The House on Sept. 30 approved the Modernization Centers of Excellence Program Act, a bill introduced earlier this year by Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., that would require the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services group to establish a Modernization Centers of Excellence (CoE) “to facilitate the adoption of modern technology by executive agencies.”
The legislation would add to GSA’s existing line-up of CoEs that includes AI, Cloud Adoption, Contact Center, Customer Experience, Data and Analytics, and Infrastructure Optimization.
A companion bill in the Senate was approved in July by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, but has not yet been taken up by the full Senate.
The Senate measure would, among other provisions, task the proposed new IT Modernization CoE with modernizing agency IT and how customers interact with executive branch agencies, improve cooperation between commercial and executive agency IT sectors, encourage the government to buy commercial IT products, and assist agencies in planning and adopting technology in areas including commercial cloud, artificial intelligence, and security and governance frameworks.
