IT Modernization

Robotic process automation as a way of improving operations and freeing people’s time up for higher value work has taken hold at the General Services Administration’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer.

Jason Gray, the Education Department’s chief information officer, said fixing long-standing problems like laptops that took 20-to-40 minutes to boot up and log in and printer sprawl helped lay the groundwork for the next set of initiatives.

The intelligence community and the Defense Logistics Agency have their eyes set on emerging technology this year, but they’re focused first on improving some of the basics.

Multi-state IT collaboration efforts are on the rise as Arkansas and Oklahoma forge a unique cross boundary data center collocation initiative. Arkansas’ CTO managed through the governor’s reorganization of 45 cabinet departments down to 15.

AppGate Federal Group President Greg Touhill joined host John Gilroy on this week’s Federal Tech Talk to discuss Zero Trust, cybersecurity and how to reduce the attack surface for federal information technology.

The departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Treasury, Labor and Education and the U.S. Agency for International Development asked Congress in their fiscal 2021 budget requests to use money saved from other programs for IT modernization initiatives.

The General Services Administration says the number of help desk calls about the beta.sam.gov website is at or below the levels that came in for the old site. Some contractors, however, say the new site continues to struggle and remains frustrating to many.

Mark McIntyre, chief security adviser, at Microsoft’s Cybersecurity Solutions Group, joins John Gilroy on this week’s Federal Tech Talk to discuss DoD’s CMMC initiative and shares some of his insights on cybersecurity and large federal systems.

Joe Klimavicz, the Justice Department CIO and deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Management Division, came to the agency in 2014 and has been vice chairman of the CIO Council since 2018.

The Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation sees itself as a catalyst among agencies, one that is “thinking about the future.”

President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget request includes $125 million for the Technology Modernization Fund and the return of the priority for agencies to move to IPv6.

Tim Li, principal at Deloitte, joins host John Gilroy on this week’s Federal Tech Talk to talk abouts Zero Trust, cybersecurity, and how federal agencies can incorporate best practices for identity management.

North Dakota’s Gov. Doug Burgum picked a state CIO with similar unconventional traits. Shawn Riley overcame a difficult upbringing, started his own company at 16, and now with Burgum’s support leads the state’s IT renaissance.

Karen Wrege, the chief information officer of the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls at the State Department, said having one system for identity credential and access management that is based on roles and responsibilities has solved one of the biggest challenges in government.