In just a few short years, Robotic Process Automation has gone from a few scattered pilot projects to an essential tool deployed by dozens of agencies. Hundreds of thousands of staff-hours have been saved, and organizations are increasingly looking to leverage artificial intelligence to automate more-complicated workflows. Automation at scale comes with challenges, however -- from credential management to siloed systems to ensuring that outdat...

Although it got an encouraging $1 billion funding shot in the arm from the American Rescue Plan Act in early 2020, the effort to modernize and transform an aging infrastructure remains a complicated task that takes coordination, executive buy-in and detailed security and data strategies to make it work. The $1 billion set aside for the Technology Modernization Fund in the ARP smooths some modernization budgeting issues for agencies, which have...

Federal agencies must shift fully to electronic records management by December 2022, when the National Archives and Records Administration will stop accepting new paper records. Successfully making that transition entails far more than simply digitizing existing documents. Meeting the goals set by M-19-21 demands changes to current business processes, dramatically different approaches to content classification, new systems that are digital thr...

The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), the government-wide plan to secure cloud products and services, is almost a decade old. It is still evolving, however. Early in 2021, the House of Representative passed a bill that would have codified a number of its provisions into law, standardizing its processes for agencies to on-ramp cloud computing technologies. To date, the Senate has not acted on the bill. At the same tim...

Most government agencies have made the journey to cloud since the Cloud First and Cloud Smart strategies came from OMB starting in 2010. Many organizations have more than one cloud. The challenge becomes blending the different types of cloud and service models to provide access to needed data, while at the same time protecting a much enlarged attack surface created by the large number of workers who are accessing the data remotely. If there is...

The Federal Data Strategy's action plan was reworked in response to the COVID-19 crisis, while state and local governments are simultaneously expanding health data initiatives and looking for more cost-effective data solutions. Add in the growing importance of data-intensive cyber threat detection and the broad potential of AI and automation, and it becomes clear: Agencies' data challenges are evolving rapidly, and a solid data strategy is mis...

Transforming the IT infrastructure for an agency is a complicated task that requires coordinated and effective decision making, buy-in from key executives and detailed data and security strategies -- not to mention funding for new technology or the move to managed services. This FCW Summit will discuss new policies and guidance that will govern these changes. In addition, agencies that are well into their modernization journey will share lesso...

Space is more than launching rockets. NASA is one of the richest and most diverse IT marketplaces in the government landscape. In this Washington Technology Power Breakfast, we’ll hear from leading NASA executives and other knowledgeable sources who will explain the drivers and trends shaping NASA’s landscape as well as what they expect from their contractor community. From the role OTAs play to opportunities to partner and expand...

It’s been more than 40 years since the last major revamp of the federal job classification system—before the internet and cell phones, let alone cloud services and data scientists. And in the wake of COVID-19, even employees in long-established roles are being forced to adapt to radically different working environments. The challenges for federal agencies are massive -- but so too are the opportunities to reimagine roles within the...