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Appropriations bill gives $25M to TMF

Editor’s Note: This story and its headline have been updated to reflect the passage and signing of appropriations legislation. 

President Trump signed a spending bill Friday to prevent another government shutdown and it included $25 million in funding for the Technology Modernization Fund.

Prior to the bill’s signing, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., celebrated securing the funding in the Senate version of the legislation.

“I am pleased that our efforts with appropriators and relevant agencies to improve transparency around agencies’ modernization proposals have resulted in bipartisan support for the Technology Modernization Fund,” Moran said in a statement. “Congress and federal agencies must work hand-in-hand to provide the necessary resources to the TMF, which, used responsibly, is a vital tool for the federal government’s task of keeping our nation’s critical IT infrastructure efficient and secure.”

The TMF is a central funding pot, administered by the General Services Administration, that loans out money to selected agency IT modernization projects. It was created by the Modernizing Government Technology Act, sponsored by Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, in the House and Moran in the Senate. Trump signed it into law as part of the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act in December 2017.

The project was granted $100 million in initial funding in fiscal 2018. Its board has so far allocated all but $10 million of that pot. Most recently, it granted a $20.7 million award to the General Services Administration to accelerate development of its modernized payroll shared service, NewPay.

Getting money for the 2019 edition proved tricky, however. In August, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., explained why a Senate-passed appropriations bill didn’t include any funding for TMF by citing a lack of results from the initiative.

“We’ve not seen results from that program yet and we don’t have any data on it,” he said. “And I wasn’t going to allocate $210 million to something that we don’t know that it’s working.”

Rep. Hurd, however, maintained all along that he was confident TMF would get funding.

Senate bill wants agencies to bolster cybersecurity by sharing their talent

Demand for cybersecurity talent has made federal agencies not only competitors with the private sector but also with each other.

Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., wants to ensure the federal market for cyber talent doesn’t create an environment of have-and-have-not agencies that could leave networks open to attack. So, he’s pushing legislation that would allow them to effectively share cyber professionals.

The Federal Rotational Cyber Workforce Program Act — co-sponsored by Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., and reintroduced from a 2018 version of the bill— proposes to create a system that would allow cyber experts to rotate to different federal agencies on detail assignments with the goal of helping bolster their cyberdefenses.

The bill cleared the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by a unanimous vote Wednesday.

“Government agencies of all sizes are at risk of a breach that could jeopardize the sensitive information they are trusted with, and these threats will only continue to grow,” Peters said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “We need skilled cyber professionals in place to shore up our cyber protections, fortify our legacy systems and build new and innovative infrastructure with safety and security in mind.”

As both networks and the cyberthreats against them grow more advanced, the market for cyber professionals has become restricted by a quest for talent. Peters quoted estimates of a global talent shortage of 3 million cyber positions, a scenario that has left the public and private sectors in a scramble to acquire skilled professionals.

The Federal Rotational Cyber Workforce Program Act, which a spokesperson for Peters said is identical to its November 2018 committee version, envisions a rotational system that would allow federal cyber talent to apply for duty assignments of no shorter than 180 days and no longer than a year. The chief human capital officer at the detailing agency could extend that service by 60 days if approved by the CHCO from the employing agency.

The goal of the rotations is two-fold: to provide smaller agencies with fewer resources access to qualified cyber talent and to train existing cyber talent with a wider range of skills that can be applied across the enterprise.

The legislation taps the Office of Personnel Management, the CHCO Council and the CIO of the Department of Homeland Security with establishing a rotational program that focuses on certain cyber skills, sets up a merit-based system for applicants and establishes the training structures needed to coach up applicants.

“I think it’s a good idea,” said Jason Briefel, executive director of the Senior Executives Association, who has tracked past efforts to allow Senior Executive Service members to rotate between agencies for professional development and wider skills-sharing.

Where the bill succeeds, he said, is in its efforts to ensure that cybersecurity professionals can return to their employing agency once a detail is complete, combating the reticence he said some SES members had in rotating out of jobs they preferred for new assignments.

“I think the joint duty model actually makes a lot more sense,” he said. “ It can help facilitate the cross-pollination of talent, networks of individuals, awareness of different ways to tackle some of these cyber challenges at agencies and to prevent having these situations where there are kind of winner-and-loser agencies based on who has a better authority or pay-cap.”

The bill also tacks on written service agreements that require employees applying for a rotation detail to agree to return to their employing agency for a designated period of time once the rotational detail is complete, a move that Briefel said helps agencies retain their cyber talent instead of watching them be immediately hired away by the private sector.

“I think one of the frustrations that many agencies have felt is that they will train someone up only to see them depart and go into industry,” he said. “So kind of creating incentives to keep folks within government, but also not tying a lead weight to their leg and chain them there, I think it strikes the right balance.”

The bill comes after a number of administration initiatives to bolster federal cyber talent, including additional hiring authorities and a reskilling academy.

New PIF cohort officially introduced at White House ceremony

Seventeen federal government newbies, along with friends, family and their agency bosses, met in the Indian Treaty Room of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on Wednesday for the inauguration of the 2019 Presidential Innovation Fellows cohort.

The fellows, most of whom have begun working with their host agencies in the past few weeks, were welcomed by PIF program Executive Director Josh Di Frances and his team, as well as the new director of the Technology Transformation Service, Anil Cheriyan.

“This is a great time to be in technology, a great time to be in technology in the federal government,” Cheriyan said in his remarks, citing recent developments in the IT modernization space. The PIFs, he said, are “the seekers, the foragers, the hunters” who find modernization ideas and opportunities at agencies across the government.

For at least the next 12 months, fellows will be working at the Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Marine Corps, General Services Administration, Millennium Challenge Corporation, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Department of Transportation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of State and U.S. Agency for Global Media.

The projects they’ll focus on include some pretty high-profile ones, too. Maura Newell, formerly of the City of Austin Innovation Office, is working with the VA’s Veterans Experience Office in to improve customer experience as part of cross-agency priority goal number four of the President’s Management Agenda. Maria Lynne Dayton, a social entrepreneur from San Francisco, will also take part in this general project, but from the GSA side.

Meanwhile, Ryan Fiorentino will work on the customer experience side of Farmers.gov, a project that won $10 million in funding from the newly established Technology Modernization Fund.

Three fellows — Georgeta Dragoiu, Adele Luda and Soni Meckem — are joining NIH’s massive precision medicine initiative, All of Us.

These are just a few of the projects. There’s also autonomous transportation work being done by a PIF at DOT, data analytics at the VA, AI solutions to be built at the U.S. Agency for Global Media and much more.

Agency partners overwhelmingly expressed excitement about their new fellows. “There are a lot of us here from the VA because we love this program,” David Bao, deputy executive director with the U.S. Digital Service team at the VA, said when introducing his team’s hire.

“This is one of those opportunities that reminds us of why we serve,” said Chad Sheridan, now the chief of service delivery and operations at USDA’s Farm Production and Conservation Business Center.

Being a PIF can be a path in to long-term, non-fellowship work in the federal government. Charles Worthington, a former PIF and now the CTO at the VA, made no secret of his interest in keeping this kind of talent in-house for the long term. “They currently think they’re going to be here for 12 months,” he said, introducing his office’s fellows. “And that’s nice…”

The fellows laughed.

In December, after closing applications for this cohort, Di Frances told FedScoop that the class skews more technical when compared to past groups, a shift based on changing agency needs and interests.

“We haven’t typically brought in as many engineers,” he said at the time. “It’s been kind of a more high-level strategic role. And now I think it’s a coupling of kind of strategic and some more technical roles. It’s been interesting to see.”

Trump nominates new chief of federal procurement policy

Michael Wooten is President Donald Trump’s pick to serve as administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

In heading the office, under the portfolio of the Office of Management and Budget, Wooten would essentially serve as the government’s chief acquisition officer. IT acquisition is a major element of the job, which is subject to Senate confirmation. Trump announced the nomination Wednesday.

Most recently, Wooten has served as senior adviser for acquisitions at the Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid office. Within Education, he also was acting assistant secretary and deputy assistant secretary for career, technical, and adult education. Prior to that, he was deputy chief procurement officer for the District of Columbia Government.

If Senate-confirmed, Wooten will be the first OFPP administrator to lead the office in an official capacity since the Obama administration. Anne Rung left the position in September 2016 to join Amazon, and since then, Lesley Field has filled the position in an acting capacity.

OMB sets deadline for agency FOIA interoperability plans

The White House Office of Management and Budget is asking agencies to get their National FOIA Portal interoperability plans in order.

The FOIA Improvement Act of 2016 required that OMB and the Department of Justice simplify the Freedom of Information Act landscape by creating a central portal that anyone can visit to submit a request to any agency. Today, that portal lives at FOIA.gov.

But not all agencies have established interoperability between FOIA.gov and the agency’s existing FOIA platform. Deputy Director for Management Margaret Weichert sent a memo Tuesday setting a deadline of May 10, 2019, for agencies to submit a full strategy for how their in-house platform, which can range from a simple spreadsheet to an automated case management system depending on agency need and resources, will play nice with FOIA.gov.

Not all agencies are linked to FOIA.gov. (Screenshot)

The memo lays out the two ways agencies can achieve interoperability — either by accepting requests through a structured application programming interface (API) or by accepting the request as a formal, structured e-mail to a designated email inbox. If an agency has an automated FOIA system, OMB says, it needs to go the API route unless otherwise agreed.

In any case, though, agencies have until May 10 to let OMB know which option they will pursue, how long it will take and what it will cost. From there, deadlines are a little less clear but the memo states that email interoperability should be in place “as soon as technically feasible,” and API interoperability available within two fiscal years.

In addition to ensuring this interoperability, agencies have a few other responsibilities that have to do with the FOIA.gov portal. Per the memo, agencies are required to maintain an account on FOIA.gov and keep agency contact information up to date there. Agencies are also required to “maintain a customized FOIA request form tailored to its own FOIA regulations.”

DOD clarifies security requirements to compete for $8B back-office cloud

Eventually, the contractor that will lead the Pentagon’s single-award, $8 billion back-office cloud acquisition will need to be able to store and process Secret-level information. But it’s OK if the vendor hasn’t yet achieved that capability at the time of the award, the Pentagon clarified this week.

The two-phase vision for the Defense Enterprise Office Solution is to provide communication, collaboration and other back-office tools via a hybrid-cloud model to DOD users, first within U.S. territories and then outside. The entire solution will need to have DOD impact level 6 capabilities, meaning it has met security requirements to handle Secret information.

But the need for those Secret-level capabilities is a bit down the line. And during the buildout of DEOS phase one — which deals with unclassified networks in the continental U.S. — the chosen cloud vendor needs to meet only impact level 5 security requirements, for storing and processing controlled unclassified information for national security systems.

“At this time we anticipate that the final RFQ will reflect that an offeror will not be required to possess IL6 at the time of the award in order to be eligible for the award,” says the Q&A, posted as an amendment to the DEOS draft solicitation.

“Candidates must have a certified Impact Level 5 (IL5) offering for infrastructure, platform, or software as a service approved requirement to successfully compete,” it says. “Market research indicates that there are sufficient vendors with DoD Cloud Computing (CC) Security Requirements Guide (SRG) Impact Level 5 (IL5) to facilitate competition and ensure timely delivery of the first phase of delivery – services for non-classified networks in the continental United States.”

For now, the draft solicitation doesn’t explain how a cloud provider that is level 5-compliant will show that it’s on track for level 6 compliance down the road.

As the Q&A explains, there’s a crowd — albeit a small one — of vendors who meet level 5 requirements: Amazon Web Services, IBM, Microsoft and Oracle. But from that group, only AWS has achieved level 6. Microsoft has said it could do so sometime in 2019.

This model is the same the DOD will take with its Joint Entperise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) cloud, first requiring level 5 compliance and then level 6 down the line. That enterprisewide, commercial cloud, however, will be the anchor of DOD’s move to adopt next-generation cloud capabilities, it revealed last week in its cloud strategy.

ID.me brings virtual identity proofing to the VA

There’s an 81-year-old veteran living in Japan who’s been trying, and failing, to sign up for a Veteran ID card online — he can’t seem to verify his international phone number. There’s a 19-year-old service member trying to get access to his GI Bill Benefits through VA.gov, but the agency can’t confirm his identity because he doesn’t have any credit history.

There are many more veterans just like these.

Traditionally, veterans who have been locked out of the convenient online registration process that the Department of Veterans Affairs offers, which requires things like a stable address and a credit history, are unable to sufficiently prove their identities online. So, they’re forced to go to a VA field office in person, an extra hurdle that can prove to be a complete roadblock, depending on the veteran’s circumstances.

Now there’s another option — Virtual In-Person Identity Proofing enabled by digital identity provider ID.me. After a four-month pilot, ID.me and the VA announced the official launch of this digital service Tuesday.

The interface for Veterans setting up a virtual identity proofing session. (Courtesy photo)

The technology is essentially what it sounds like — veterans who need help verifying their identities online can set up a virtual meeting (via video chat) with a “trusted referee” who will examine various identity documents in much the same way as an employee at a VA field office would.

“As part of the digital modernization of the VA, it is important that all Veterans can securely access their benefits and services online,” Charles Worthington, CTO at the VA, said in a statement. “Adding Virtual In-Person Identity Proofing is a critical step towards making sure that no Veteran is left behind.”

As is often the case in IT modernization, it was a policy development, not a technological one, that got us here. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is in charge of developing digital identity guidelines for the federal government — in June 2017 the agency released special publication 800-63-3, which outlines the requirements for verifying identity virtually. ID.me, a recipient of NIST grant funding, developed its tech offering around these guidelines.

To ID.me founder Blake Hall, a former soldier himself, helping veterans is especially meaningful. But he sees a future for this product at agencies beyond the VA. “Everyone runs into this problem where thin-file customers, international customers, aren’t able to prove their identity,” he told FedScoop. “We can also expand this to other agencies.”

Pentagon unveils strategy for military adoption of artificial intelligence

The Department of Defense issued an unclassified summary Tuesday of its strategy for the accelerated adoption of artificial intelligence for military applications.

Then-Deputy Secretary Patrick Shanahan approved the classified strategy in June 2018. The summary further details many things DOD has revealed since last June, like the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC), which is the focal point of the strategy.

The unclassified document emphasizes the “urgency, scale, and unity of effort” needed to make AI transformational both for the DOD and the nation. In that respect, CIO Dana Deasy told reporters Tuesday, it works in step nicely with the AI executive order President Donald Trump issued Monday, introducing the administration’s plan for American leadership in the development of artificial intelligence.

Perhaps the most central theme throughout the strategy summary, Deasy said, is “the need to increase the speed and agility, which is how we will deliver AI capabilities across every DOD mission.”

“We do not have time to waste,” he said. “We must be careful not to give a longterm advantage to our adversaries.”

Operationalized AI with JAIC

The Pentagon’s AI strategy is all about near-term, departmentwide operational capabilities supported through JAIC.

Lt. Gen. Jack Shanahan, JAIC’s first director, explained that his office underscores the importance of transitioning from research and development to operational-fielded capabilities. The JAIC will operate across the full AI application lifecycle, with emphasis on near-term execution and AI adoption.”

As revealed previously, JAIC is focused on “national mission initiatives” (NMIs) — which are broad, cross-functional programs that impact more than one mission or agency — as well as “component mission initiatives” (CMIs), which “are specific to individual components who are looking for an AI solution to a particular problem,” the general told reporters.

Already, JAIC is piloting two NMIs — one focused on predictive maintenance and another on humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Others are in the works, such as a project with “the U.S. Cyber Command on a “cyberspace-related NMI,” Shanahan said.

From these projects, it is DOD’s intention to establish “a common foundation enabled by enterprise cloud with particular focus on shared data repositories, reusable tools, frameworks and standards, and cloud and edge services,” he said.

That’s, for example, why one of DOD’s first NMIs is focused on disaster relief, particularly identifying fire lines in wildfire disasters — not something you might associate with DOD.

“This a perfect example of us reaching out and working with other agencies. … When you actually get down to the real science of what we’re doing with this humanitarian one — it’s taking large, large areas using video, using still, and using AI to determine what is going on,” Deasy said. “A lot of this is going to be applicable elsewhere in the Department of Defense. In picking that as an NMI, we are also picking this as a great one where we can build the tools — we talk about tools that are going to end up inside of JAIC as an asset that others can use inside the Department of Defense. This is a perfect example of one that can help us build out our tools.”

The DOD is massive, however, and of course military services and other DOD components will explore AI for their own needs. This is where CMIs come in to play, and JAIC hopes to synchronize those disparate DOD AI activities and aligning them for enterprisewide efficiencies.

Deasy said JAIC’s level of success will be measured in its ability to attract those components to take advantage of its resources.

“At the end of the day, no matter who is standing up an AI capability, they’re going to need governance, they’re going to need processes, they’re going to need tools, they’re going to need infrastructure,” he said. “So what we’ve said is JAIC’s success is going to be based on our ability to create common tools, common processes, common development methodologies, common infrastructure where you can get jumpstarted a lot faster than going out and starting something on your own. The services are really keen on that.”

The strategy also comes with the stipulation that any DOD AI project that costs more than $15 million must be vetted by JAIC first.

There are also other research entities, like DARPA, that deal with AI, but in the longer-term. Deasy said JAIC’s role will be to feed off that R&D to bring real, immediate applications to the military.

“This needs to be a balanced conversation” between R&D and operation, he said. “What JAIC is focused on is the actual applied application of taking all that science that’s available from either the academic world or the commercial world and then applying it to real-world solutions. But then keeping tightly linked to the research side of where this is going, where the art of the possible is going to take you.”

But JAIC is still in its early days, Deasy said. Though it’s up and running with some work underway, JAIC started small — the big transformation and scaling of the organization will take place in its second year, he said.

So far, it’s received less than $90 million in funding, most to research and development, and is staffed by military detailees. The hope is that the fiscal 2020 budget will really reflect the growth strategy of JAIC.

The ethics of militarized AI, the Google problem and autonomous weapons

The biggest piece of the DOD AI strategy still missing is a set of ethical principles — but it’s in the works. Though DOD is moving forward standing up JAIC and launching mission initiatives, the Defense Innovation Board (DIB) is in the process of developing ethical principles for the department’s use of AI.

Some companies have been tentative to work with DOD on AI and other high-tech initiatives because of the possibility that their tech could be used for lethal applications. Google is the poster company for this turmoil after it stepped away from work supporting DOD’s Project Maven, which uses algorithms and AI to help Air Force analysts make better use of full-motion video surveillance.

“I think it’s very important the Defense Innovation Board is doing this,” said Shanahan, who has led Project Maven for the past two years since its inception. “It doesn’t stop us from going forward. This is an important point … in every technology the department has ever introduced, we take this into account early and often. The idea of human judgment, safe, lawful use of any weapons system, and then, as important as anything else, is the issue of accountability. A human is held accountable. … We are taking this into account from the day we start working on any project.”

Deasy said the work on the front end of DOD adopting AI is too urgent and intensive to wait for the DIB’s development of principles. “There is a lot of work we have to do to stand up a joint artificial shared capability. So we can keep moving down the road setting that up while the DIB works through those big questions that they’ll eventually bring back to us with their thoughts on.”

While Google’s refusal to continue work with Project Maven, and then its decision to not bid on DOD’s Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) enterprise cloud, has gotten a lot of public attention, Deasy and Shanahan said that has been the exception, not the rule.

“Our experience has been, with very few exceptions, an enthusiasm about working with the Department of Defense,” Shanahan said, explaining the importance of being upfront with companies about the application of their technologies to the DOD mission. “There’s questions we ask in that problem framing to make sure we all understand on both sides of the line what they’re working on for the Department of Defense, what the Department of Defense intends to use that model for and we haven’t had any real problems with that.”

Deasy said the DOD accepts that some companies don’t want to work with it. “We’ve got some of the most difficult, challenging and important problems to solve. So far, we’ve seen no evidence that there is something we’re missing out on if a company chooses not to participate in our mission sets going forward. We are getting lots and lots of inquiries.”

That tune, however, may change the closer DOD gets to deploying futuristic things now only seen in movies and TV shows. Shanahan said the department’s adoption of AI doesn’t involve autonomous weapons “right now.”

“And that’s what people get most skittish about what the department is or is not doing,” he said, noting that the Pentagon has an existing directive for autonomous weapons. “We are taking those policies into account, but we haven’t progressed to the point in the JAIC or in Maven where that has become the driver of whether or not we go forward with a project. We are nowhere close to the full autonomy question that most people seem to leap to a conclusion when they think about DOD and AI.”

Deasy didn’t count out the possibility of it either.

“We want JAIC to support the full breadth of what the Department of Defense needs to do to accomplish its missions — if that’s deterrence, if that’s lethality, if that’s reform, if that’s creating better alliances and partnerships,” he said.

GSA and NGA award contracts for ‘earth observation’ technologies

The General Services Administration announced Tuesday that it has teamed up with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency to award a number of blanket purchase agreements (BPAs) for “earth observation” products, services and tools.

The awards will fall under the earth observation special item number (SIN) on GSA’s IT Schedule 70 governmentwide contract. SINs are specialized subcategories within GSA’s acquisition schedules that make it easier for buyers and sellers to navigate the often broad contracts.

Awards have been made to:

These selected companies are now part of GSA’s “one-stop-shop” for products or services in the geospatial intelligence space and will be able to sell to agencies across the federal government. Collectively, they will provide things like sensor data, advanced analytics, machine learning, predictive analysis and more to customer agencies.

Using a BPA, instead of another contract vehicle, simplifies and speeds up the acquisition process for agencies. Per GSA, the government has a “growing need” for earth observation technologies like satellite imagery, communication, analytics and more, and thus a growing need to have easy access to this kind of tech.

“The commercial earth observation industry has experienced accelerated growth and we’re very pleased to position our offerings to provide the latest in emerging technology and solutions while making it easier for our government customers to reach these companies,” Bill Zielinski, GSA’s acting assistant commissioner for the Office of Information Technology, said in a statement.

The earth observation SIN, organized under IT Schedule 70, was created in partnership with NGA in summer 2017.  It’s a key part of NGA’s Commercial Initiative to Buy Operationally Responsive GEOINT, an initiative with the truly fantastic acronym CIBORG.

Membership is set for the Committee for the Modernization of Congress

The newly created Select Committee for the Modernization of Congress is ready to begin its work as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has announced his picks for the Republican side of the panel.

Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga., will fill the role of vice chairman, McCarthy announced Friday, and he’ll be joined by Rob Woodall, R-Ga., Susan Brooks, R-Ind., Rodney Davis, R-Ill., Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., and William Timmons, R-S.C.

“This committee cuts to the core of what the House of Representatives strives for every day: a direct conversation with the American people in an effort to solve problems and make our country and communities better,” McCarthy said in a statement. Technology has unquestionably improved House productivity, but we must aspire to do better when it comes to connecting with and serving the American people. I couldn’t think of a better member of our conference than Tom to lead this institution into a new era of effective, efficient, and accountable governance.”

McCarthy’s appointments round out the full capacity of the select committee, which was created in early January as part of the House rules package for the new Congress. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., made her selections on Jan. 29 — naming Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., the chairman. Pelosi’s other selections were Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa.

“With Congressman Kilmer at the head of the table, this Select Committee will strengthen and reinvigorate our institution, advancing a House of Representatives that is diverse, dynamic, oriented toward the future and committed to delivering results For The People,” Pelosi said in a statement when making her appointments.

The committee’s modernization mandate ranges from staff diversity and HR issues, to tech infrastructure updates and beyond. What it will choose to focus on remains to be seen, but advocates from both sides of the political spectrum say there’s a huge opportunity for the legislative branch to give its IT some needed attention.