prior attempts to replace the systems cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of several years to develop. In a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, GAO made recommendations to minimize risk of cost overruns and delays.
  3. Federal money spending government CIGIE: IG Probes Saved up to $53 billion in FY 2020
    Federal Offices of Inspectors General (OIGs) saved the government an estimated $53 billion through investigations in fiscal year 2020, the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE) reported in its annual report to Congress and the President.
  1. Cybersecurity DoE, CISA Kicking Off 100-Day Push to Boost Electric Infrastructure Cybersecurity
    The Department of Energy (DoE) – with help from industry and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA – is kicking off a 100-day effort to improve electric infrastructure cybersecurity, the White House and DoE said today.
  2. SSA Seeks Input on Learning Agenda for Improved Data
    The Social Security Administration (SSA) is seeking input on evidence-building activities to inform SSA priorities – including priorities of the Biden administration – as well as input on future projects to advance SSA’s mission.
  3. US tech Sens. Van Hollen, Blunt Debut Bill to Strengthen US Tech Advantage
    A bipartisan Senate bill introduced on Monday would help the United States to grow and maintain its global technology advantage against China and other competing nations.
  4. Sens. Thune, Hassan Introduce Bills to Bolster U.S. Quantum Leadership
    Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., introduced two separate bills that aim to boost United States leadership in quantum information science (QIS).
  1. Rethink and Shrink Your Security Perimeter – Varonis’ Justin Wilkins on Zero Trust
    We sat down with Justin Wilkins, director of engineering for U.S. Public Sector at Varonis, to discuss the importance of a zero trust security architecture, why the concept is taking off, and more importantly – how to read through all the buzz and start taking actionable steps today.
  2. FITARA Scorecard Hearing Offers Hints on Developing Topics
    While House Government Operations Subcommittee members offered no firm direction on how they may try to further evolve the FITARA Scorecard, their discussions with witnesses at the April 16 hearing on version 11.0 of the scorecard issued last December brought to light a variety of Federal agency IT concerns that might come into play.
  3. FCC Re-Establishes Network Security Council
    The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced Friday it will re-establish the Communications Security, Reliability, and Interoperability Council (CSRIC), with a focus on “improving 5G network security.”
  4. Modern Cyber Threats Call for Zero Trust
    Federal agency leaders agree that zero trust is a journey that will take time to implement but, with modern-day cyber threats, the sooner agencies implement zero trust the better.
  5. White House to Nominate Pamela Melroy for NASA Deputy Administrator
    President Biden intends to nominate Pamela Melroy, a former astronaut and former deputy director at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), to be the next deputy administrator at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the White House announced April 16.
  6. How to Prevent Cyberattacks, Expert Discussion
    As cyberattacks become ever-increasing, one thing is clear: the United States needs to strengthen its cybersecurity efforts. Federal government and private sector cyber experts sat down to discuss the future of the cyber conflict and how to prevent the next big cyberattack.
  7. Hill Dems Query DoJ About Predictive Policing Algorithms
    A handful of Democratic legislators have sent a letter to the Department of Justice (DoJ) seeking answers to what steps the agency takes to ensure predictive policing technology is effective, and whether it tests for bias and requires transparency in algorithms used in the technology.
  8. Feds Stand Down UCG ‘Surge’ Responses to Solar Winds, Microsoft Hacks
    The Federal government is curtailing its “surge” response to the SolarWinds Orion and Microsoft Exchange hacks after seeing improvements in patching that have helped to remediate the impacts of the cyber attacks, the Biden administration said today.
  9. Army Issues RFI for Enterprise Application Modernization and Migration to the Cloud
    In a request for information (RFI), the U.S. Army said it needs an enterprise scale contractual vehicle or agreement to modernize and migrate Army applications and data into commercial cloud environments.
  10. Want a Good FITARA Scorecard Grade? A Couple of CIOs Tell How…
    The FITARA 11.0 scorecard released in December 2020 turned out to be a pretty good report card for Federal agency IT operations. The latest set of grades marked just the second time since the House Oversight and Reform Committee started measuring agency progress against Federal Information Technology Reform Act (FITARA) and other key metrics that every agency received a passing score.