June, 2024

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How the CIA is using generative AI — now and into the future

FedScoop

From human intelligence collection to information gathered in the open, the CIA is leveraging generative artificial intelligence for a wide swath of its intelligence-gathering mission set today, and plans to continue to expand upon that into the future, according to the agency’s AI lead. The CIA has been using AI for things like content triage and “things in the human language technology space — translation, transcription — all the types of processing that need to happen in order to

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AWS announces $50 million Generative AI Impact Initiative for public sector organizations

AWS Public Sector

Today, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the AWS Public Sector Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) Impact Initiative. The two-year, $50 million investment is designed to help public sector organizations – and those that directly support their technology needs – to accelerate innovation in support of critical missions using AWS generative AI services and infrastructure, such as Amazon Bedrock , Amazon Q , Amazon SageMaker , AWS HealthScribe , AWS Trainium , and AWS Inferentia.

Education 140
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Why most government contractors are feeling confident about 2025

Federal News Network

Government contractors on the whole are optimistic about future business. More than half grew their revenue year over year. They expect more growth as the government adopts artificial intelligence. The most recent contractor survey conducted by Deltek also shows small businesses have outsized challenges. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin got more from Deltek Senior Vice President Kevin Plexico.

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OSC Pushes Congress to Permanently Recognize National Whistleblower Day

Whistleblower Network News

On June 20, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) announced it is advocating for July 30 to be permanently recognized as National Whistleblower Appreciation Day. In a letter to congressional leaders, Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger calls for making this recognition permanent. “The establishment of a permanent Whistleblower Appreciation Day reinforces the longstanding bipartisan consensus that whistleblowers serve an invaluable role in our government,” Dellinger said.

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How to Create a Blueprint for Fleet Resilience

Speaker: Jeff Dickinson - President and CEO of Railgistixs Transport, Supply Chain and Logistics Thought Leader

Despite the ongoing transformation of the supply chain and logistics landscape, the steadfast importance of carrier safety remains a core principle. From prioritizing preventative maintenance to optimizing fleet utilization, the fundamentals persist. If you’re overlooking and neglecting essential safety precautions today, this could result in expensive repairs and potential safety hazards in the future. 🚧 Join Jeff Dickinson for a conversation on how to mitigate risk, enforce compliance,

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Ultimate Endless Real Estate Costs at Red Lobster

Art of Procurement

Red Lobster is the largest seafood chain in the United States. It buys 20 percent of North American lobster tails. The post Ultimate Endless Real Estate Costs at Red Lobster appeared first on Art of Procurement.

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4 Tips to Elevate Your Company’s Cybersecurity

GovCon Wire

The cyber threat landscape is ever changing, and businesses can’t afford for their cybersecurity posture to lag behind. According to cyber experts, there are a few key tips that can help organizations of any size improve their cyber hygiene and better protect themselves against growing threats.

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Highlights from the 2024 AWS Summit Washington, DC keynote

AWS Public Sector

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and inspiration dominated today’s AWS Summit Washington, DC keynote. But there was no shortage of newsworthy moments and key takeaways that extended beyond generative AI. Dave Levy , vice president of Worldwide Public Sector at Amazon Web Services (AWS), delivered the DC Summit keynote. Levy was joined onstage by three special guests who helped him set the tone for the annual two-day event that brings the public sector cloud community together i

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Retired four-star admiral faces 30 years in prison on bribery charges

Federal News Network

62-year-old Robert Burke, a retired four-star admiral, is facing up to 30 years in prison for an alleged scheme to steer a government contract to a company in exchange for future employment. Burke, who served as the vice chief of naval operations from 2019 to 2020, has been arrested and charged with four felony counts, including bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery.

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Billie Winner-Davis and Victoria Turner

Whistleblower Network News

In this special episode of the Whistleblower of the Week podcast, host Jane Turner speaks with Billie Winner-Davis and Victoria Turner about the trauma experienced by family members of whistleblowers who face retaliation. Billie is the mother of Reality Winner , the intelligence community whistleblower imprisoned for leaking a NSA report on the Russian government’s attempts to interfere with the 2016 election.

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Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: Progress or Setback?

Art of Procurement

The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA, was passed to protect an ethnically Turkish, predominantly Muslim minority living in. The post Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act: Progress or Setback? appeared first on Art of Procurement.

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Robert Lewis Named GDIT’s CTO for Intelligence & Homeland Security Division

GovCon Wire

Robert Lewis, a 21-year veteran of General Dynamics‘ (NYSE: GD) information technology, has been appointed chief technology officer for GDIT’s intelligence and homeland security division, according to his LinkedIn post. He assumed the position after serving as vice president of engineering and solutions within the company’s intelligence and homeland security segment for nearly three years.

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Core4ce Receives $90M NIWC Atlantic Contract for Cybersecurity Service Provider Support

ExecutiveBiz

Core4ce will help the Naval Information Warfare Center Atlantic provide the Department of Defense with full-scale Cyber Security Service Provider services over a five-year period. The company said Tuesday it received a $90 million other transaction authority production contract to support CSSP operational environments across the NIWC network.

Contract 117
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Fine-tuning an LLM using QLoRA in AWS GovCloud (US)

AWS Public Sector

Introduction Government agencies are increasingly using large language models (LLMs) powered by generative artificial intelligence (AI) to extract valuable insights from their data in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) GovCloud (US) Regions. In this guide, we walk you through the process of adapting LLMs to specific domains with parameter efficient fine-tuning techniques made accessible through Amazon SageMaker integrations with Hugging Face.

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Lawmakers advance DHS bills to ban Chinese batteries, help TSAers with commute

Federal News Network

The House Homeland Security Committee advanced a raft of new legislation today, including a bill aimed at cutting major Chinese battery manufacturers out of the Department of Homeland Security’s supply chain. The committee today voted to approve a bill from Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fl.), “Decoupling from Foreign Adversarial Battery Dependence Act.” The bill would block DHS from procuring batteries from six Chinese companies over concerns about human rights abuses, as well as supply chain and cyber

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Agencies Find Zero Trust, Cyber Resilience Go Hand in Hand

FedTech Magazine

Agencies’ cybersecurity budgets continue to increase to help them better prevent evolving threats to sensitive data and systems. Investing in stronger security measures and cyber hygiene training for employees makes sense, but mistakes — such as clicking on a suspicious link — are inevitable, and when they occur, attackers can breach federal systems.

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The power of procurement data: How one villager unveiled a corruption scandal

Open Contracting Partnership

By Torplus Yomnak, Co-Founder of HAND Social Enterprise and the Director of the Knowledge Hub for Regional Anti-Corruption and Good Governance Collaboration (KRAC) In May 2021, amid the pandemic lockdowns, a villager in Thailand took a stroll on the outskirts of their town, making an unexpected discovery that would stir the local community. There, on an overgrown, vacant plot of land, hidden among tall weeds, stood rows of ornately decorated solar lamp posts.

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General Dynamics Books $1.1B Navy Contract for DDG 51 Destroyer Planning Yard Support

GovCon Wire

A General Dynamics (NYSE: GD) subsidiary has received a potential five-year, $1.13 billion contract from the U.S. Navy to provide planning yard support services for the military branch’s DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers.

Contract 115
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IonQ Appoints Dean Kassmann as Head of Engineering and Technology Division

ExecutiveBiz

Quantum computing company IonQ has named Dean Kassmann as senior vice president of its newly formed engineering and technology division. The College Park, Maryland-based firm said Friday that Kassmann previously served as vice president of engineering.

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Empowering 1,000-plus partners: How the AWS Think Big for Small Business Program fuels public sector innovation

AWS Public Sector

In the intricate landscape of public sector procurement, the demand for innovation, efficiency, and reliability is paramount. As government agencies seek to modernize their operations and deliver enhanced services to citizens, the role of small businesses becomes increasingly pivotal. Yet, the journey from small business solution to impactful collaboration is a field with challenges and opportunities.

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Accounting software keeps small business out of federal market

Federal News Network

A shrinking number of companies seem to want to do business with the federal government. Especially small businesses. Could it be all of the reporting and compliance requirements. There is one class of compliance that is particularly tricky , as the Federal Drive with Tom Temin heard from the Founder and CEO of PROCAS, Jim Wesloh. Interview Transcript: Tom Temin For someone that went through the trouble of finding government opportunities, deciding they want to do this and then bidding and win

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Bridging the Civilian-Defense Compliance Divide

FedTech Magazine

Civilian agencies teaming up with defense agencies on IT modernization efforts and sharing systems to improve efficiency are experiencing compliance challenges due to the latter’s higher-level security framework. As a result, civilian agencies may struggle to support the necessary security protocols and data encryption. Agencies may also encounter process disruptions; if the civilian-side workflows don’t align with those on the defense side, interoperability can be difficult to achieve.

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OpenAI official meets with the USAID administrator

FedScoop

USAID Administrator Samantha Power met this week with OpenAI’s head of global affairs, according to an agency press release , a move that comes as the international development organization continues to invest in artificial intelligence while also raising concerns about the technology’s privacy, security, bias, and risks. The Monday meeting with OpenAI’s Anna Makanju focused on artificial intelligence’s impact on global development, the release stated.

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FBI Issues List of 95 Awardees on $8B Follow-On IT Supplies & Support Services BPA

GovCon Wire

The FBI has released the list of 95 awardees on the second iteration of the potential eight-year, $8 billion Information Technology Supplies and Support Services blanket purchase agreement. The bureau first announced the award of the ITSSS-2 BPA on May 24 in a SAM.gov notice.

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Gordon Kesting, Glenn McArthur Join D-Fend’s US Leadership Team

ExecutiveBiz

Counter-drone technology provider D-Fend Solutions has expanded its U.S. leadership team with the appointment of Gordon Kesting as vice president of U.S. sales and business development and Glenn McArthur as business development manager. Both executives bring extensive industry experience and will help the company dominate the counter-unmanned aerial system sector through its U.S.

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Use Amazon SageMaker to perform data analytics in AWS GovCloud (US) Regions

AWS Public Sector

Introduction Amazon SageMaker is a fully managed machine learning (ML) service that provides various capabilities, including Jupyter Notebook instances. While RStudio, a popular integrated development environment (IDE) for R, is available as a managed service in Amazon Web Services (AWS) commercial Regions , it’s currently not offered in AWS GovCloud (US) Regions.

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State Department’s R & D approach has industry puzzled

Federal News Network

Federal services contractors are scratching their collective head over a State Department gambit. State put out a solicitation to sponsor three federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs). But what the department wants doesn’t sound like anything industry or government couldn’t do already. That’s according to the Federal Drive with Tom Temin ‘s guest, the Executive Vice President for Policy at the Professional Services Council, Stephanie Kostro.

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Cloud Vendors Must Consider FedRAMP’s Identity and Authentication Controls

FedTech Magazine

Cloud service providers must ensure they can integrate new federal security and privacy controls into their processes if they want to continue doing business with agencies. The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program revised its security controls baseline to align with Special Publication 800-53 Revision 5 from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and verify that CSPs are protecting operations, assets, other organizations and the nation from cyberattacks, human err

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DHS announces first members of its AI Corps

FedScoop

The Department of Homeland Security has announced the first members of its AI Corps, a group of technology experts hired as part of an agency hiring sprint. The inaugural 10 members come from backgrounds in artificial intelligence, product management, cybersecurity, analytics and software engineering, according to the announcement from DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Chief AI Officer Eric Hysen.

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PPDNI Stacey Dixon Accepts 2024 Wash100 Award

GovCon Wire

Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Dr. Stacey Dixon received her 2024 Wash100 Award from Executive Mosaic CEO Jim Garrettson during a recent meeting. The Wash100 Award annually recognizes the executives of consequence shaping the government and the government contracting sector.

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MetTel Books USPS Contract for Telephone Line Modernization

ExecutiveBiz

MetTel has received a contract from the U.S. Postal Service to retire around 35 million to 80 million plain old telephone lines or basic analog landlines across 17,000 USPS locations. Under the POTS transformation initiative, the global communications provider said Tuesday it will replace existing circuit-switched phone signals with networked multi-path internet protocol.

Contract 111
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Singapore’s National Library Board aims to unlock country’s rich heritage with AR app built by AWS Partner NCS

AWS Public Sector

The vision of Singapore’s National Library Board (NLB) goes beyond making information accessible; the NLB is focused on bringing the richness of the nation’s cultural heritage right to the palm of your hand. As part of its LAB25 (Libraries and Archives Blueprint 2025) Singapore Storytellers initiative, the NLB seeks to nurture a stronger appreciation and understanding of the Singapore experience.

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A break down of the proposed CIRCIA rule

Federal News Network

This week on Off the Shelf , Townsend Bourne, partner at Sheppard Mullin , shares her insights regarding the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA’s) proposed rule implementing the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022 (CIRCIA). Townsend Bourne, partner, Sheppard Mullin At over 400 pages, the proposed CIRCIA rule is a daunting read.

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Where Will You Be on Q Day?

GovLoop

An interview with Avesta Hojjati, Vice President of Engineering, DigiCert For almost half a century, encryption algorithms have kept data safe. No matter how powerful today’s classical computers get, that encryption would still take thousands — or even millions — of years to break. The advent of quantum computing has changed all that. Put simply, some problems that are arduous for classical binary computers to solve, including the mathematical problems behind today’s encryption methods, are easy

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VA’s technical infrastructure is ‘on pretty good footing,’ CAIO and CTO says

FedScoop

Working under the threat of technology-related budget cuts that has elicited concern from both sides of the aisle , the Department of Veterans Affairs has managed to make progress on several tech priorities, the agency’s artificial intelligence chief said last week. In an interview with FedScoop, Charles Worthington, the VA’s CAIO and CTO, said the agency is engaged in targeted hiring for AI experts while also sustaining its existing modernization efforts.

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Chris Coligado Joins Smoothstack as EVP, Federal Market Lead

GovCon Wire

McLean, Virginia-based information technology services provider Smoothstack has appointed Chris Coligado, a senior executive with over 20 years of technology consulting experience, as executive vice president and federal market lead.

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CTC Awarded Marine Corps Contracts to Help Improve Energy Resilience; Ed Sheehan Quoted

ExecutiveBiz

The U.S. Marine Corps has awarded Concurrent Technologies Corp. two contracts to help the service branch improve energy resilience to support warfighters and their mission requirements. CTC said Friday both contracts were awarded by Marine Corps Installations Command.

Contract 111