The fiscal cliff negotiations have threatened to not only impact the future of agency budgets, but also the release of the FY 2014 proposal itself. The White House has confirmed the Administration’s fiscal 2014 budget will not be ready by the normal release date in early February, injecting more uncertainty into an already complex environment. What does this mean for federal agencies and the companies that support them? Already, the FY 2...

Law enforcement and national security depends on adaptation—adaptation to the economy, adaptation to technology and adaptation to criminal methodologies. As budgetary cutbacks become commonplace in the Federal government, creativity in new technology initiatives must take precedence as agencies are increasingly expected to do more with less. Law enforcement agencies and officers will need to use new tools, including, data analytics, sec...

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...

AFCEA Bethesda is excited to announce this year's Fifth Health IT Day is moving back to the Bethesda North Marriott and Conference Center. Health IT Day is expected to bring together more than 700 senior-executives and IT professionals from across industry and federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health,...

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...