Information Technology | The Contracting Education Academy

May 31, 2018 By cs

USDS to certify new acquisition specialty

The U.S. Digital Service is adding a digital services contracting certification to create a cadre of “technology acquisition mavericks.”

After two pilot efforts , USDS, along with the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, is launching a new certification program for digital services contracting for civilian agencies with an eye to reducing the cost and time it takes to procure digital services in government.

The idea for new program stemmed from a Challenge.gov winning submission, proposed by ICF International and ASI Government.

Government “didn’t teach how to buy digital services,” said Joanie Newhart, Associate Administrator for Acquisition Workforce Programs, Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

Keep reading this article at: https://fcw.com/articles/2018/05/23/usds-new-specialty.aspx

See the Office of Federal Procurement Policy’s memorandum May 18, 2018 on this subject at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/fac_c_digital_services_05_12_18.pdf

April 30, 2018 By cs

Military seeks faster cyber acquisition turnaround

The U.S. military is employing a mixture of procurement contracts and innovative practices to speed up the acquisition of defensive and offensive cyber technology as the volume and intensity of cyber attacks and threats against government agencies — both civilian and Defense — continues to rise.

Cyberspace is a warfighting domain that is critical to ensuring the military’s capability to operate going forward. The concept of operations for defensive cyber is complex because capabilities are dispersed across the battlespace and must continually adapt to evolving threats. The capabilities must protect data, networks and net-centric operations as well as be interoperable with other IT and software-dependent systems, according to Lt. Col. Scott Helmore, director of the Army Defensive Cyber Operations office (DCO).

Traditional requirements, funding, development, production and fielding of capabilities usually span years. However, technology is advancing so rapidly, and cyber threats are becoming so much more sophisticated, that cyber weapons and tools can become obsolete within months after deployment. As a result, Army DCO is looking to reduce the acquisition process to 30 days.

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/cyber-exposure/2018/04/military-seeks-faster-cyber-acquisition-turnaround/

August 29, 2017 By cs

Pentagon acquisition reorg is all about ending culture of fear of failure

For the Defense Department to recapture its broad technological advantage over the rest of the world, it can’t be afraid to fail once in a while.

Under that specific direction from Congress, the Pentagon detailed a plan to shake-up its Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (AT&L) office in the Office of Secretary of Defense with two main goals in mind: Accelerate the development and acquisition of cutting edge technology, and change the mindset of those buying, developing and managing technology.

To that end, DoD announced it will create a new Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E)) and a new Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (USD(A&S)) and offered its first detailed description of how it plans to use the newly-created position of chief management officer.

“In order to deliver new and needed capability to the warfighter, USD(R&E) will take risks while pushing the technology ‘envelope,’ testing and experimenting and being willing and allowed to fail when appropriate,” the report stated. “Once technological and integrated solutions have been identified and matured, USD(A&S) will minimize further risk, as necessary to ensure the needed capability is delivered and sustained in the most timely and cost-effective manner possible. The fact that the two organizations most integral to the delivery of effective and sustainable systems and services approach risk from such different perspectives reinforces special challenges.”

Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/defense/2017/08/pentagon-acquisition-reorg-is-all-about-end-culture-of-fear-of-failure/

August 24, 2017 By cs

This agency can help fast track your tech acquisitions

Several years ago, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began taking a more agile approach to technology. The agency hoped it would see more success by building systems in small, functional bites than by trying to build budget-busting projects that affect millions of people all at once.

After early successes implementing agile practices across the IT and business lines, the agency responsible for overseeing lawful immigration to the U.S. hit a wall, said David Simeon, chief of USCIS’ innovation and technology division.

“The challenge we ran into was the systems integrator market—the vendors you reach out to develop software for the government—had not kept up with agile,” Simeon told Nextgov.

As an early government adopter of agile practices, Simeon said by 2014 the agency’s next step was the deployment of cloud-native applications but that required “a brand new way of thinking” and new talent to boot. Rather than undertake a traditional approach to procuring new technology, which could take 18 months or longer, Simeon said USCIS turned to another federal agency: the National Technical Information Service (NTIS).

Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/big-data/2017/07/agency-can-help-fast-track-your-tech-acquisitions/139877/

March 2, 2016 By cs

Defense Dept. awards Georgia Tech contract to support cyber security information systems

The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) awarded the Georgia Tech Applied Research Corp. (GTARC), the contracting arm of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), a prime contract to support its Cyber Security and Information Systems Technical Area Task (CS TAT) program.

This CS TAT award is an indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contract with a ceiling value of $5 billion and a period of performance of five years.

“GTRI’s experience as the prime contractor on DTIC’s Military Sensing Information Analysis Center (SENSIAC) program, the deep bench of our large CS TAT team and GTRI’s strong and relevant past performance were key winning themes,” said GTRI’s CS TAT program manager Stephen Moulton. “GTRI leveraged several of its flagship programs to secure this award.”

Some of these programs include:

GTRI-developed Air Force Access Database System (AFADS): the authoritative source of personnel access information for special security;
Framework for Assessing Cost and Technology (FACT): an open architecture Web services-based environment that enables the interconnecting of models to provide rapid exploration of the design trade space in support of systems engineering analysis;
Apiary Malware Analysis Platform: this has analyzed more than 170 million unique samples of malicious binary files and executables and has generated over one billion analytical records to date
Prime support of Deployable Joint Command and Control (DJC2): a Secretary of Defense and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, priority transformation initiative that provides a standardized, integrated, rapidly deployable, modular, scalable, and reconfigurable Joint C2 Combat Operations Center to designated Geographic Combatant Commands;
GTRI’s support for the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM): A primary information sharing data layer supported by the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and the Department of Defense.

“All of these GTRI-led programs and many others mentioned in the proposal made this award a very easy decision for selecting Team GTRI for a prime contractor spot on CS TAT,” Moulton said.

GTRI assembled a very strong research and development team of 10 academic institutions, 4 non-profit research institutes, and 23 small and large business industry partners that work or perform research in all of the CS TAT technical focus areas, which include the following:

Software Data and Analysis
Cyber Security
Modeling and Simulation
Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

GTRI initiated the CS TAT capture process in July 2014 through the team of Chad Garber (capture lead), Trina Brennan, Jerry Lett, Roberta Burke, Steve Heighton, Jim Hilliard, Amy Paronto, Chris Smoak, Steve “Flash” Gordon, Frank Klucznik, Ryan Spanier, Ben Medlin, Margaret Loper, Chuck Turnista, Mark Kindl, Tommer Ender, Steve Reeder, Tim Boone, Bill Underwood, Terry Ragan, Ben Lowers, Valerie Taylor, Michael Farrell and Matt Guinn, as well as many others across GTRI.

GTRI’s expertise in basic and applied research, advanced technology development, advanced components and prototypes, system development and demonstration, research development test and evaluation (RDT&E) support, and operational system development, in addition to its frequent collaborations with Georgia Tech faculty, multiple facility locations, open-source software capabilities and a large body of cleared personnel contributed to the award.

“This was a total team effort across GTRI and our teammates,” said Steve Moulton, Director of Strategic Program Development, Information & Cyber Sciences Directorate (ICSD). “Thanks to all of the hard work of our CS TAT capture team and to GTRI’s SENSIAC and Defense Systems TAT (DS TAT) teams that went before us, whose groundwork greatly added to our success and our ability to efficiently capture this CS TAT award,” added Moulton.

DTIC, which reports to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (ASD(R&E)), awarded CS TAT, effective Dec. 1, 2015. The vehicle is a multiple-award, ID/IQ contract for research and development (R&D), as well as for advisory and assistance services related to R&D efforts.

In addition to GTRI, contracts were awarded to nine other large businesses and six small businesses. Small businesses are not allowed to compete within the large business (full and open) pool. Task order-level contracts (TATs) range in value, but GTRI will regularly compete for TATs with values up to $50M and higher if sponsors require more ceiling. CS TAT, like DS TAT, is now a primary and very viable contract vehicle option for GTRI and our DoD and federal government sponsors.

For more information, please contact the CS TAT Program Management Office (PMO) at cstat@gtri.gatech.edu.

Source: http://gtri.gatech.edu/news/gtri-awarded-position-cs-tat-contract-vehicle

The U.S. Digital Service is adding a digital services contracting certification to create a cadre of “technology acquisition mavericks.”

For the Defense Department to recapture its broad technological advantage over the rest of the world, it can’t be afraid to fail once in a while.

Several years ago, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services began taking a more agile approach to technology. The agency hoped it would see more success by building systems in small, functional bites than by trying to build budget-busting projects that affect millions of people all at once.

The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) awarded the Georgia Tech Applied Research Corp. (GTARC), the contracting arm of the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), a prime contract to support its Cyber Security and Information Systems Technical Area Task (CS TAT) program.

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