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The 2026 Federal 100

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Fri, 01 May 2026 17:39:00 -0400

Once a year, Nextgov/FCW gets to present a set of awards dedicated to people in government, industry and academia who drove government innovation and achievement forward.

The Federal 100 awards focus on individual achievement in the IT community over the previous year. Those selected found ways to achieve efficiency through artificial intelligence, drive scientific advancement, streamline acquisitions and more — all during the tumult of a presidential transition year. They were selected for their passion for government service and commitment to doing more than their job titles asked of them in 2025. Our 100 winners include career civil servants, industry leaders, legislative staffers and thought leaders. Of those, our Eagle Award winners — one from industry and one from government — stand as the truest examples of achievement in federal IT.

This storied program has uplifted work on the cutting edge that would go on to become mainstays of government operations. The recipients have consistently pushed past bureaucracy, established best practices and remained committed to the mission, all in an environment that is often resistant to change. Their work is inspirational, and we are delighted to highlight their achievements.

We are proud to honor here our Federal 100 winners for 2026.

— The editors

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The original article has been removed

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 09:30:00 -0400

Because of the sensitive nature of claims made by sources used in a story we published on July 09, Nextgov/FCW is unable to fully confirm the information reported about Chinese telecom hackers targeting Rogers. We regret the error.

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Energy appoints Twitter, Google and DOGE alum as new CIO

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Thu, 13 Mar 2025 11:02:18 -0400

The Energy Department named Ross Graber its new chief information officer this week, multiple sources told Nextgov/FCW.

Graber replaces former SpaceX employee Ryan Riedel, who left Energy last week after a tenure of less than two months as CIO. Dawn Zimmer briefly stepped into the acting CIO role — for a second time in as many months — before Graber was internally named CIO this week.

Graber most recently supported the nascent Department of Government Efficiency’s work at the State Department, a State Department official told Nextgov/FCW.

Graber has significant experience in IT security, cybersecurity, IT risk management and compliance. He began his career at EY in the early 2000s, and later worked at Yahoo as an IT audit manager before a four-year stint with Google as a security and privacy technical program manager from 2009 to 2013. He spent another four years with Twitter — now known as X — serving as a risk and data analytics senior manager upon his exit.

Beginning in 2020, he had served as the senior director of security engineering for Procore Technologies, a construction management software-as-a-service company. That position ended in February, according to his LinkedIn profile.

The Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment.

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Get to know the 2024 Rising Stars

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Wed, 11 Dec 2024 15:54:00 -0500

Each year, Nextgov/FCW selects a cohort of emerging tech talent across federal, state and local governments — as well as the members of private industry that support them — that demonstrates what it means to serve the public with excellence early in their government careers.

The 2024 winners are no different, having led projects in automation, customer experience, data sharing and more that impressed colleagues and users alike. They demonstrate not only the greatness that can be achieved by early-career talent, but also the potential that talent holds as they progress in their work.

We will honor that talent at a Cocktails and Conversation happy hour event on December 12 at the National Union Building, but first we'd like to offer a glimpse here into the work that made these Rising Stars standouts.

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White House, cyber leaders to talk priorities, road ahead

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 17:00:00 -0500

Deputy National Cyber Director Harry Wingo will headline a start-studded lineup of cybersecurity professionals Wednesday, Nov. 20 at GovExec’s Cybersecurity Futures Forum at the Ritz Carlton in Tysons Corner.

Wingo will be joined by officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, National Security Agency, Defense Department, Homeland Security Department, FBI, U.S. Central Command and more. The agenda will also include industry luminaries from Dell, Palo Alto Networks, NVIDIA, Riva Solutions, Google Cloud and other companies.

Topics for discussion will include meaningful steps to address the government’s cyber talent pipeline, the nexus of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity and accomplishments in cybersecurity over the previous administration. Now post-election and in a time of presidential transition, much of the cyber discussion will shift toward the future and what challenges are top of mind for the next administration.

For more information or to register, click here.

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2023 Rising Star: Malaika Carpenter

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Courtesy: GSA

Malaika Carpenter works as a design supervisor for the U.S. Digital Corps, an early career fellowship program within the General Services Administration.

Having already worked in industry for years, Carpenter first learned about the role of user experience designers in government via her time at 18F, where she worked with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division on their digital innovation.

During that time, Carpenter says that “I found that I was often mentoring and coaching many of the lawyers and staff that would be creating this content and was already creating this content.”

“I started to realize that this is a direction that I want to continue in in my career,” she told Nextgov/FCW. “Coaching, mentoring, training and advising people and helping them to be not only stronger communicators, more empathetic communicators, but also to really understand the importance of design thinking in all of their work.”

Since joining the U.S. Digital Corps last fall to supervise the learning and development curriculum both across the fellows at large and for her design track fellows specifically — as well as providing them with mentorship — Carpenter has pursued just that.

Carpenter says that she uses her design background to understand the needs of the fellows and create a structure to meet those needs, even co-designing training with fellows themselves.

“Something that was so impressive about Malika to me, as one of her supervisees, [is] how much she cared about her work and the people around her,” said Nolan Harrington, one of her mentees and a product designer in the Digital Corps.

“It's definitely one of those places where you feel like you can bring your whole self to work,” he continued. “And that's what has made this whole experience so amazing.”

As for Carpenter, she said she is “most proud of seeing my design fellows win… [by] demonstrating their talents.”

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2023 Rising Star: Wendy Harman

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Courtesy: Wendy Harman

Wendy Harman was a key player in a multiyear effort to modernize the National Institutes of Health's ClinicalTrials.gov website and the affiliated Protocols Registration System through which researchers share data on clinical studies. The website, which dates back to the early days of digital government, is a key link for researchers and individuals seeking information about federally supported and private sector clinical trials covering an array of diseases. Harman's work on the website, nominators said, is a model of how human-centered design should inform modernization.

Harman's work included outreach to internal and external stakeholder groups, reaching more than 60 organizations and including more than 100 usability testers. The effort also involved one-on-one interviews with more than 70 members of external user groups, including patients and advocates. Her approach, colleagues say, supports trust in government through effective change management and stakeholder communications.

The modernized ClinicalTrials.gov website launched in 2023 and was the culmination of a multiyear effort to improve user experience. The new website incorporates the U.S. Web Design system and is optimized for mobile devices.

Harman has an ideal background for this kind of work. She was selected to serve as a Presidential Innovation Fellow in 2016 and compiled a record of significant accomplishments leading customer experience teams at the General Services Administration, where the PIF program is based. She has worked to improve outcomes in government programs covering disaster response, farm loans, affordable housing and more. Also as a PIF, Harman served as an expert on human-centered design in an effort to develop best practices to help keep individuals suffering from mental illness or habitual substance abuse out of the prison system. Her work included interviews with law enforcement and emergency frontline personnel to identify protocols to de-escalate crisis situations that might otherwise result in arrest and incarceration.

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2023 Rising Star: Zachary Nandapurkar

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Courtesy: Zachary Nandapurkar

Zach Nandapurkar's interest in government was spurred by the book Citizenville: How to Take the Town Square Digital and Reinvent Government by California's then-lieutenant governor (and current governor) Gavin Newsom.

He joined Tanium as an intern in 2018 after graduating from the University of Southern California and, following the internship, went on to an account management role at Tanium for the state of Hawaii. Currently, Nandapurkar's role involves liaising with state chief information officers and chief information security officers to develop cost-effective cybersecurity solutions. He's working on projects with more than 20 departments in California and 15 departments in Hawaii.

One key project Nandapurkar contributed to is the development of the State of Hawaii Cyber Risk Scoring System, which has been honored with an award from the National Association of State CIOs. The program, which was designed with agile development, includes a real-time dashboard — which leveraged technology already in place for asset management and patching — reflecting cybersecurity risk with an easy-to-understand scoring mechanism that executive branch leaders can use to track risk posture.

Nandapurkar also collaborated on driving adoption of California's Cal-Secure cybersecurity strategy via a vendor-mapping white paper that became the industry standard for contractors working on Cal-Secure procurements to help transparently align vendor capabilities with program requirements. He is also working on a pilot deployment of an Endpoint Management-as-a-Platform tool that supports 15 California state departments for collaboration on technology solutions while segmenting critical agency information.

He is known among colleagues for going the extra mile to understand the intricacies of the business challenges he's facing. He has been on ride-alongs with law enforcement to understand how first responders interact with technology and has met with state CIOs and CISOs to understand how to deliver cost-effective solutions to customers.

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2023 Rising Star: Angelika Hall

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Photo courtesy: Angelika Hall

Angelika Hall has only been in charge of managing the cybersecurity and response team that operates around the clock at the Office of Personnel Management since fall 2022, but OPM leadership says that the agency’s improved security posture at this point is a result of her actions.

Since joining the agency as its security operations manager, Hall — who transitioned into cybersecurity after working in the hospitality industry and as a contracted project manager — has built OPM’s incident response plans using insights from tabletop exercises and reduced the team's investigative and resolution time by 30%.

Hall has also been instrumental to OPM’s move to cloud-based technologies and adoption of modern technology and automation, her colleagues say.

Her team’s embrace of available artificial intelligence and automation over the last year is what she’s most proud of, Hall told Nextgov/FCW.

Hall’s communication skills set her apart, said OPM Chief Information Security Officer James Saunders, noting that she is able to communicate intricate cybersecurity concepts to non-technical personnel and leadership, which has earned admiration from the OPM C-suite.

“In the ever-evolving realm of cybersecurity, Angelika stands as a beacon of transformative leadership. Having seamlessly transitioned into this pivotal role, she not only changed the face of our Security Operations Center, but contributed to OPM's cybersecurity and cloud modernization efforts,” said Saunders. “Leveraging her extensive project management experience, Angelika brought a strategic precision that helped fortify our cybersecurity operations.”

“Her journey is not just a testament to her individual success, but a paradigm shift for OPM’s entire cybersecurity landscape,” he noted.

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2023 Rising Star: Shermaine Nedd

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Photo courtesy: Shermaine Nedd

As a portfolio manager and innovation lead for the General Services Administration’s Identity, Credential and Access Management Division, Shermaine Nedd is charged with finding innovations for the USAccess mission: to deliver personal identity verification credentialing services to over 120 government agencies, commissions and boards.

During the pandemic, in-person access to credential sites became limited, with nearly 500 sites shutting down. Nedd led the first-ever collaboration with the U.S. Postal Service to use their infrastructure to deliver USAccess services.

Nedd was a leading force in operationalizing 15 USPS sites as long-term options, with more sites planned for the future to give feds and contractors more PIV service options in an increasingly hybrid work environment.

The existing sites have already facilitated over 16,900 transactions, and this end result wouldn’t have been possible without Nedd’s program management, analytical and stakeholder management leadership, her colleagues say.

“Her work in leading the planning and execution of the first ever collaboration with the USPS led to a successful pilot that expanded nationally,” said GSA’s Laura Stanton, the assistant commissioner for the Office of IT Category in GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service. “Federal workers across the country will benefit from her expertise.”

And she isn’t stopping anytime soon — Nedd continues to push program modernization and innovation, particularly through new, emerging identity technologies like kiosk services, for which Nedd led an industry day and is planning a pilot rollout.

Kiosk services would allow those enrolling to do identity proofing without an in-person registrar, establishing another point of service and delivery, something that is especially important in remote and hybrid work environments. It also has the potential to enable better customer experience with a faster process

“Shermaine Nedd has an unwavering work ethic and exhibits creative thinking when developing identity management technology concepts — which benefit the entire federal community,” said Stanton.

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2023 Rising Star: Bridgette Savino

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Photo courtesy: Government Accountability Office

While her nine years at the Government Accountability Office have been based in the Washington, D.C.-area, Bridgette Savino’s career has been defined by international impact. As a senior program analyst in the agency, Savino works on oversight of a diverse roster that has included coordinating development assistance in the wake of an earthquake in Haiti and reviewing Department of Defense initiatives in partnership with Afghan security forces.

Stateside, she examined sensitive projects like diverse workforce development at the State Department. Her 2017 oversight work developed a unique catalog of U.S. support to Afghan forces and a 2016 report she worked on identified clerical inconsistencies and errors across foreignassistance.gov that led to subsequent improvements in the usefulness of that site.

Perhaps more notable than Savino’s diligence, skill, and commitment to her career and its duties is her treatment of her colleagues. Those who work with Savino noted her deft professional and technical talents, but said what truly sets her apart is her ability to make those around her better at their jobs as well. When praising Savino, her coworkers noted that it is her spirit of leadership and generosity that helps her to deliver work that extends beyond completing a task.

“Bridgette brings an incredible mix of intelligence, efficiency and good humor to her work that makes her both exceptionally competent and a joy to work with,” said Kara Marshall, an assistant director of International Affairs and Trade at GAO.

Savino has helped define the very mission statements that fuel offices within the GAO and helped expand the office’s outreach and influence to larger national and international levels.

“Bridgette’s efforts to increase the readership of and interaction with GAO’s work has been outstanding,” said Katie Bolduc, an assistant director of International Affairs and Trade at GAO. “She has consistently pushed the envelope to build buy-in and momentum for agency-wide efforts that are not easy to accomplish in such a large bureaucratic environment. More people are finding and using GAO reports today because of her leadership.”

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2023 Rising Star: Ryan Sibbald

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Photo courtesy: DEA

Over the course of his career with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Ryan Sibbald has gained a reputation as a forward-looking leader who is willing to do the legwork needed to bring new technologies into the agency.

In his previous role as unit chief over the DEA’s Office of Investigative Technology, Sibbald was responsible for working with outside vendors to acquire innovative systems and tools that would better support and assist agents in carrying out the agency’s mission.

According to his nominators, Sibbald’s work to bring this type of cutting-edge technology — such as video surveillance tools and downlink services — into DEA operations has helped to reduce the safety risk posed to law enforcement officers, while also providing essential support to field operations.

DEA’s adoption of some of these technologies played a key role in helping law enforcement’s successful effort earlier this year to locate and apprehend an escaped convict from a Pennsylvania jail after a two-week manhunt by police and federal officials.

Sibbald’s willingness to meet with vendors and challenge them to bring forward new technologies and ideas to support DEA’s mission has earned him particular praise from his counterparts in the private sector, who cited his due diligence in understanding the capabilities that new tools could bring to the agency.

“If you want to demo technology for him, if you want to walk him through your lab or your facility, Ryan will do that,” said Carey Vereen, vice president at CACI International. “He’ll go off and read about it, he’ll do his homework, he’ll speak to other subject matter experts about it, and he’ll come back with good questions and good suggestions.”

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2023 Rising Star: Katrina Sizemore

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Photo courtesy: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

As the “eye of the hurricane” in a fast-paced environment, Katrina Sizemore’s steady leadership within CMS’s Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight has helped make it possible for millions of Americans to access affordable health insurance options, according to her colleagues.

Although Sizemore has been in her current role for just under one year, her colleagues said that her strong commitment to the agency’s mission has already had a transformative impact when it comes to fostering a broad culture of innovation and excellence.

“For me, it’s about building coalitions and implementing the improvements that streamline both our individual and cooperative work, keeping the essential pieces of our governance and oversight while also leaving room for innovation and diversity,” Sizemore said.

She was essential in the implementation of the Marketplace Project Startup framework, which created a centralized model for ensuring that impacted stakeholders are involved in all phases of the healthcare marketplace’s software development lifecycle.

She also initiated the creation of a central training and knowledge base for agency staff and contractors to use when sharing processes, standards and training, which has helped to streamline onboarding and team engagement efforts.

Sizemore also coaches and mentors CMS contracting officer representatives and manages the annual, two-year budget planning cycle and off-cycle budget changes, including those requiring congressional collaboration for approval.

Additionally, Sizemore is a member of CMS’s peer-elected Leadership Development and Recognition Board, where she works with colleagues to share research and best practices and provide support for managers across the agency.

Prior to her current position, Sizemore spent eight years at CMS contributing to and helping to lead key technology initiatives. This included the creation of improved IT systems and tools that made enrolling in the healthcare marketplace a more seamless experience for users.

“Katrina brings empathy, commitment to the mission and dedication to continuous improvement to her work every day,” said Keith Tayloe, a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton. “She passionately serves as the calm eye of the storm in a complex environment working to seek broad, new ideas and create space for innovation.”

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2023 Rising Star: Conrad Stosz

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 11:00:00 -0500

Photo courtesy: Conrad Stosz

From overseeing teams of software developers in the private sector to bringing a digitally-minded security perspective to his current White House role, Conrad Stosz, the director of artificial intelligence in the Office of the Federal Chief Information Officer, has brought the experience from his background to bear on the federal government’s technological policy demands.

Prior to his government career, Stosz, holding both a M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University and a B.A. in International Relations from Boston University, worked in a startup setting overseeing the development of artificial intelligence software tools.

Eventually, Stosz pivoted into the public policy realm, serving as a fellow for the Defense Innovation Board, where the software tools he developed were geared toward data analytics and sciences for the Open Source Enterprise within the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Digital Innovation.

Following his time in the role of AI policy advisor for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and oversight of a multi-billion dollar intelligence budget while working as a staff member for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, he landed in the White House OFCIO. In his current position, Stosz has focused on developing policy to help advance federal agencies’ usage of AI systems to both improve customer experience and support agency missions, while protecting the public from AI risks.

His work advancing AI policy has come at a time where the technology is becoming increasingly prevalent both within government and in the private sector, and the White House has made significant efforts to bolster the safety and innovation of AI.

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This app will no longer be supported. Please go to Nextgov.com for the latest news.

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 10:00:00 -0400

Starting December 5, 2023, the Nextgov app will no longer be supported as we’re prioritizing our mobile web presence and email newsletters.

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Thank you for being a loyal Nextgov reader. We look forward to continuing to provide our audience with market-leading coverage on how technology is transforming government.

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Data-Driven Government

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Thu, 02 Dec 2021 15:15:02 -0500

On the shortlist of the federal government’s most valuable assets, data has proven difficult for agencies to capitalize fully on. But improvements in technology, modern management solutions and new administration policies are propelling agencies toward a data-driven government.

The Office of Management and Budget, for example, recently issued 11 action items for agencies to implement through its 2021 data strategy. The mandatory actions cover a wide array of areas, including data governance, workforce development and data management, and calls upon agencies to increase data literacy among all employees.

While progress using data to improve business decision-making varies across the federal landscape. NASA, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Small Business Administration, and Veterans Affairs Department are among those called out by a recent Government Accountability Office report as leading the pack. Each of those agencies was able to demonstrate use cases where efforts to use performance information led to improved business outcomes.

Some agencies are improving the ways they use mission-focused data, too. The National Institutes of Health, for example, developed a centralized resource that integrates COVID-19-related electronic health record data from various organizations into a single, seamless structure credentialed researchers can use to combat the health crisis.

In this ebook, Nextgov examines these and other efforts made by agencies to move toward a more data-driven federal government.

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The State of the Federal Tech Workforce

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 11:24:59 -0500

For decades, federal agencies have struggled to meet their missions with existing technical talent, and those challenges have been exacerbated in recent years with the influx of emerging technologies and increased cyberattacks. Cloud computing, for example, introduces a host of benefits for agency leaders, but those benefits aren’t maximized unless rank-and-file IT professionals master new cloud environments. Other nascent technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation, pose similar challenges.

Yet the Biden administration and individual agencies are taking steps to address critical tech workforce issues. Earlier this year, the White House announced a U.S. Digital Corps, a two-year fellowship designed to attract early-career technologists to work in the federal government. Housed within the General Services Administration, Digital Corps follows efforts by previous administrations, including 18F and the Presidential Innovation Fellows, that also targeted young technologists.

Collectively, agencies are also rethinking what skills—and to some extent, degrees—they require for new personnel. Agency officials and leading industry firms recognize that technologists often have non-traditional backgrounds and want to be flexible enough to recruit that talent. Some agencies, including the U.S. Army, have gone as far as rethinking their policies around technology and data to better attract that talent. And while the government’s hiring processes are routinely slower than industry, pockets of innovation are improving those processes, too.

In this ebook, Nextgov examines these and other tech workforce efforts across the government.

Download the free ebook here.

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Emerging Trends in Customer Experience

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 11:17:11 -0400

The federal government has long struggled to provide the kinds of customer experience and service delivery that promulgates the private sector. Lacking a centralized blueprint for defining “customers” or service delivery and what metrics to collect, agencies were left alone to decide how to serve customers—often to poor results.

But efforts undertaken by the previous two administrations—and continued under President Joe Biden—are baking customer experience principles and best practices into agency policy. For example, the White House recently made significant updates to Section 280 of its Circular A-11 guidance, a policy that dictates how federal agencies define customer experience and deliver services. In a first, the guidance directs the Office of Management and Budget to identify “priority life events” that require members of the public to engage with multiple federal programs, agencies or levels of government. The guidance also expanded the government’s definition of a customer.

In concert with White House efforts, the new federal chief information officer has signaled diversity and accessibility are keys to improving customer experience collectively across government. But the work ahead is significant: A report found nearly half of the government’s most popular websites do not meet accessibility requirements.

Meanwhile, Congress is considering numerous pieces of legislation that could improve how agencies solicit public feedback and improve the speed and quality of services they deliver. In this ebook, Nextgov addresses these and other trends in customer experience.

Download this free ebook today.

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The Future of Artificial Intelligence

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Fri, 15 Oct 2021 10:00:00 -0400

Federal agencies aim to advance their use of artificial intelligence and accompanying emerging technologies, like machine learning, in the coming years. While there are some examples of nascent uses of AI across government already, agencies are aware they must set goals and prioritize policies that intelligently usher in the technology before its maximum potential can be fulfilled.

The U.S. Postal Service, for example, will focus on AI and its potential over the coming decade to better serve its hundreds of millions of customers. Similarly, the Department of Homeland Security’s science and tech arm spent almost a year drafting an artificial intelligence and machine learning framework that will guide the agency’s enterprisewide pursuits of those technologies for the coming years. The government’s standard-setting body, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is engaging external stakeholders as it works to develop an AI risk management framework that could later inform and benefit agencies seeking to make use of the emerging technology.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration seems aware that optimal technology outcomes require the proper personnel in place, and is staffing up various advisory committees with a diverse collective of AI experts.

In this ebook, Nextgov examines these developments and how they may shape the future of AI across government.

Download this free ebook here.

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Health Technology in Action

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Thu, 30 Sep 2021 17:22:54 -0400

One of the rare positives of the COVID-19 pandemic is how it accelerated U.S. government-led research and drove agencies to adopt new digital and health technologies.

Since medical facilities and hospitals were overwhelmed with large surges in COVID-19 patients, supply chains were initially bottlenecked, and people were directed to stay home at the start of 2020, federal officials have rapidly implemented tools and policies to cope with new demands and manufactured needed resources on their own grounds. The government also tapped emerging technologies like artificial intelligence and robots to confront the major modern challenges presented by the novel coronavirus.

For this report, Nextgov connected with multiple federal and industry officials to explore how health care-aligned technologies and policies are evolving amid the ongoing pandemic—and what they might mean in years to come.

Download the free special report here.

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What’s Next in Cybersecurity

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 15:25:05 -0400

Amid numerous challenges in its first year, the Biden administration has bat-signaled its intent to shore up cybersecurity vulnerabilities in federal networks and address inadequacies in the government’s cybersecurity workforce. Biden’s May executive order, issued in response to a series of major cybersecurity breaches with digital and real-world impacts to Americans, elevated cybersecurity to a priority area and set deliverables and milestones for agencies.

For example, the Office of Management and Budget and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency released draft guidance in September on zero-trust cybersecurity architectures—a step the administration hopes will lead to wide-scale adoption of the framework. Meanwhile, the National Institute of Standards and Technology is working with industry to create a new cybersecurity framework that is expected to inform how companies build more secure software for the government. Both efforts were laid out in the May executive order and are themselves steps toward a federal government with a stronger, more resilient cybersecurity posture.

Agencies recent actions also indicate a focus on the cyber workforce. The Department of Homeland Security is establishing a new recruitment and retention system that it expects will improve how federal agencies hire and retain cyber personnel. And in an effort to better immerse their lawyers in emerging cyber issues, the Justice Department recently launched a cybersecurity fellowship program.

In this ebook, Nextgov examines these and other cybersecurity issues that could impact the government for years to come.

Download the free ebook here.

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The State of the Federal Cloud

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Thu, 09 Sep 2021 15:07:39 -0400

Once considered an emerging technology with significant promise, cloud computing has become a critical component to federal agencies technology strategies and the myriad services they deliver on behalf of the public.

Among civilian agencies, the Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program, or FedRAMP, approaches a decade in operation and continues to tweak its policies around vetting cloud solutions for government customers. Federal cloud spending has increased annually over each of the last five years, driven significantly by large efforts by many agencies that deal in data, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the departments of Homeland Security and Treasury.

In recent months, however, it’s been the intelligence community and defense sectors that have generated the most cloud-computing buzz. The years-long battle over the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure contract, or JEDI, was canceled by the Pentagon after numerous controversies and court battles, though lessons from the failed contract may inform the Pentagon’s next enterprisewide cloud effort. Meanwhile, the National Security Agency awarded its own mammoth cloud contract—worth up to $10 billion—to Amazon Web Services in July. While the contract is under protest by Microsoft, it has massive ramifications for the NSA stores and analyzes its massive lakes of data.

In this ebook, Nextgov addresses these and other stories to capture the state of the federal cloud computing market.

Download this free ebook here.

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Addressing the Tech Talent Gap

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 12:39:43 -0400

The federal government has a technology workforce problem. Talent—specifically recruiting and retaining top tech minds—is cited frequently by agency chief information officers as a challenge across the civilian, defense and intelligence sectors, and one that technology itself cannot solve. In recent years, better government data has outlined an overall trend that agencies aren’t hiring new tech talent at the same pace they’re losing older employees through attrition. A recent Government Accountability Office audit, for example, found the government is “not well-positioned” to fill workforce gaps among tech and science positions.

Yet the government is not without pockets of workforce-related innovation. The Army’s software factory, for example, is helping prepare today’s soldiers for battlefields of the future—battlefields that may be in physical locations or cyberspace. New administration officials are looking to ensure current diversity issues impacting today’s traditional tech landscape aren’t repeated in new tech fields, such as quantum computing. And some agencies are looking to untapped demographics, including neurodiverse individuals, to bring into their tech workforces.

In this ebook, we’ll discuss these and other issues impacting the federal workforce.

Download the free ebook here.

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Automatic Government

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Thu, 13 May 2021 14:28:50 -0400

The federal government is using robotic process automation and other variants of the artificial intelligence software across agencies, improving service delivery and mission outcomes while saving countless thousands of employee hours. A relatively new technology, automation software generally performs business processes normally undertaken by humans, such as scanning records. Yet agencies are employing the nascent technology in numerous ways.

The National Science Foundation, for example, has automated software to perform functions regarding thousands of meetings it organizes each year. A single bot—or automated software—is saving the NSF staff 25,000 hours per year, according to its chief information officer. Other agencies, including the IRS and National Archives, are looking to automation to improve records management and digitizing voluminous quantities of paper records. Automation is also impacting health care, with the Veterans Affairs Department employing machine learning to automate prescription workflows.

In this ebook, Nextgov will examine these and other early uses of automation across the federal government.

Download the free ebook here.

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Implementing Artificial Intelligence

Nextgov/FCW Staff — Tue, 30 Mar 2021 14:50:49 -0400

Once the stuff of science fiction, artificial intelligence is fast becoming an integral technology for the federal government. While agencies today use AI to comb through and analyze piles of data and automate time-consuming processes, federal officials are aware they’ve only scratched the surface of AI’s true capabilities and its most promising advances somewhere in the future.

Federal agencies are preparing for that future with a series of strategic actions, both agency-specific and under the direction of the new administration. The Department of Health and Human Services, for example, created the position of “chief AI officer” in part to ascertain the ways the technology could improve mission delivery, culminating with an AI strategy for the agency. Along broader lines, the White House and Pentagon have launched hubs for AI research and policymaking that could dramatically impact how agencies and the military seek to procure and implement AI for years to come.

Yet for all its potential, AI presents an immense challenge for the federal government. Adversaries like China are investing heavily in the technology in hopes of surpassing the United States in technological dominance. At the same time, AI technology is laden with inherent biases and flaws—much like people—that are not easily exercised, posing all variants of privacy concerns for consumers and the public.

In this ebook, Nextgov looks at these and other issues that will impact the implementation of AI across the federal government.

Click here to download this free ebook.

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