Health Datapalooza turns corner with new leadership, focus

The Health Data Consortium has passed along the hosting duties of next year’s Health Datapalooza to nonprofit AcademyHealth.

The consortium, a public-private partnership promoting health data and information sharing best practices, led the Health Datapalooza for the past six years, promoting health data liberation and accessibility — in large part through federal initiatives and policies. As the health data movement shifts its focus to helping the public act on the progress made, AcademyHealth is better suited to lead the event, HDC Board Chair James Bradley said in a statement.

“Recognizing our successes and the evolution of the health data movement in these new directions, we’ve decided to transition leadership of the DataPalooza to another organization with the expertise necessary deliver the quality event our community expects while increasing its focus on practical applications and the needs of the user community,” Bradley said. “Health DataPalooza will therefore continue under the auspices of AcademyHealth, a founding member of the HDC community and a leader in advancing the use of data and evidence to improve health and health care.”

Indeed, the evolution of the health data movement has reached the next phase “from data liberation to application,” said Susannah Fox, Department of Health and Human Services chief technology officer. “Data should inform decisions for individuals as well as for the entire health care delivery system and that is the direction we are moving toward.”

AcademyHealth also produces its own events, like the Electronic Data Methods Forum, a large event centered on health data and health learning systems. With this expertise and as “a champion for data liberation and a catalyst for its use in decision making and quality improvement,” said AcademyHealth President and CEO Dr. Lisa Simpson, “we’ll build on our work in this area to shape an [datapalooza] agenda that engages the broad community of data liberation champions — patients, advocates, researchers and delivery system and industry leaders — in focused discussions about how we turn data into evidence, and evidence into actions that improve health outcomes.”

Entering its seventh year, the Health Datapalooza has helped spotlight the health data movement and its importance in transforming health care with initiatives like Blue Button and precision medicine. The 2016 datapalooza will be May 8-11 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Washington, D.C. Organizers are calling for presentation abstracts until Nov. 30.

Tech licensing revenues grow for agency labs

The federal government brought in more money from licensing its own technology to the private sector and increased the number of research and development partnerships it has forged, according a report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

In the Federal Laboratory Technology Transfer report, released earlier this month, the 11 agencies that have federal laboratory operations brought in $184 million through technology licensing in fiscal year 2013 — a $20 million increase over the previous year. Additionally, the government added nearly 400 cooperative research and development agreements (CRADAs) over the course of the year. (Fiscal year 2013 is the most recent year for which the government has collected the data.)

By licensing federally developed technologies, the government encourages private companies to further develop and commercialize them. The Energy Department reported the largest number of licenses (9,148), followed by NASA (2,540), and the Department of Health and Human Services (1,426). The three account for 84 percent of all licenses reported that year.

The Defense Department reported the largest number of CRADAs (2,682) for fiscal year 2013, followed by the Commerce Department (2,428) and Department of Veterans Affairs (1,422).

Among the projects to come out of 2013 CRADAs are:

• The Public Safety Broadband Demonstration Network, a network that serves as a test bed for wireless technology related to first responders.
• Software code from the Air Force for predicting the failure of materials and structures composed of at least two different materials.
• A collaboration between the Department of Agriculture’s Forest Products Laboratory and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which manipulated wood fibers to create flexible electronics.

Read the report below.

Congress pushes for APIs, central data repository after hackathon

Congress isn’t doing enough to communicate with the public using “digital platforms” — like online portals and apps — and it’s undermining lawmakers’ relationships with constituents, according to a new report from congressional leaders.

Legislators on Capitol Hill hosted the second Congressional Hackathon in late October to spark discussion between lawmakers and American citizens on ways to modernize Congress and the legislative process. From that meeting, congressional leaders walked away looking immediately to make data more open and accessible. Specifically, in a report about the hackathon, lawmakers recommend creating public-facing APIs and a new website — Data.House.Gov — to act as a central repository for the House’s machine-readable data resources, along with a list of other potential action items.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., helped drive the discussion during the hackathon, emphasizing the need for a more digitally connected Congress.

“Modernizing government technology is absolutely critical if our democracy is going to remain as open and transparent as we want it,” Hoyer said in written remarks included in the report. “Making government more efficient, effective, transparent, and responsive, starts of course with making sure those who serve in government are better connected digitally to those who serve.”

McCarthy said in the report he wants a government that’s efficient, effective and accountable — all of which it can accomplish with modern technology.

“We are living through an era of dramatic change, with technology driving significant changes to almost every sector of our economy,” McCarthy said. “Unfortunately, the government’s use of those technologies often seems a generation behind. This is what motivates our conversation today; while we may not always agree on every policy proposal, we must work together to modernize our government for the digital age.”

Participants divided into five groups, each focusing on a different facet of Congress that could better use technology. The hackathon also focused on ways to make hearings more effective and accessible, and improve communication with American constituents.

“Digital platforms provide us with an opportunity to talk with the people, not just parrot talking points. We need to think about how these platforms can serve our institution’s core legislative purpose,” McCarthy said. “Think of committee hearings; television didn’t just change the press conferences, they changed the hearings themselves. That’s how we need to think, as we move Congress into the digital age.”

He concluded: “That’s what today’s Hackathon is about: bringing a diverse group of people together, even those who don’t always agree, to think about how to improve this institution.”

OMB extends comment period on A-130 revision

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget has extended the public comment period for the revised version of the A-130 circular by 15 days after a number of open government groups asked for more time to assess the changes.

In a comment on the A-130’s GitHub page, filed Nov. 12, 11 open government advocacy groups and trade associations asked for 30 days to weigh various changes OMB has made in regards to privacy and security.

“The Circular No. A-130 has a significant impact on public access to government information, as well as the management of federal government records and other resources that are vital to the public interest,” wrote Patrice McDermott, Executive Director of government transparency group OpenTheGovernment.org. “It is with this in mind that we request this extension in order to fully engage our communities on the proposed revision, and to allow proper time to review the document and provide thoughtful comment.”

OMB’s Chief of Policy, Planning, Budget, and Communications Jamie Berryhill submitted a response Thursday, saying the comment period will be extended until December 5. It had been scheduled to expire midnight Friday.

The A-130 revision is the first time the circular, which governs the federal use of IT, has been updated since 2000, and the draft rewrite incorporates a number of new federal policies and standards that have been created over the past 15 years.

Comments can be made on the document’s GitHub page.

NASA launches private partnerships for space exploration

As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration gears up for a manned mission to Mars, it announced yesterday the formation of 22 public-private partnerships that will yield technology critical for enabling long-term human and robotic exploration of the solar system.

Nine of the companies were selected through NASA’s “Utilizing Public-Private Partnerships to Advance Tipping Point Technologies” contract solicitation, designed to advance existing technologies past their “tipping point,” which NASA defines as marked by “high likelihood of infusion into a commercial space application and significant improvement in the ability to successfully bring the technology to market.”

“These new partnerships between NASA and U.S. industry can accelerate the development and infusion of these emerging space system capabilities,” Steve Jurczyk, associate administrator for the Space Technology Mission Directorate at NASA, said in a statement. “Sustained technology investments must be made to mature the capabilities required to reach the challenging destinations and meet the agency’s exploration goals, such as our journey to Mars.”

The technologies include thruster and propulsion systems, nano satellites, sensors, thermal protection sheaths and even robots to complete the in-space manufacturing of spacecraft and orbital structures. Contracts range from $1 million to $20 million, and will be fulfilled over a two-year period. After that, the companies will demonstrate the new technologies, which may be used in future spaceflights.

The contracted companies span the breadth of the U.S. and include niche operations like Busek Space and Propulsion Systems as well as aerospace powerhouses Boeing and Virgin Galactic.

“These awards enable us to continue to foster partnerships with the commercial space sector that not only leverage capabilities to meet NASA’s strategic goals, but also focus on U.S. industry markets that are at a tipping point for commercialization and infusion,” Jurczyk said. “At NASA, technology drives exploration and partnering with the private sector in this way supports the innovation economy and creates jobs.”

Watchdog: State Department IT security has glaring problems

An audit of the State Department’s information security program shows it’s not in line with federal requirements and the chief information officer is not equipped to make sure the program is effective, according to a new inspector general report.

An independent audit done by D.C. auditing firm Williams, Adley & Company found two glaring deficiencies with the State Department, the details of which were heavily redacted in report’s public release.

Of the details that were made publicly available, the audit found the CIO is not “properly positioned within the organization” to ensure the department’s security programs are effective.

Additionally, the auditors found that the information security programs were not in compliance with Federal Information Security Management Act, Office of Management and Budget, and National Institute of Standards and Technology requirements, despite efforts taken to improve the plan.

The report also takes issue with medium- and high-risk vulnerabilities that went unreported, access management issues, and email accounts. However the details of what auditors found have been completely stripped from the report.

A spokesperson for the State’s IG office told FedScoop the redactions were due to information included in the report that the department’s general counsel deemed to be exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests and therefore didn’t need to be included.

The State Department was the entryway for a breach of the White House’s sensitive but unclassified computer systems earlier this year, according to U.S. officials. That breach has since been attributed to Russian hackers.

Read the full inspector general report here.

Audit: OPM IT systems not ‘protected against another attack’

The Office of Personnel Management still struggles to meet many federal cybersecurity requirements, though it has made a concerted effort to improve its information security in the wake of a major data breach discovered earlier this year, according to the agency’s inspector general.

Information security has been a longstanding issue at OPM, the IG detailed in its final Federal Information Security Management Act audit report for fiscal year 2015 — 21 of the 27 recommendations in this latest report are at least a year old. And while OPM has bettered its information security management structure in the past fiscal year, according to this audit, “there has been a regression in OPM’s management of its system Authorization program,” an issue highlighted in the prior year’s audit.

In April, Chief Information Officer Donna Seymour issued an extension on systems with expired authorizations and those set to expire through fiscal year 2016, until the agency migrates applications into an entirely new and modernized IT environment it’s calling the “Shell.” But by then “the agency will have up to 23 systems that have not been subject to a thorough security controls assessment,” the report says, and the IG believes it will “result in the IT security controls of OPM’s systems being neglected.”

Adding to the security weaknesses, the report found OPM’s continuous monitoring methodology to be at a basic, or “ad hoc,” level. That combined with the numerous unauthorized systems makes the IG “very concerned that the agency’s systems will not be protected against another attack.”

OPM Office of the CIO personnel told the IG the continuous monitoring policies and procedures “are currently being restructured to better suit the current OPM environment,” the report states. That effort is currently in the drafting stage.

The agency also showed an “inability to accurately inventory its systems and network devices drastically diminishes the effectiveness of its security controls,” the report states.

The IG noted, however, that OPM has been very cooperative recently and has worked to address the IG’s past recommendations.

“We acknowledge that OPM has recently placed additional focus on addressing OIG audit recommendations, and has sought our input in implementing controls to protect its technical environment,” it said. “Significant work remains for the agency to secure its IT systems, and we are hopeful that this trend continues through the next fiscal year.”

Seymour almost unanimously concurred — she only partially concurred on a few — with the IG’s 26 total recommendations in the report.

“We welcome a collaborative dialogue to help ensure we fully understand the OIG’s recommendations as we plan our remediation efforts so that our actions and the closure of the recommendations thoroughly address the underlying issues,” she wrote in a letter responding to the IG’s draft recommendations. “I look forward to continued discussions during our monthly reviews to help ensure we remain aligned.”

OPM spokesman told FedScoop in an emailed statement: “OPM has been working tirelessly in addressing OIG recommendations. In fact, we have remediated nearly 80% of all OIG recommendations dating back to FISMA 2007 — a substantial increase over last year. As always, we welcome the assistance of our Inspector General in finding more ways to improve, and we are eager to continue our work on these remediations to further enhance our IT and cyber security program.”

​Big data and the examined life

Although the human population increases about 1 percent each year, the quantity of information we produce reportedly doubles every 18 months. In 2011, according to one report, humans had generated 1.8 trillion gigabytes — enough to fill so many 32 GB tablets that, stacked, they would build a wall twice as tall as the Great Wall of China. By 2020, the amount of data worldwide could exceed 40 trillion GB.

One reason for this exponential growth: mobile phones. More than half the global population owns at least one cell phone, reports the social media agency We Are Social. We don’t stop at just one: There are more mobile-service accounts than people in the world.

Wearables including watches, bracelets and clothing add to the information stream, as do devices including our cars and home appliances, making us all destined, it seems, to become human data factories.

Knowledge is power

What does all this data reveal about us? Nearly everything.

Online, our every keystroke adds another byte to the data pool, revealing our desires and quandaries, our values and opinions, our acquisitions and hobbies, our tastes in music, our favorite sports teams, our viewing and reading habits.

Apps and other tools report how much we sleep at night and how well, how many steps we take in a day, what we eat and drink — and how much, how intelligent we are, how much we travel and where we go, how much energy we consume, how much CO2 our activities generate, how much money we have and how we use it, and much more.

Orwellian though it may sound, all this information offers vast potential to improve and even extend our lives.

Already we are reaping the benefits. The “quantified self” movement, with its focus on individual monitoring and analysis, includes members whose data has helped them to lose weight, drink less alcohol, drink more water, save money, work more efficiently, manage their time better, become more physically fit, read faster, improve their memories, meet personal goals, manage chronic illnesses, improve their physical environment — and the list goes on.

The more we know about ourselves, the more we want to know.

Innovations in “consciousness hacking,” including brain tracking and augmentation — new frontiers in self-improvement — aim to monitor and direct our moods as well as to improve cognition.

Nanoparticles ingested in pills may someday provide an in-depth look at health, detecting very early such conditions as cancer, artery blockages and nascent diabetes.

Increasingly popular DNA tests can delve even more deeply, showing us our inherited tendencies and helping medical professionals to tailor treatments to match our individual makeup.

Big data = big solutions

Data’s potential extends far beyond enriching and prolonging individual lives, however. Shared freely — and, if desired, anonymously — “open source” data can provide us with big-picture scenarios that, properly analyzed, may benefit entire communities, or even the world. Why is autism on the rise? How will changing climates affecting food production? What innovations would best benefit my city, state, region or nation?

“The unexamined life is not worth living,” Socrates said some 2,400 years ago. How, then, might the data we generate, and its subsequent analysis, add value and meaning to our lives today and tomorrow? With an unprecedented trove of knowledge at our behest, we become as omniscient as the philosopher’s gods, able to foresee a future in which anything is possible.

JR Reagan is the global chief information security officer of Deloitte. He also serves as professional faculty at Johns Hopkins, Cornell and Columbia universities. Follow him @IdeaXplorer. Read more from JR Reagan.

FedScoop 50’s Golden Gov winners

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See the rest of the FedScoop 50 winners here.

Top 50 leaders from federal tech community honored at FedScoop 50 awards

FedScoop honored Washington’s top technology leaders and innovators during its elite FedScoop 50 awards Thursday night.

The ceremony, held atop the Hay-Adams Hotel overlooking the White House, gathered more than 200 government and industry leaders from across the country to recognize the extraordinary achievements they made in 2015. FedScoop celebrated leaders and programs in nine categories that touched all aspects of the federal IT community — including Disruptors of the Year, Cybersecurity Leadership, Most Inspiring Up & Comer, Federal Leadership, Industry Leadership, Tech Champion, Tech Program, Innovation of the Year and the most prestigious Golden Gov award.

“As a team we are very lucky because every single day, whether it be for a story, an event, through FedScoop TV or radio, we have the privilege of working with the most talented and innovative people in the country,” Scoop News Group founder and CEO Goldy Kamali said before presenting the awards. “We are thankful because we learn from you and are inspired by you. The FedScoop 50 awards were created as an opportunity to recognize the extraordinary achievements of leaders in our community that are doing big things that impact all of us.”

The federal IT community this year voted with ferocity, casting more than 250,000 votes for the nominees. FedScoop counted the votes to determine the winners in each category.

The 2015 winners of the FedScoop 50 awards are:

Golden Gov: Federal Executive of the Year

• Terry Halvorsen, chief information officer, Department of Defense
• Lt. Gen. Robert Ferrell, CIO, Army
• Megan Smith, U.S. CTO, Executive Office of the President
• Denise Turner Roth, administrator, General Services Administration
• Frank Baitman, CIO, Department of Health and Human Services
• Margie Graves, principal deputy CIO, Department of Homeland Security
• Tony Scott, U.S. CIO, Executive Office of the President
• Wolf Tombe, chief technology officer, Customs & Border Protection, DHS
• Steve Cooper, CIO, Commerce Department
• Adm. Michael Rogers, director, National Security Agency
• LaVerne Council, CIO, Department of Veterans Affairs
• Rob Foster, CIO, Navy

Federal Leadership

• David Bennett, CIO, Defense Information Systems Agency
• DJ Patil, chief data scientist, Executive Office of the President
• Luke McCormack, CIO, DHS
• Beth Cobert, director, OPM
• David DeVries, principal deputy CIO, DOD
• Sonny Bhagowalia, CIO, Treasury Department
• David Bray, CIO, Federal Communications Commission
• Phaedra Chrousos, associate administrator, OCSIT/18F, GSA
• Ann Dunkin, CIO, Environmental Protection Agency
• Frank Konieczny, CTO, Air Force
• Gwynne Kostin, director digital government, Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies, GSA
• Maria Roat, CTO, DOT
• Col. Bobby Saxon, division chief & program director, U.S. Army G-3/5/7
• David Shive, CIO, GSA
• Susan McHugh-Polley, executive director, field operations, VA
• Mark Schwartz, CIO, Citizenship and Immigration Services, DHS
• Kevin Deeley, deputy CIO, Department of Justice
• Richard McKinney, CIO, Department of Transportation
• Donna Dodson, chief cybersecurity adviser, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Industry Leadership

• Venkatapathi “PV” Puvvada, president, Unisys Federal Systems
• Mike Maiorana, senior vice president, public sector, Verizon Enterprise Solutions
• Rob Potter, vice president, public sector, Symantec
• Brian Strosser, executive vice president, sales and marketing, DLT Solutions
• Michael Tanner, president & CEO, Hitachi Data Systems Federal
• Anthony Robbins, VP, federal, Brocade
• Barry Leffew, VP, public sector, Adobe
• Bill Rowan, VP, federal, VMware
• Greg Myers, VP, U.S. federal sales, Microsoft

Disruptor of the Year

• Jeff Blank, technical director, NSA
• Greg Godbout, CTO, EPA
• U.S. Digital Service team
• Todd Park, technology adviser, Executive Office of the President

Cybersecurity Leader of the Year

• Andy Ozment, lead, National Cybersecurity Communications Integration Center, DHS
• Michael Daniel, special assistant to the president and cybersecurity coordinator, Executive Office of the President

Most Inspiring Up & Comer

• Tyrone Grandison, deputy chief data officer, Commerce Department

Tech Champion of the Year

• Robert Klopp, deputy commissioner of systems & CIO, Social Security Administration

Tech Program of the Year

• Mobility Initiative 5 (MI-5), DHS

Innovation of the Year

• CitySDK, Census Bureau