How the Federal Government is Implementing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Practices

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are key focus areas of the Biden administration's President's Management Agenda (PMA). Additionally, the administration issued an executive order in June 2021 directing agencies across government to implement more diversity training, rethink the use of salary history as a basis for pay determinations, and supply gender non-conforming and nonbinary and transgender employees with credentials that reflect their current names, pictures and pronouns. Finally, in November 2021 the administration offered a strategic plan to help guide agencies in diversity efforts, asking for the submission of agency-specific Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) plans by March 2023.

Diversity Today

This focus is starting to show results. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) released a first-ever report on the diversity of the federal workforce. It looked at hiring and retention across agencies and gave a snapshot of the administration's efforts to remove barriers for applicants from underrepresented communities. The report finds small but encouraging gains in racial diversity between 2017 and 2021 with Black employees rising from 18.15 percent to 18.19 percent of the federal workforce. Latinx made a much larger jump rising from 8.75 percent to 9.95 percent. Women's representation grew from 43.38 percent of the workforce in 2017 to 44.44 percent in 2021. Future reporting will look at nonbinary workers. Continue reading

Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2022: See Yourself in Cyber

Since 2004, The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the National Cybersecurity Alliance (NCA) have led a collaborative effort (at the direction of the President and Congress) to raise cybersecurity awareness nationally and internationally. Marking October as Cybersecurity Awareness Month, individuals and organizations are given the tools to ramp up their cybersecurity education efforts. The theme for 2022 is "See Yourself in Cyber," putting the people aspect of cybersecurity front and center.

This focus on people is two-fold. First, there is the individual and personal responsibility each of us has to understand good cyber hygiene and conduct ourselves online in a way that protects the networks we depend on. Second, there remains a huge gap in the number of cybersecurity professionals and the number of roles that need filled. The "See Yourself in Cyber" theme invites more people to see their roles and skills in a cyber light, creating a bridge across the cybersecurity skills gap. Continue reading

Socrata Powers–and Benefits From–Open Data Movement in Government

Originally posted by Benjamin Romano on Xconomy

Drawing on an unprecedented amount of government data that is easier to access than ever before, more than 11,000 software developers, entrepreneurs, students, and others across the country devoted part of last weekend to building technologies designed to help local, state, and federal governments solve problems and improve their communities.

The first National Day of Civic Hacking encompassed events in 83 cities including Detroit, where an understaffed city department sought help answering its phones; Denver, where the winning team built an app that helps visitors find legal marijuana dispensaries; and Seattle, where teams developed tools to connect people with events in their neighborhoods.

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Business & Technology Solutions Summit Kicks Off Bicoastal Conferences (Call for Speakers!)

Cloud and Big Data solutions conferences coming to Seattle/Bellevue, Wash., and Raleigh, N.C., in 2013; call for speakers for West Coast event open until November 30, 2012

SEATTLE, Wash. Cloud computing and Big Data are the most relevant business topics for leaders in both the private and public sectors.  Attending a Business & Technology Solutions (BTS) Summit will be essential for these decision makers to learn and hear firsthand the latest developments and trends in cloud computing and Big Data.

Two bicoastal events are scheduled for 2013: a West Coast event takes place April 16 - 17 at the Meydenbauer Center in Bellevue, Wash., and an East Coast conference will be held August 20 - 21 at the Raleigh Convention Center, Raleigh, N.C.

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