The Daily Scoop Podcast

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence recently released a data strategy for Intelligence community agencies. The strategy, which runs from 2023 through 2025, provides focus areas and actions for all 18 IC agencies to accelerate adoption of common services and efforts to make data more interoperable, discoverable, and artificial intelligence-ready for both people and machines, according to ODNI. This isn’t ODNI’s first data strategy. The office released one back in 2017. But since then, the I-C has taken steps to mature its data environment and usage, and this latest document looks to usher in a new era of data-driven decisionmaking. To discuss that evolution, now joining the Daily Scoop Podcast is I-C Chief Data Officer Lori Wade. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

While most federal IT news typically comes out of CIO offices and agency headquarters, lately, Capitol Hill has been the driving force behind developments in our community. From funding decisions in recent appropriations proposals to landmark legislation and discourse on how to best approach regulation of AI, lawmakers have had their plates full with matters that will impact the greater federal technology landscape. Matt Cornelius, a former congressional staffer under Chairman Gary C. Peters on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, joins the Daily Scoop to discuss the full slate of federal IT issues being addressed in Congress. Cornelius also previously served as Senior Technology and Cybersecurity Advisor in the Office of Management and Budget and Senior Advisor to the Administrator at the General Services Administration. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

With the federal government on large scale journey to zero trust, many large departments and agencies are taking federated approaches in modernizing their cybersecurity. But the Department of Commerce is bucking that trend and instead adopting zero trust in a unified way across its 13 bureaus and many offices. Department of Commerce CIO Andre Mendes is leading that effort and spoke with me about why he chose a department wide construct for zero trust instead of letting each bureau agency chart its own course. And, he explained how Commerce is measuring success and discussed what comes next. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

In an effort to advance FedScoop’s coverage of federal technology and our commitment to driving better outcomes for the American public, we’ve recently invested heavily in our world-class editorial team. In recent months, the team added a pair of expert reporters to expand focus on the federal civilian executive branch agencies and their efforts to modernize and advance technology to deliver better services and mission outcomes. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

It’s no secret that the Department of Defense has struggled to scale innovation. Known as the Valley of Death, the challenge is that the department often fails to expand and build innovative pilots into larger production contracts. A new program operated by the Defense Aquisition University wants to attempt to solve that by wrapping its arms around the department’s innovation worfkorce readiness. Called Innovate to Win, the initiative is intended to help the DoD codify and measure the innovation readiness of the Defense Acquisition Workforce and, by extension, that of the whole DoD workforce. Dr. Marina Theodotou, the head of workforce innovation readiness for the Defense Acquisition University, and Christen Goulding, Director of Communications at DAU, join me now to discuss the program, its goals and how they hope to create a metric to measure innovation readiness. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

There’s a new book captivating audiences across the federal technology space and getting rave reviews. "Recoding America – Why Government Is Failing in the Digital Age and How We Can Do Better". Former U.S. Deputy CTO and founder of Code for America Jen Pahlka wrote the book based on her intimate firsthand knowledge of working in and with government agencies for most of the last two decades to improve digital service delivery. And in it, she concludes that there are much deeper issues that are leading to the failure of the U.S. government in the digital age …Or as the book’s synopsis puts it: “we must stop trying to move the government we have today onto new technology and instead consider what it would mean to truly recode American government.” In web application security, compromised credentials are responsible for 80% of breaches. This has highlighted the need to replace passwords with more effective security methods. Passwordless authentication methods offer a faster, more secure, hassle free way to protect our digital lives. In a new interview, Sean Frazier, federal chief security officer at Okta, discusses the advances and their use cases. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

The Department of Defense is undertaking a massive effort to adopt a zero trust security architecture across its enterprise by 2027. As ambitious as that effort is, it’s not going to happen without the support of automation driving it, according to DOD chief informations security officer Dave McKeown. McKeown spoke recently at the UiPath Together Public Sector summit about the role of automation in cybersecurity and how it also likely could’ve prevented recent leaks of classified information within the DOD. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

Experts are fearful that passage of appropriations for fiscal 2024 may be an ugly process that results in a hefty continuing resolution. While the CR would keep the government running, it would forbid federal agencies from spending money to start new programs or new activities. a continuing resolution could severely hamstring federal innovation, particularly on the defense side as the Pentagon and military services look to accelerat adoption of emerging tech in anticipation of a potential conflict with peer competiors like China or Russia. That’s according to Meagan Metzger, CEO of Dcode and a general partner with Dcode Capital, both of which focus on helping make the government better through innovative acquisition practices. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.

The Department of the Air Force is leveraging automation as a strategic imperative to support the service’s warfighting and defense mission. Particularly as the U.S. military is in the midst of a talent war, robotic process automation enables the Air Force to do more with less and to create work for airmen that is exciting and innovative.

The U.S. Army is undertaking a massive transformation to establish a unified network. The Global Enterprise Network Modernization – OCONUS program office, known as GENM-O, is responsible for providing network and infrastructure modernization to global stakeholders in the Europe, Pacific and Southwest Asia theaters. Tom Dunaway is product manager of GENM-O, leading the OCONUS effort as part of the Army’s larger network modernization in support of the service’s goal of establishing data-centric, multi-domain operations by 2028. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher. And if you like what you hear, please let us know in the comments.