Big data projects are found all around us, and many of us have one attached to our hand all day. Apple’s personal assistant technology, Siri, began as a big data project in the Pentagon laboratory, priding itself on the ability to collect, store, analyze and disseminate practically any data you throw at it – structured or unstructured. But Siri isn’t the only government big data project that has recently gained traction. Last...

The General Services Administration’s (GSA) Government-wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) are becoming increasingly vital to agencies by enabling them to leverage GSA’s buying power, achieve multi-agency objectives, and acquire acquisition and contract management functions at competitive rates. As the number of companies seeking schedule contracts has roughly doubled over the last several years, with over 80 percent being small bus...

This November marked the halfway point of the Digital Government Strategy, a full-year plan aimed at delivering higher quality digital services to the public – and many deliverables have already been met. Several second quarter milestone actions in particular provided huge progress to the program, including GSA’s customer engagement initiatives, the Federal CIO Council’s BYOD Toolkit and NIST’s application of standards...

The AFCEA Bethesda Monthly Breakfast series features panel discussions led by senior-executive government representatives. With speakers drawn largely from federal civilian agencies, breakfast topics span a wide range of timely issues—from health IT to cybersecurity to Gov 2.0—and are discussed in a panel format that offers a compelling snapshot of multiple agency perspectives. The goals of the event are to foster better inter-agen...

The AFCEA Bethesda Monthly Breakfast series features panel discussions led by senior-executive government representatives. With speakers drawn largely from federal civilian agencies, breakfast topics span a wide range of timely issues—from health IT to cybersecurity to Gov 2.0—and are discussed in a panel format that offers a compelling snapshot of multiple agency perspectives. The goals of the event are to foster better inter-agen...

AFCEA Bethesda is pleased to announce an innovative educational symposium for government and industry participants who are or want to be on the cutting edge of smart technology and sustainability. The goals of the event are to make the business case for sustainability, show "big data" applications for energy management, highlight accomplishments with smart building technologies, illustrate saving from effective Federal fleet management, data c...

The AFCEA Bethesda Monthly Breakfast series features panel discussions led by senior-executive government representatives. With speakers drawn largely from federal civilian agencies, breakfast topics span a wide range of timely issues—from health IT to cybersecurity to Gov 2.0—and are discussed in a panel format that offers a compelling snapshot of multiple agency perspectives. The goals of the event are to foster better inter-agen...

The AFCEA Bethesda Monthly Breakfast series features panel discussions led by senior-executive government representatives. With speakers drawn largely from federal civilian agencies, breakfast topics span a wide range of timely issues—from health IT to cybersecurity to Gov 2.0—and are discussed in a panel format that offers a compelling snapshot of multiple agency perspectives. The goals of the event are to foster better inter-agen...

25-Point Plan: What’s Next in IT Management Reform in 2012 In April, Federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra gave an update on the 25-Point Plan to reform information technology. During that update, it was noted that seven objectives had already been delivered and all but two were on track including reducing duplicate data and consolidating data centers. As the new Federal Chief Information Officer takes over the top IT post, how...

In the last ten years, the number of data centers has more than tripled. With the mandated consolidation policy put into effect in February 2010, departments are beginning to follow recently developed roadmaps for shrinking server farms. The aim of this consolidation policy is to reduce IT costs, lower energy consumption, occupy less real estate, strengthen IT security and expand the use of cloud computing. While there is no set timeline to co...