Full-time virtual charter school students show weaker academic growth compared to students of traditional public schools. A new report calls for policy reform for full-time virtual charter schools to hold these schools accountable, and produce better results for their students. […]

The U.S. Forest Service used a Cessna 205 aircraft to discover that 26 million trees have died in California since October 2015. Instead of relying on satellite images or unmanned aerial vehicles, popular devices in today’s agriculture, the Regional Aerial Survey Program uses a more old-fashioned method of collecting data. […]

MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]

Dr. Keith Marzullo is the Director of the Federal Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) National Coordination Office (NCO). He also serves as the Co-chair of the NITRD Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Committee on Technology (CoT), where he oversees the operations and activities of the NITRD Program. The […]

MeriTalk is running a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]

State-Federal collaboration is going to be essential in combating state and local cyber threats, according to witnesses at a cybersecurity congressional hearing. “States have constantly ranked their cyber capabilities among the lowest capabilities,” said Rep. Dan Donovan, R-N.Y. “What is preventing us from reaching an appropriate level of cybersecurity?” […]

MeriTalk begins a series taken from a book-length work authored by a senior Federal IT official currently working in government. This is one part of an extensive, firsthand account of how IT decisions are made, the obstacles standing in the way of real change in government technology management, and what one career Federal IT employee really thinks about the way government does IT. […]

Catch up on some reading this weekend. Here are a few interesting items from around the Web. […]

The General Services Administration will be partnering with the City Innovate Foundation, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, and the U.S. Department of Commerce to create a 5,000-square-foot lab to foster technological collaboration between public and private entities. Called the Superpublic innovation lab, the project is designed to improve technological capabilities for city and state programs. […]

Content management company Box unveiled its Box for Government initiative, which brings together different product suites designed for government and enables agencies to work remotely, collaboratively, and with an assurance of security. Box for Government has already received a FedRAMP Provisional Authority to Operate (P-ATO) from the Defense Information Systems Agency. […]

Speed and communication are key elements to effective threat intelligence in the government, according to panelists at the Akamai Government Forum. “It’s a team sport. We really need to work together,” said Renee Tarun of the NSA. […]

Brigadier General Gregory J. Touhill (ret.), CISSP, CISM, serves as President of Cyxtera Federal Group, which offers Cyxtera’s market-leading data center services and cybersecurity capabilities to federal agencies and departments. Under Touhill’s leadership, Cyxtera Federal Group supports agencies across the federal government with a portfolio of secure infrastructure solutions delivered from a global footprint of […]

FITARA Fault Lines My Capitol Hill listening post has picked up several encrypted messages from the Government Accountability Office suggesting that the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act may be widening some major fault lines across government. While the law was designed to strengthen the role of the chief information officer, the Situation Report has […]

John Raymond works at the Justice Department in the Office of the Chief Information Officer serving as the Deputy Director of the Policy and Planning Staff.  In this role, John directs the budget, financial management, acquisition activities, and leads IT human resource management.  The Policy and Planning Staff also spearheads IT policy development, which recently […]

Catch up on some reading this weekend. Here are a few interesting items from around the Web. […]

Walker is a reluctant leader, being an engineer at heart. During his career at Oracle, he developed a deep interest in the power of data once it is transformed into information. BDNA has provided Walker the opportunity to build a better way for clients to extract value from their existing data. When not working, which […]

The Situation Report has picked up strong signals from our Office of Management and Budget outpost that senior administration officials are “pissed off” at Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., for inserting language into the omnibus spending bill that passed in December. Alexander is responsible for inserting a paragraph into the omnibus spending package that granted the […]

Rear Admiral Robert E. Day Jr. assumed the duties as the Assistant Commandant for Command, Control, Communications, Computers & Information Technology and the Director, Coast Guard Cyber CPre-Commissioning Detachment in July 2009. RADM Day graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering from the United States Coast Guard Academy in 1980. His first […]

Dan Katz, Technical Director for Public Sector, is responsible for empowering forward thinking government organizations with Acquia’s game changing digital solutions. As a key member of the leadership team, Dan drives product strategy and innovation to help governments leverage best of breed technology for citizen engagement, mission support, and web operations. Dan articulates Acquia’s value […]

John Gentry leads the team that is responsible for bringing Virtual Instruments message and vision to the market. John has been with Virtual Instruments since early 2009, leading the WW solutions Consulting team, and will bring that knowledge of the customer to the marketing organization. John brings 18 years of experience in Marketing, Product Marketing, […]

David A. Shive is the Chief Information Officer for the U.S. General Services Administration. Shive oversees GSA IT – formerly known as the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO) – and information technology operations and budget, ensuring its alignment with agency and administration strategic objectives and priorities. Shive joined the U.S. General Services Administration’s […]

On June 7, 2010, Bernard J. Mazer was selected as the Department of the Interior Chief Information Officer (CIO), assuming oversight responsibility for the Department’s estimated $1 billion information technology (IT) portfolio. The Interior Department with an annual $15.8 billion budget is considered a large, decentralized Cabinet agency with over 67,000 employees and 236,000 volunteers […]

Congressman Darrell Issa represents the people of California’s 50th Congressional District in the United States House of Representatives. The 50th District encompasses the central and northeastern parts of San Diego County and a portion of Riverside County, including the communities of Fallbrook, San Marcos, Valley Center, Ramona, Escondido, Santee, Lakeside, El Cajon, Temecula, and the […]

Joe Kirschbaum is a Director in the Defense Capabilities and Management Team of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). He assists congressional committees by overseeing evaluations of Department of Defense programs in the Homeland Defense and Emerging Threats and Capabilities portfolio. In 2013 Mr. Kirschbaum served as an acting director in GAO’s Homeland Security and […]

Ms. Neuman was appointed Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Officer by Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Beers in October 2013. Created by Congress in 2002, the Department’s Privacy Office is the first statutorily mandated privacy office in any federal agency, whose mission is to protect all individuals by embedding […]

Sales of vinyl records were up 52 percent in the first half of the year compared to last year. Are the ‘80s back? What else is coming back? Gas guzzlers? Feathered hair? The Macarena? What about mainframes? Nope. Album sales are surging because audiophiles like holding vinyl in their hands and reading liner notes. But […]

Cloud computing’s benefits outweigh the risks associated with moving data and applications to the cloud, panelists said at the Cloud Computing Caucus Advisory Group meeting this week. Cultural hurdles and practical concerns about making the transition from legacy systems to cloud computing continue to prevent more rapid adoption of cloud computing initiatives, and Federal agencies […]

A new report from the General Accountability Office (GAO) is at the center of the increasingly heated debate over the Medicare and Medicaid electronic health record (EHR) incentive program. The current debate stems around the pace at which Stage 3 of the meaningful use incentive requirements should be issued and the difficulties in achieving interoperability. […]

Cloud Service Provider (CSP) Esri last week earned a rare distinction – its Managed Cloud Services became the first system to transition from a CSP supplied package to an agency FedRAMP authorization. Esri, based in Redlands, California, initially earned its Authority to Operate (ATO) at the moderate level from the U.S. Census Bureau. Esri provides […]

A group of cybersecurity and computer science experts backed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency began a long-term encryption research effort last month that could one day prevent hackers from being able to reverse engineer and steal software. The goal of DARPA’s Safeware program is to develop technology that can cryptographically obscure software code, […]