The Government Technology Insider Podcast

The pandemic has hit Native Americans particularly hard. The barriers to connectivity in tribal communities that impact public health are wide-ranging, including little to no connectivity and vast remote areas with underserved communities.Although these challenges make getting accurate information to tribal members difficult, there are solutions that can break down these barriers, and lead to better community outcomes. For example, by marrying multiple technologies, tribal communities can connect to promote vaccine distribution and testing, enable public safety for members, and help to bring the community together.These were the key themes in the second part of our Critical Communications in Tribal Communities podcast, hosted on Government Technology Insider, where Walter Murillo, CEO at Native Health; and Jeff Schweitzer, 5G Innovation Architect at Verizon, discussed this topic further.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented many challenges for people throughout the country, but it was especially apparent for educational efforts in tribal communities. For those learning on tribal lands, access to education and learning materials was made even more difficult due to poor Internet connections or no Internet at all.Despite these barriers, as well as existing cultural challenges, tribal communities were able to come together during the COVID-19 pandemic and partner with industry to deliver much needed learning materials to students during a very difficult time.These were the key themes for the first episode of the Government Technology Insider podcast, “Critical Communications in Tribal Communities” podcast, where Christie Abeyta, Assistant Principal at the Santa Fe Indian Middle School in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Francis Vigil, Tribal Education Specialist at the National Indian Education Association; and Anita Hart, Client Partner Federal, Tribal Team at Verizon, discussed how tribal nations were able break down the educational digital divide with innovation.

While there’s a lot of talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the public sector, some agencies have yet to take a deep dive into exactly what this technology can bring to their workforces. As AI has gone through a tremendous evolution over the past several years, there are significant opportunities for agencies, but there are also still some implementation challenges.From automation to solving key big data challenges, AI provides the opportunity to optimize data for enhancing decision-making and program outcomes. Public sector agencies are also seeing the need to build the quality of AI to meet the growing need for edge computing solutions to meet today’s mission.These were the key themes of our latest Government Technology Insider podcast about how public sector agencies can further embrace AI. In this episode, Kal Voruganti, Senior Fellow and Vice President at Equinix; and Scott Andersen, Distinguished Solution Architect at Verizon, discussed the evolution of artificial intelligence and the challenges that come with growing arena.

The hybrid cloud has risen in prominence and is shaping the future of government. It offers a wide-range of benefits including enhanced cost-savings to making overall IT modernization efforts less complex for government agencies.The hybrid cloud also provides for a more incremental approach to overall cloud adoption, which opens the door to leveraging new applications in highly agile ways. It also extends on-premise capabilities for embracing next generation capabilities such machine learning and data visualization.These were the key themes in this Government Technology Insider podcast, where we were joined by Dave Pipes, Senior Solutions Architect at Affigent, and Rich Ayala, Master Principal Cloud Architect at Oracle, who provided a deep-dive perspective into how the hybrid cloud is transforming the public sector.

The federal government is on the cusp of a major digital transformation event. Between the rapid advances in IT modernization in 2020 courtesy of the pandemic and the influx of funding – approximately $1 billion for Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) under the American Rescue Plan – federal agencies are well set to overhaul their IT infrastructure in the coming year. How they will direct this funding and determine their tech priorities has undoubtedly become a big source of interest. Through streamlined acquisition capabilities, and much more, 8(a) and Native-owned small businesses have been driving IT modernization efforts, which helps government to maximize their investments while also meeting mission goals.These were the key themes of our “8(a) and Native Owned Small Business Advantage: Helping to Shape Federal IT Priorities and Missions” podcast where Ryan Maloney, President at Chenega Systems; Heather Lacroix, President of Chenega Technical Innovations, and Brandilynn Collins Garrison, Partner Manager for Small and Medium Businesses at Verizon Public Sector, discussed this topic further.

There has been a rise in the amount of unstructured data – anything that is not in a structured database – in the government arena. With a proliferation of data from many sources, the most critical issue is being able to glean business intelligence from these vast amounts of data sets without burdening budgets.In order for agencies to bring this data to life, they need to breakdown the siloed infrastructure and move away from purchasing IT under the same capital-expenditure pretexts.In this recent Government Technology Insider podcast interview, Dallas Nash, Senior Director of Sales for Unstructured Data Solutions at Dell Technologies, shares insights into the current data landscape for today’s agencies by diving deeper into how unstructured data impacts the bottom line and improves their overall data landscape.

Over the past several years, software-defined networking in a wide area network (SD-WAN) has emerged as a key solution for federal agencies that improves end-user services, complements existing infrastructure, and provides end-to-end security. In addition, it meets both FISMA and FedRAMP guidelines, which helps agencies to optimize IT more securely.These were the key themes of the Government Technology Insider “SD-WAN: Improving the User Experience” podcast interview, where Bill Ambrose, Product Manager, supporting SDN and Virtual Services, at Verizon, discussed the challenges and opportunities for federal agencies moving into this arena.

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly changed more than our overall health system, impacting Continuity of Operations (COOP) planning for US government organizations, as well as U.S. organizations located outside of the continental United States (OCONUS). These changes have helped organizations reprioritize disaster recovery and continuity of operations planning.From a COOP perspective during a pandemic, many organizations are now working in remote locations, which is pointing to the need for embracing new security models such as Zero Trust, the software-defined perimeter, and Quantum Key Distribution (QKD). For permanent locations abroad such as U.S. embassies, organizations truly need to reconsider COOP with regards to security and dispersed workforces – even those needing access to classified information.These were the key themes of the Government Technology Insider “Disaster Recovery and Continuity of Operations Planning in a Post-Pandemic World” podcast interview where Mike Young, Client Partner handling Public Sector Sales in EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) at Verizon, discussed OCONUS disaster recovery and COOP further.

Cloud transformation has charted the path forward for government agencies, allowing them to be nimbler and more efficient in leveraging IT for overall mission success. In many ways, the cloud represents the most wide-ranging technological change in the government by bringing all innovations together into an on-demand, highly flexible virtual platform that can scale up and down to meet the needs of changing workloads.For government agencies, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) offers a more secure, flexible, and less costly alternative to operating their own data centers. For example, one major federal department used OCI to provide its human resources shared system to 26 subordinate agencies – impacting around 300,000 civilian employees. The agency immediately saw millions of dollars in savings over its previous managed hosting environment and was able to gain enhanced IT efficiencies and performance.

Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) represents the next generation of cybersecurity. By leveraging encryption keys, two end locations in different places can exchange and send files over in seconds – and these files are safe because hackers can’t steal encryption keys. Considered to be the most secure form of information sharing, QKD leverages instant threat detection and Zero Trust Architecture to notify teams when there is a threat detected.In the government arena, QKD is highly effective and will be an important tool in the cybersecurity defense of our nation, and many countries Europe and Asia are paving the way for implementations in the U.S. These were the key themes of our recent Government Technology Insider “Quantum Key Distribution: Securing Future Network Communications” podcast interview where Lee Sattler, Distinguished Engineer at Verizon, broke down the fundamentals of QKD.