• Younger Thrift Savings Plan participants will soon see a new investment option in the TSP. The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board is launching the "L 2070" lifecycle fund at the end of July. The retirement investment fund is meant for TSP participants who will retire during or after 2068. Once the new fund is created, it'll bring the total up to 11 different L funds that are available through the TSP. The TSP's L funds generally track target-date retirement funds.
  (New Lifecycle Fund coming soon - Thrift Savings Plan)
• The 2024 Feds Feed Families campaign is officially underway. The annual food drive gives federal employees the opportunity to donate to, or volunteer for, local food banks. The program is run by the Department of Agriculture and began back in 2009. Since its inception, federal employees have collectively donated more than 99 million pounds of food. This year's Feds Feed Families campaign launched last week and will run until September 30.
  (2024 Summer Campaign - Feds Feed Families)
• The National Institute of Standards and Technology is getting feedback on its draft plan for advancing federal tech standards. NIST will accept comments on the draft roadmap for setting standards on critical and emerging technology through July 12. The roadmap is intended to broaden standards participation, grow a standards-savvy workforce, and ensure inclusivity and integrity in developing tech standards. NIST is charged with taking a lead role in championing U.S. standards in areas like artificial intelligence.
  (NIST seeks public input on draft roadmap for USG national standards strategy for CET - National Institute of Standards and Technology)
• The State Department has a new AI hub. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says AI.State includes training and other materials to help employees harness new AI tools. The State Department has rolled out several new capabilities, including a chat bot and a media analysis tool. During an event Friday, Blinken and other officials said State Department employees are encouraged to experiment, “I'd encourage everyone to test it out, to try it out, to explore it, to try to learn from it. And also lend your own ideas and input because this is something that will continue to be iterative and a work in progress,” Blinken said.
  (With new AI tools available, State Department encourages experimentation - Federal News Network)

        Learn how DLA, GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service and the State Department are modernizing their contract and acquisition processes to make procurement an all-around better experience for everyone involved.

• The Defense Information Systems Agency wants to automate 75% of its cyber capabilities. Brian Hermann, DISA's director of cybersecurity and analytics, says that while there is no set timeline to achieve the goal, the agency is currently not where it needs to be. Because of a large number of data silos, the agency is currently working on streamlining its data to get closer to the goal. The agency is also implementing a federated search capability, which will allow their team to search data wherever it exists.
  (DISA wants to automate 75% of cyber activities - AFCEA International)
• The Defense Information Systems Agency’s Hosting and Compute Center continues to expand its cloud capabilities to the military services and mission partners outside the continental U.S. The Center is working with the agency’s Program Executive Office transport and cloud service providers to find out where they are planning to expand their cloud services to and how they connect back to U.S. data centers and cloud facilities. The goal is to provide low latency to the service branches as they move from tactical to operational to strategic levels of capability. DISA unveiled its plans to expand its cloud capabilities to the military services and missions partners overseas last year.
  (DISA continues its push to provide OCONUS cloud services - AFCEA International)
• The long-awaited Alliant 3 solicitation has hit the streets. The General Services Administration met its first goal with the next version of the Alliant 3 governmentwide acquisition contract for IT services: Get the RFP on the street in the third quarter of 2024. That happened Friday. Now, the work begins to stay on track. Industry has until October 28 to submit bids for the multiple award contract. In the meantime, GSA will be accepting questions about the solicitation through July 26 and plans to offer answers by August 23. GSA outlined at least 45 IT services covered under Alliant 3, ranging from 3D printing to energy sustainability management to quantum computing.
  (GSA released RFP for Alliant 3 IT services GWAC - SAM.gov)
• The departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development are the latest agencies seeking more funding to address ongoing emergencies. The Biden administration submitted a new request to Congress for almost $4 billion on Friday to address two big challenges. First, the White House is asking for $3.1 billion for Transportation’s Emergency Relief Program. This money would help cover increased needs for repairing and rebuilding highways and roads that have been damaged in disasters and other emergencies across the country, including the cost of rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. The administration is asking for $700 million for HUD's Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery program. The additional funding is for victims of the Maui fires in Hawaii as well as other disasters such as hurricanes in Florida and Georgia and flooding in Vermont.
  (White House seeks additional funding for DOT, HUD - White House)

Correction: The audio version of this article says the Alliant 3 contract has a ceiling of $75 billion over 10 years. There is actually no ceiling for the contract.

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