Prediction 1: Blockchain Beefs Up Government Cybersecurity
Prediction 2: Artificial Intelligence Goes Mainstream
Prediction 3: Drones Become a Part of Everyday Life
Read the full article at: http://www.nextgov.com/ideas/2017/12/3-predictions-government-tech-2018/144785/
On December 1, 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the federal grand indictment of an army veteran for allegedly engaging in major government program fraud by using his status as a service-disabled veteran to obtain contracts set-aside for service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses (SDVOSBs), despite the fact that he did not control the management and daily operations of the company to which the contracts were awarded.
In the case, U.S. v. Dial Jr., the veteran has been charged with four counts of major program fraud as well as wire fraud in connection with his company United Medical Design Builders, LLC (“UMDB”) receiving over $40 million in government contract funds from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 2008 and 2015.
Specifically, the Government alleged that Dial, who is a disabled Army veteran, acted only as a “figurehead” of UMDB in order for UMDB to obtain a SDVOSB set-aside contract to build health care facilities.
Keep reading this article at: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=9b298da1-560e-43ad-86b2-2768bc5ba765
The White House has announced its first IT modernization center of excellence that will combine top federal talent with industry partners to bring the government’s old, outdated systems to the modern day.
The Agriculture Department will serve as the test-bed with the goal of creating “the most effective, efficient, customer-focused department in all the federal government,” said Stephen Censky, the department’s deputy secretary.
“Our ultimate goal is to enable the department to transition into a customer-focused organization,” said Censky, speaking at an industry day event held on White House grounds. “The opportunity for IT to add value across the USDA is significant.”
Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2017/12/white-house-unveils-it-modernization-center-excellence/144572/
According to an internal strategy document obtained by Nextgov, the Pentagon aims to award a 10-year cloud computing contract—potentially worth billions—to a single company by the fourth quarter of 2018.
The contract would call on one commercial cloud service provider to host unclassified, secret and top secret Defense Department data, and the Pentagon’s approach mirrors the CIA’s enterprisewide approach to cloud four years ago, which resulted in a 10-year, $600 million contract with Amazon Web Services. AWS has since invested heavily to provide capabilities across all data classification levels.
The similarities between the Defense’s early cloud strategy and the CIA’s has rival tech companies worried that the department’s acquisition may lean toward AWS. In any case, such a massive contract could disrupt the $100 billion federal IT market and leave the winner in a position to dominate it for years to come.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2017/12/pentagons-next-cloud-contract-could-be-worth-billions/144506/
This roundup of interesting bid protest decisions issued in November 2017 highlights two decisions, both at the Government Accountability Office (“GAO”).
The first reminds contractors that competitors can work together when failing to do so will result in bad procurement precedence that will cause them future competitive harm.
The second reminds contractors that it may be ill advised to rely on industry day materials, especially if marked that they are subject to change. This decision also shows that, between an original contract and a bridge contract, the original contract is more important in the Small Business Administration’s analysis of whether the award of an 8(a) contract will harm a small business.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=654514
It’s been just a few weeks since the federal government’s buying hub awarded 61 businesses spots on a $50 billion tech contract, and one research and analysis firm is already predicting which contractors may snag the most business.
The General Services Administration’s Alliant 2 governmentwide acquisition contract pre-approves certain vendors to sell IT services to government. The companies that won spots were selected to emphasize emerging technology such as artificial intelligence, according to the agency.
But only a few of them, potentially established contractors such as Lockheed Martin, will “end up winning most of the work,” according to a ranking by Govini. They’ll be competing not only on price, but also past performance and their ability to integrate cloud, data analytics, cyber, connected devices and artificial intelligence into agency contracts.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2017/12/heres-who-might-dominate-alliant-2-business/144500/
The Pentagon has steadily been pushing milestone authority for major defense programs to the individual military services, but shifting personnel down from the Office of the Secretary of Defense will take longer.
At a Dec. 7 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Ellen Lord, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, logistics and technology, or AT&L, said her intention is to continue to hand off the day-to-day running of programs to the services, preferring her office serve as a kind of high-level group providing overall guidance.
“AT&L needs to be the strategic body with focus across the board, driving affordability and accountability, reducing timelines, and equipping the Services to execute their programs,” Lord said in prepared testimony, adding that the Defense Department awards an average of 1,800 new contracts a day and 36,000 delivery/task orders a day.
Keep reading this article at: https://www.federaltimes.com/pentagon/2017/12/11/policy-shift-dod-is-pushing-major-program-management-back-to-the-military/
Ellen Lord, the Defense Department’s new undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, appeared before the Senate two weeks ago to give her first progress report on the department’s implementation of congressional acquisition reform.
In passing, she made a new reform request of her own: a potentially-fundamental change to the way DoD handles sole-source procurements.
Since 1962, when Congress passed the Truth in Negotiations Act (TINA), the government has generally been required to demand that contractors provide it with their cost and pricing data when that company is the only bidder that can fulfill the military’s requirements. The rationale is that without a competition between vendors, the government needs some insight into its contractor’s actual costs to make sure it’s not getting gouged.
Keep reading this article at: https://federalnewsradio.com/dod-reporters-notebook-jared-serbu/2017/12/pentagon-wants-more-leeway-on-truth-in-negotiations-act/
Russian developers did some of the coding work for a Defense Department software system and stored that code inside a server in Moscow, according to a non-prosecution agreement released Monday.
Those Russian coders only worked on unclassified portions of the Defense Information Systems Agency project, but, in some cases, knew they were helping to develop a highly sensitive system that would attach to Defense Department information networks, according to the agreement between the Justice Department and Netcracker Technology Corp., the subcontractor that hired the Russian coders.
The non-prosecution deal ends a criminal investigation against Netcracker that was led by the Justice Department’s national security division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Keep reading this article at: http://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2017/12/company-used-russian-coders-pentagon-project-strikes-deal/144466/
Two San Diego defense contractors were each sentenced Thursday to 15 months in custody for conspiring to commit wire fraud and file false claims, and making false statements on their federal income tax returns.
Jeffrey Harrington, 55, and Michael Mayer, 63, admitted to fraudulently obtaining money from the U.S. government by making false claims to the Department of Defense for payment on items that the defendants knew had not been sold to the Navy, but which had been substituted with other, unauthorized products.
As part of the sentence, three of the companies owned by Harrington and Mayer — San Diego-based Veteran Logistics, Industrial Xchange and Boston Laser Technology — were ordered to forfeit over $1.4 million and pay a $1 million fine for their roles in the offenses, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Keep reading this article at: https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2017/12/14/2-san-diego-contractors-sentenced-in-department-of-defense-scam/
