The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) plans to open later this year an artificial intelligence (AI) policy “observatory,” following the OECD’s approval in May of an intergovernmental standard on AI agreed to by 36 member countries including the U.S. […]

General Dynamics Information Technology announced it won a new $2 billion, five-year contract to continue managing the State Department’s global technical security supply chain. […]

The State Department is making progress on its IT modernization effort, but is still lagging behind some of the goals it set as part of the President’s Management Agenda, as a June 20 update to the agency’s priority goals showed. […]

A U.S. senator is raising concerns that China could be exporting surveillance capabilities to authoritarian governments, and is calling on the State Department to put more emphasis on preventing the spread of those tools. […]

Federal IT leaders discussed the opportunity to share applications across government to reduce duplicative efforts and costs, and improve employee and customer experiences at ServiceNow’s Knowledge 2019 Conference. […]

The State Department is in the planning phase to create a cyber bureau within the department, a State Department official noted during a panel Q&A session on Thursday. […]

By a vote of 377-3, the House passed the Hack Your State Department Act late Tuesday evening. […]

The House late Tuesday voted to approve H.R. 6735, a bill that directs the Homeland Security Secretary to establish a vulnerability disclosure policy for the agency’s websites. […]

The State Department confirmed that its unclassified email system was breached, putting some employees’ personally identifiable information at risk. […]

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

CGI Federal has won a task order worth an estimated $530 million to provide services under the Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) Program to CDM’s Group C Federal agencies, a CGI spokesperson confirmed today. […]

Welcome to MeriTalk News Briefs, where we bring you all the day’s action that didn’t quite make the headlines. No need to shout about ‘em, but we do feel that they merit talk. […]

The State Department on Thursday announced its vision for U.S. cyberspace policy based on articulated deterrents to criminal cyberattacks, protection of an open Internet, and international engagement and collaboration to achieve those goals, according to the summaries of two reports to President Trump authorized by the Cyber Executive Order (EO) of May 2017. […]

It’s probably not a shocking revelation to learn that Federal IT managers are less than happy with their agency’s IT infrastructure. Their biggest gripes, according to a recent MeriTalk survey are that it’s 1) expensive, 2) difficult to manage, and 3) inefficient. Small wonder then that the same survey found that nearly all of those who participated—92 percent of 150 Federal IT managers—were frustrated with the state of their infrastructure.   […]

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke frankly about the need IT modernization in the State Department last week, both referencing his personal experiences with the department’s servers and tying it into a larger need for reorganization in the department, but failing to lay out any concrete plan for the changes. […]

Yesterday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed the Cyber Diplomacy Act, clearing the path for a new cyber ambassador. If signed into law, the act would establish an Office of Cyber Issues within the State Department and give the office’s head the status and rank of an ambassador. […]

Agencies are looking at ways to secure the edge of their systems in order to support a more mobile workforce. “The edge is where the mission happens,” said Max Everett, CIO of the Department of Energy. “We’re in the midst of a transformation. It’s modernization with a plan.” […]

The State Department is seeking to use blockchain technology to improve its IT platforms and to restructure the agency. The reorganization plan seeks to reduce the workforce, save Federal money, and maximize employee productivity. […]

The State Department’s cyber coordinator will be stepping down at the end of this month, according to reports from Politico. Chris Painter has been creating a strategic framework for cybersecurity during peacetime and gaining support from other countries. […]

The State Department announced its partnership with HackerNest in order to host Fishackathon, an event that uses digital solutions to address sustainable fishery challenges. […]

Countries are interested in discussing cybersecurity issues on an international level and agree on cyber norms because they see the potential threats, according to Christopher Painter, coordinator for cyber issues at the State Department. […]

Frontis Wiggins, chief information officer (CIO) of the State Department, released his strategic plan for Fiscal Years 2017-2019 on Dec. 8. […]

One agency received an overall F on its Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act scorecard—and it was not the agency that has failed the past two times. […]

The Department of State released new features Friday on its website, State.gov, including a fully responsive design that can be viewed on all devices, a more streamlined navigational structure, and increased integration with the agency’s social media accounts. […]

The State Department is gaining support from other nations for its framework for international cyber stability, which outlines responsible conduct in cyberspace. […]

The White House announced Friday that the Global Connect Initiative is working to connect 1.5 billion people to the Internet worldwide by 2020. […]

Over the past 10 years, agencies have made minimal use of their special government employees who do not serve on Federal boards, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. However, the report also states that not all of these SGEs’ assignments have been reliably documented. […]

The State Department’s Office of U.S. Foreign Assistance Resources has redesigned its main Web portal for making data on U.S. government foreign aid available to lawmakers, international aid organizations, and the general public. But a major effort is underway to improve the quality of the data collected and the site’s analytics capabilities. […]