Top Federal agency technology officials this week preached the virtues of continuous technology modernization as an ongoing process – rather than approaching modernization as a completed effort after specific goals have been achieved.
David Larrimore, chief technology officer at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), talked about the need for a continuous modernization approach during a webinar hosted by Federal News Network on June 26.
“The way we tend to operate is understanding that things that are innovative today will be legacy tomorrow,” Larrimore said.
“The mark of innovation for us is really about the ability to continuously modernize,” he continued. “So our ability to look at big problems and solve them in ways where we are continuously able to innovate is ultimately the measure of success we’re looking at today.”
Chezian Sivagnanam, chief architect and assistant director for architecture and design at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), offered that not all modernization efforts need to revolve around emerging technologies.
“Sometimes when innovation comes in people easily relate it to emerging technologies, but it’s not [and] it doesn’t have to be emerging tech. It’s all about new ideas,” he said.
“To me, the innovation is … harvesting great ideas from people, right? And then taking the idea, and then find a way to scale and make sure it’s adapted at an enterprise scale,” he added.
Ann Dunkin, chief information officer at the Department of Energy (DOE), stressed the need for more innovative ideas to help in continuous modernization at Federal agencies.
“There’s so much … great ideas in the government, right? It’s not a matter of figuring out what we want to be innovative about,’ said Dunkin.
“It’s about freeing all those ideas, letting people have the opportunities to work on the things they want to work on, and getting all the bureaucracy out of their way so they can do really cool stuff,” she said.
