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What Agencies Should Consider Before Deploying AI

Artificial intelligence is the major buzzword in federal IT these days, the way that cloud once was. It’s easy to see why. There is booming investment in AI in the private sector, and various agencies across the government are experimenting with AI to achieve their missions. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is working with Microsoft to use AI and cloud technology to more easily and accurately identify animals and population counts of endangered species. NASA is ramping up the use of AI throughout its operations, from conducting basic financial operations to finding extra radio frequencies aboard the International Space Station. And the Defense Health Agency’s dermatologists are even using AI to better monitor patients’ skin.

Spotlight

City of Pearland, Texas

The City of Pearland (pronounced "pear-land", like the fruit), is a full-service municipal government located along the Gulf Coast region in the US state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area and is in the counties of Brazoria, Fort Bend, and Harris. Pearland, with more than 100,000 residents is rated the fastest-growing community in the Houston region and the second-fastest in Texas based on the 2010 census.

OTHER ARTICLES

NERC CIP Compliance in Azure vs. Azure Government cloud

Article | May 26, 2021

As discussed in my last blog post on North American Electric Reliability Corporation—Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP) Compliance in Azure, U.S. and Canadian utilities are now free to benefit from cloud computing in Azure for many NERC CIP workloads. Machine learning, multiple data replicas across fault domains, active failover, quick deployment and pay for use benefits are now available for these NERC CIP workloads.

Read More
Government Business

5 (free) things governments can do to reposition for the future

Article | March 11, 2022

Over the last year, we’ve all witnessed years of digital transformation in a matter of months. A recent survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), sponsored by Microsoft, shows that government respondents were the second-most likely group (after financial services) to report increased investment in digital transformation since the start of the pandemic. As governments around the world continue to look to technology and innovation to respond to the challenges of today, here are five (free) things governments are doing to step-change the way they can achieve their economic, social, and sustainability objectives in the future.

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Government Business

How Does Government Operations Continuity Help Them Perform Better?

Article | July 14, 2022

One of the challenges the government faced during the COVID-19 pandemic was keeping operations running. Certain advanced economies and developing nations' business continuity plans gave them an edge over their underdeveloped counterparts. But because of the pandemic, the national economy had suffered the pangs of unemployment to fuel the malicious intents of cyber-attackers, thus, protecting government assets that carried important economic information became a national priority. National security and staying competitive with other economies worldwide are becoming increasingly crucial in elevating a country’s economy. Keeping all public-sector companies and federal agencies running efficiently is a foundational block for the economy. Companies in public administration, like the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as different ministries, public sector businesses, and more, need data protection from international cyber-threats. They use disruptive business strategies to make their operations more resilient. Now, that we know the importance of business continuity in the context of federal government and agencies, let us understand what risks does business continuity management mitigate. Business Continuity Management in Government Easily Mitigates: Individuals rely on the government during economic crises and disasters. A crisis or a disaster can be a huge risk to the economy, which can bubble up to an irreversible loss if not handled on a timely basis. Mitigating the risks of crises such as natural disasters, cyber security compromises, power and communication outages, terrorism, wars and military activities, global financial crises and more has become crucial. These crises can cause the loss of physical assets, human safety, and infrastructure that hamper government operations. This is why having a BCM plan in place is the need of the hour. The government must serve and meet the expectations of economic contributors. If there is a divergence or a timely action constraint, the government must maintain peace and harmony for the common good and economic well-being. Government Continuity to Support Individuals and Public Organizations: Resuming operations for public organizations and individuals quickly can be almost impossible without the intervention and support of the government. Government continuity is directly proportional to the level of trust, government reputation, and business resiliency. This is possible because the financial loss can be covered by insurance and financial help, as explained below. Insurance Policy Claims and Coverage: Making it easy to claim insurance during and after the crisis helps individuals and organizations reclaim their finances, thereby restoring essential functions first and full-fledged functions later. Providing reimbursement of expenses and coverage for losses for public organizations and financial assistance for the public sector remains one of the top priorities as far as resuming business operations is concerned post-disaster. Making sure that the insurance can cover the expenses and losses incurred due to the disaster is a part of the business impact analysis (BIA). Resiliency: Restoring public sector infrastructure in an operating condition, overcoming operational obstacles such as IT, power, and communication outages in a short span of time, and maintaining due vigilance to keep a check on national security builds business resiliency for the public sector. Reputation and Recovery Management: Reducing the turn-around time to fix and restore normal operations after a disaster provides operational resiliency through recovery management. This keeps a check on the best interests of the economic contributors and enhances their trust and the government’s reputation in the long run. Now that we understand the risks that a BCP can help mitigate and the role of government policies to support the economic contributors, let us understand how it improves the overall performance of a public organization. Business Continuity Management for Better Performing Public Organizations: The federal governments and public organizations have implemented an agile approach to bounce back from disasters, catastrophes, and crises using BCM. Because of this, the federal government is heavily invested into business continuity plans (BCPs) to improve how well their operations work and keep the economy and government stable. The factors impacting the performance of public organizations using a BCM are as below: Public organizations must know how BCM components influence performance in public sector organizations. They must be aware of BCM and the successful implementation of effective BCM. However, some governments that do not invest in a BCM have a much lower level of awareness due to a lack of human resources, finance, and management. They are allocating enough budget for disaster prevention, preparedness, management, and relief considering the government's initiatives. But not getting enough help from the government can make people unhappy, which can hurt the ruling party and lead to people protesting for their rights. Even though there is no direct financial benefit or gain from investing in a BCM, BCM testing helps to improve performance significantly. For governments to consider investing in the successful implementation of BCM and get funding for it, BCM professionals need to predict and evaluate the potential loss due to idle service time and its results. Each government entity must identify the likelihood of risks, define the best rescue objectives, and indicate the most cost-effective clarification and knowledge about BCM. Another challenge is using BCM in organizations that cut across several business groups or completing it with collective business-wide support. These situations show that old management responsibility and regulation are useful for making sure that all members of an organization prefer BCM actions. Recognizing the potential impacts of BCM on organizational performance is required in order to provide accurate value to the BCM powers, attract consideration, and, finally, obtain adequate assistance from senior management. In the journey to optimizing the performance of your public sector company using BCM, there are many hurdles that you need to overcome. Let us discuss them further. Challenges in Maintaining BCPs and Performance Growth in the Public Sector: Maintaining a business continuity plan as per the recommended guidelines is crucial to optimize its performance and efficacy. Your public sector organization's BCP will need to overcome some of the challenges to enable their performance growth as follows: Dedication of time from the top management of the public organizations, the ministry, and leaders towards deciding which functions are essential to maintain the BCP. Lack of complete understanding of all the business functions and their dependencies on other public sector organizations. Comparing the business functions on the level of criticality. Not implementing the BCM approach completely. Tweaking the BCM approach to show everything is taken care of Inaccurate assumptions are used to create a business continuity plan. Business Impact Analysis (BIA) - Determining how long a business process can be rendered inoperable without affecting performance. The Business Continuity Plan (BCP) takes care of aspects such as: Who will be affected by the business operations disruption? How and when will customers be notified? What issues are to be addressed in the first 48 hours? From the initial response to restoration, unique access roles and functions are assigned. Testing of BCP should be done regularly with the help of table-top exercises, walkthroughs, crisis communications, emergency enactments The importance of a BCP cannot be undermined as it minimizes the cost of business disruptions on the operations of public organizations. Let us discuss them in-depth. The Cost of Not Having a Crisis Plan like a BCP for All Sizes of Public Organizations: Although the costs involved during times of crisis may be difficult to calculate, there may be significant infrastructure and data recovery charges that can have a long-term impact on business revenue. Monetary loss, revenue loss due to idle time, reputation loss, productivity loss are some of the consequences that small, medium, and large enterprises have to go through. The major losses among them are as under: Loss of time and revenue for recovery and resuming operations. The company's brand image and reputation are at stake. Financial instability and loss Productivity loss Customer satisfaction is hampered. Some laws and regulations are violated during idle time. Distrust and loss of faith among investors Employee safety is at risk with the consequences of injury and death. Loss of infrastructure A business continuity plan has four strategies to boost business resilience. These include crisis and risk management; disaster recovery; incident response management; and business continuity planning. Acting quickly to mitigate the risks of loss as per incident response management during the event of distress is the first step. Crisis and risk management take care of the plan of action during the event of distress. The disaster recovery plan takes care of resuming the business operations to their normal condition after the disaster has subsided, whereas the business continuity plan takes care of all these aspects to minimize loss during distress as well as the time required to resume normal operations with the help of dedicated software. Conclusion: Performance optimization for public organizations is the number one priority for economic growth. A business continuity plan can directly boost performance as it encourages organizations to identify essential functions and maintain their operations during uncertain times. It helps save time, money, and safeguards people, processes, and technologies in the long run.

Read More

Bond elections catalyze numerous contracting opportunities

Article | September 9, 2020

People often believe that bond elections only fund construction projects. Although it’s true that construction opportunities do occur when bond packages are approved, sales of certificates of obligation or general obligation spawn hundreds of other contracting opportunities. Companies that provide services related to technology, energy systems, furniture, landscaping, and security also benefit. Voters already have approved an abundance of bond packages this year, and more are pending in November elections. Although it’s true that construction opportunities do occur when bond packages are approved, sales of certificates of obligation or general obligation spawn hundreds of other contracting opportunities. Georgia The state of Georgia has funding of $1.133 billion that will be used for new projects, the purchasing of equipment, repairs and renovations to existing facilities. Some of it will also be used to launch new construction projects. School districts have been allocated approximately $378 million and $302 million is available for projects at the University System of Georgia. The Department of Transportation will receive over $152 million for roads, bridges, and rail projects, and the Technical College System of Georgia will receive approximately $99 million for various projects. The state also allocated $20 million for a new conference center at Lake Lanier Island and $12 million for infrastructure improvements at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. West Virginia The Cabell County Board of Education authorized the issuance of $87.5 million in public school bonds after it was approved by voters in August. Architectural firms and design teams will be in high demand soon as construction is planned for early 2021. Projects include rebuilding Meadows Elementary and Milton Elementary and construction of a new Davis Creek Elementary facility. Other school buildings will receive major renovations including new windows, doors, roofing, HVAC systems, sprinkler systems, and security upgrades. New York Bond funds were approved in Lewis County for a $33 million capital project to construct a new surgical pavilion and renovation of the existing Medical-Surgical floor. Bidding will be solicited in January and February 2021 with construction to begin immediately. The project includes construction of a 36,224 square-foot surgical pavilion as well as the renovation of about 18,889 square feet of the existing Medical-Surgical inpatient floor. California The state of California recently announced the sale of $2.65 billion of revenue bonds to benefit various projects at the University of California (UC). About $1.15 billion will be spent on campus projects. Regents for the university system announced that about than 50 construction projects at all 10 UC campuses are planned. Projects include improvements to the Agriculture and Natural Resources Research and Extension Center and Franz Hall. Seismic upgrades are planned for the Irvine Campus, the engineering tower, four gateway quad buildings, and the social sciences buildings. More earthquake-resistant improvements will be made at a number of additional facilities. Louisiana In August, $140 million in bonds were approved for construction of a new high school and the completion of 13 other construction and improvement projects for Ascension Parish Public Schools. Approximately $79.5 million has been set aside for a new high school which will be located in Prairieville. Solicitation documents for contractors will be released in 2021. Other projects that have been approved include $27 million in renovations at East Ascension High School, $7.5 million for artificial turf at four high school stadiums plus the stadium at the new high school, $4.4 million for a classroom addition at St. Amant Primary, and $2.3 million for improvements at Donaldsonville High School. Texas Voters recently approved $76.6 million for the Plainview Independent School District and this funding will be used to consolidate and restructure elementary and middle school facilities. Some of the revenue will also be used to update security and technology. The proposed building plan consolidates six elementary campuses into three with pre-K programs and increased capacity at each campus. Some solicitation documents are expected in November, and others are planned for early 2021. Hawaii The state of Hawaii successfully sold $995 million of general obligation bonds, and the funding will be used to finance capital improvements for various public buildings, elementary and secondary schools, community college and university facilities, public libraries, and parks. As 2020 draws to a close over the next few months, millions more in funding for all types of projects will result as November bond packages are placed on the ballot for voter approval. Even in the midst of a pandemic, public assets must be maintained, expanded, and made safe for citizens. The activity generated by the bond elections stimulates local economies, and the projects that result create thousands of jobs as well. Mary Scott Nabers is president and CEO of Strategic Partnerships Inc., a business development company specializing in government contracting and procurement consulting throughout the U.S. Her recently released book, Inside the Infrastructure Revolution: A Roadmap for Building America, is a handbook for contractors, investors and the public at large seeking to explore how public-private partnerships or joint ventures can help finance their infrastructure projects.

Read More

Creating Public Value using the AI-Driven Internet of Things

Article | May 26, 2021

As discussed in my last blog post on North American Electric Reliability Corporation—Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP) Compliance in Azure, U.S. and Canadian utilities are now free to benefit from cloud computing in Azure for many NERC CIP workloads. Machine learning, multiple data replicas across fault domains, active failover, quick deployment and pay for use benefits are now available for these NERC CIP workloads.

Read More
Government Business

Designing a Consistent and Accessible Digital Government

Article | March 11, 2022

Over the last year, we’ve all witnessed years of digital transformation in a matter of months. A recent survey from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), sponsored by Microsoft, shows that government respondents were the second-most likely group (after financial services) to report increased investment in digital transformation since the start of the pandemic. As governments around the world continue to look to technology and innovation to respond to the challenges of today, here are five (free) things governments are doing to step-change the way they can achieve their economic, social, and sustainability objectives in the future.

Read More
Government Business

Revitalization of Economies: Government Supporting Start-ups

Article | July 14, 2022

One of the challenges the government faced during the COVID-19 pandemic was keeping operations running. Certain advanced economies and developing nations' business continuity plans gave them an edge over their underdeveloped counterparts. But because of the pandemic, the national economy had suffered the pangs of unemployment to fuel the malicious intents of cyber-attackers, thus, protecting government assets that carried important economic information became a national priority. National security and staying competitive with other economies worldwide are becoming increasingly crucial in elevating a country’s economy. Keeping all public-sector companies and federal agencies running efficiently is a foundational block for the economy. Companies in public administration, like the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as different ministries, public sector businesses, and more, need data protection from international cyber-threats. They use disruptive business strategies to make their operations more resilient. Now, that we know the importance of business continuity in the context of federal government and agencies, let us understand what risks does business continuity management mitigate. Business Continuity Management in Government Easily Mitigates: Individuals rely on the government during economic crises and disasters. A crisis or a disaster can be a huge risk to the economy, which can bubble up to an irreversible loss if not handled on a timely basis. Mitigating the risks of crises such as natural disasters, cyber security compromises, power and communication outages, terrorism, wars and military activities, global financial crises and more has become crucial. These crises can cause the loss of physical assets, human safety, and infrastructure that hamper government operations. This is why having a BCM plan in place is the need of the hour. The government must serve and meet the expectations of economic contributors. If there is a divergence or a timely action constraint, the government must maintain peace and harmony for the common good and economic well-being. Government Continuity to Support Individuals and Public Organizations: Resuming operations for public organizations and individuals quickly can be almost impossible without the intervention and support of the government. Government continuity is directly proportional to the level of trust, government reputation, and business resiliency. This is possible because the financial loss can be covered by insurance and financial help, as explained below. Insurance Policy Claims and Coverage: Making it easy to claim insurance during and after the crisis helps individuals and organizations reclaim their finances, thereby restoring essential functions first and full-fledged functions later. Providing reimbursement of expenses and coverage for losses for public organizations and financial assistance for the public sector remains one of the top priorities as far as resuming business operations is concerned post-disaster. Making sure that the insurance can cover the expenses and losses incurred due to the disaster is a part of the business impact analysis (BIA). Resiliency: Restoring public sector infrastructure in an operating condition, overcoming operational obstacles such as IT, power, and communication outages in a short span of time, and maintaining due vigilance to keep a check on national security builds business resiliency for the public sector. Reputation and Recovery Management: Reducing the turn-around time to fix and restore normal operations after a disaster provides operational resiliency through recovery management. This keeps a check on the best interests of the economic contributors and enhances their trust and the government’s reputation in the long run. Now that we understand the risks that a BCP can help mitigate and the role of government policies to support the economic contributors, let us understand how it improves the overall performance of a public organization. Business Continuity Management for Better Performing Public Organizations: The federal governments and public organizations have implemented an agile approach to bounce back from disasters, catastrophes, and crises using BCM. Because of this, the federal government is heavily invested into business continuity plans (BCPs) to improve how well their operations work and keep the economy and government stable. The factors impacting the performance of public organizations using a BCM are as below: Public organizations must know how BCM components influence performance in public sector organizations. They must be aware of BCM and the successful implementation of effective BCM. However, some governments that do not invest in a BCM have a much lower level of awareness due to a lack of human resources, finance, and management. They are allocating enough budget for disaster prevention, preparedness, management, and relief considering the government's initiatives. But not getting enough help from the government can make people unhappy, which can hurt the ruling party and lead to people protesting for their rights. Even though there is no direct financial benefit or gain from investing in a BCM, BCM testing helps to improve performance significantly. For governments to consider investing in the successful implementation of BCM and get funding for it, BCM professionals need to predict and evaluate the potential loss due to idle service time and its results. Each government entity must identify the likelihood of risks, define the best rescue objectives, and indicate the most cost-effective clarification and knowledge about BCM. Another challenge is using BCM in organizations that cut across several business groups or completing it with collective business-wide support. These situations show that old management responsibility and regulation are useful for making sure that all members of an organization prefer BCM actions. Recognizing the potential impacts of BCM on organizational performance is required in order to provide accurate value to the BCM powers, attract consideration, and, finally, obtain adequate assistance from senior management. In the journey to optimizing the performance of your public sector company using BCM, there are many hurdles that you need to overcome. Let us discuss them further. Challenges in Maintaining BCPs and Performance Growth in the Public Sector: Maintaining a business continuity plan as per the recommended guidelines is crucial to optimize its performance and efficacy. Your public sector organization's BCP will need to overcome some of the challenges to enable their performance growth as follows: Dedication of time from the top management of the public organizations, the ministry, and leaders towards deciding which functions are essential to maintain the BCP. Lack of complete understanding of all the business functions and their dependencies on other public sector organizations. Comparing the business functions on the level of criticality. Not implementing the BCM approach completely. Tweaking the BCM approach to show everything is taken care of Inaccurate assumptions are used to create a business continuity plan. Business Impact Analysis (BIA) - Determining how long a business process can be rendered inoperable without affecting performance. The Business Continuity Plan (BCP) takes care of aspects such as: Who will be affected by the business operations disruption? How and when will customers be notified? What issues are to be addressed in the first 48 hours? From the initial response to restoration, unique access roles and functions are assigned. Testing of BCP should be done regularly with the help of table-top exercises, walkthroughs, crisis communications, emergency enactments The importance of a BCP cannot be undermined as it minimizes the cost of business disruptions on the operations of public organizations. Let us discuss them in-depth. The Cost of Not Having a Crisis Plan like a BCP for All Sizes of Public Organizations: Although the costs involved during times of crisis may be difficult to calculate, there may be significant infrastructure and data recovery charges that can have a long-term impact on business revenue. Monetary loss, revenue loss due to idle time, reputation loss, productivity loss are some of the consequences that small, medium, and large enterprises have to go through. The major losses among them are as under: Loss of time and revenue for recovery and resuming operations. The company's brand image and reputation are at stake. Financial instability and loss Productivity loss Customer satisfaction is hampered. Some laws and regulations are violated during idle time. Distrust and loss of faith among investors Employee safety is at risk with the consequences of injury and death. Loss of infrastructure A business continuity plan has four strategies to boost business resilience. These include crisis and risk management; disaster recovery; incident response management; and business continuity planning. Acting quickly to mitigate the risks of loss as per incident response management during the event of distress is the first step. Crisis and risk management take care of the plan of action during the event of distress. The disaster recovery plan takes care of resuming the business operations to their normal condition after the disaster has subsided, whereas the business continuity plan takes care of all these aspects to minimize loss during distress as well as the time required to resume normal operations with the help of dedicated software. Conclusion: Performance optimization for public organizations is the number one priority for economic growth. A business continuity plan can directly boost performance as it encourages organizations to identify essential functions and maintain their operations during uncertain times. It helps save time, money, and safeguards people, processes, and technologies in the long run.

Read More

Bond elections catalyze numerous contracting opportunities

Article | September 9, 2020

People often believe that bond elections only fund construction projects. Although it’s true that construction opportunities do occur when bond packages are approved, sales of certificates of obligation or general obligation spawn hundreds of other contracting opportunities. Companies that provide services related to technology, energy systems, furniture, landscaping, and security also benefit. Voters already have approved an abundance of bond packages this year, and more are pending in November elections. Although it’s true that construction opportunities do occur when bond packages are approved, sales of certificates of obligation or general obligation spawn hundreds of other contracting opportunities. Georgia The state of Georgia has funding of $1.133 billion that will be used for new projects, the purchasing of equipment, repairs and renovations to existing facilities. Some of it will also be used to launch new construction projects. School districts have been allocated approximately $378 million and $302 million is available for projects at the University System of Georgia. The Department of Transportation will receive over $152 million for roads, bridges, and rail projects, and the Technical College System of Georgia will receive approximately $99 million for various projects. The state also allocated $20 million for a new conference center at Lake Lanier Island and $12 million for infrastructure improvements at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. West Virginia The Cabell County Board of Education authorized the issuance of $87.5 million in public school bonds after it was approved by voters in August. Architectural firms and design teams will be in high demand soon as construction is planned for early 2021. Projects include rebuilding Meadows Elementary and Milton Elementary and construction of a new Davis Creek Elementary facility. Other school buildings will receive major renovations including new windows, doors, roofing, HVAC systems, sprinkler systems, and security upgrades. New York Bond funds were approved in Lewis County for a $33 million capital project to construct a new surgical pavilion and renovation of the existing Medical-Surgical floor. Bidding will be solicited in January and February 2021 with construction to begin immediately. The project includes construction of a 36,224 square-foot surgical pavilion as well as the renovation of about 18,889 square feet of the existing Medical-Surgical inpatient floor. California The state of California recently announced the sale of $2.65 billion of revenue bonds to benefit various projects at the University of California (UC). About $1.15 billion will be spent on campus projects. Regents for the university system announced that about than 50 construction projects at all 10 UC campuses are planned. Projects include improvements to the Agriculture and Natural Resources Research and Extension Center and Franz Hall. Seismic upgrades are planned for the Irvine Campus, the engineering tower, four gateway quad buildings, and the social sciences buildings. More earthquake-resistant improvements will be made at a number of additional facilities. Louisiana In August, $140 million in bonds were approved for construction of a new high school and the completion of 13 other construction and improvement projects for Ascension Parish Public Schools. Approximately $79.5 million has been set aside for a new high school which will be located in Prairieville. Solicitation documents for contractors will be released in 2021. Other projects that have been approved include $27 million in renovations at East Ascension High School, $7.5 million for artificial turf at four high school stadiums plus the stadium at the new high school, $4.4 million for a classroom addition at St. Amant Primary, and $2.3 million for improvements at Donaldsonville High School. Texas Voters recently approved $76.6 million for the Plainview Independent School District and this funding will be used to consolidate and restructure elementary and middle school facilities. Some of the revenue will also be used to update security and technology. The proposed building plan consolidates six elementary campuses into three with pre-K programs and increased capacity at each campus. Some solicitation documents are expected in November, and others are planned for early 2021. Hawaii The state of Hawaii successfully sold $995 million of general obligation bonds, and the funding will be used to finance capital improvements for various public buildings, elementary and secondary schools, community college and university facilities, public libraries, and parks. As 2020 draws to a close over the next few months, millions more in funding for all types of projects will result as November bond packages are placed on the ballot for voter approval. Even in the midst of a pandemic, public assets must be maintained, expanded, and made safe for citizens. The activity generated by the bond elections stimulates local economies, and the projects that result create thousands of jobs as well. Mary Scott Nabers is president and CEO of Strategic Partnerships Inc., a business development company specializing in government contracting and procurement consulting throughout the U.S. Her recently released book, Inside the Infrastructure Revolution: A Roadmap for Building America, is a handbook for contractors, investors and the public at large seeking to explore how public-private partnerships or joint ventures can help finance their infrastructure projects.

Read More
MORE ARTICLES

Spotlight

City of Pearland, Texas

The City of Pearland (pronounced "pear-land", like the fruit), is a full-service municipal government located along the Gulf Coast region in the US state of Texas within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area and is in the counties of Brazoria, Fort Bend, and Harris. Pearland, with more than 100,000 residents is rated the fastest-growing community in the Houston region and the second-fastest in Texas based on the 2010 census.

Related News

Emerging Technology, Cybersecurity

Four Inc. Announces Partnership with MixMode to Offer Advanced AI Cybersecurity Solutions to Government Agencies

MixMode | March 31, 2023

Four Inc., a federal aggregator, has partnered with MixMode, a leading provider of next-generation Cybersecurity solutions, to provide MixMode's Advanced Threat Detection Platform to government agencies through Four Inc.'s boutique aggregation program. Under the agreement, Four Inc. will offer MixMode's Third Wave AI solution to the public sector through Four Inc.'s NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWPV) contract and its network of channel partners. "Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of legacy Cybersecurity solutions are not well-suited for real-time risk detection at massive scale," said John Keister, MixMode CEO. "MixMode's platform is able to detect risks from both known and novel attacks in large data environments, making Cybersecurity programs 20x more efficient and effective. We are pleased to partner with Four Inc. to deliver our platform to government agencies to defend against sophisticated attacks." The MixMode platform utilizes self-supervised and generative AI-driven analysis and predictive threat detection to identify and respond to threats in real-time, making it an ideal solution for organizations looking to enhance their Cybersecurity posture. With MixMode's precise, efficient alerting, government agencies can analyze vast amounts of data from various sources, such as network traffic, logs, and cloud environments. The MixMode solution is a lightweight, efficient AI that requires no rules, historical training data or ongoing tuning, and can be integrated into existing security systems, making it easy for government agencies to enhance their Cybersecurity capabilities without disrupting their operations. Since MixMode does not require historical training data, it is up and running very quickly and is not susceptible to biases and blind spots that plague most AI systems. "We are excited to partner with MixMode to provide our customers access to a Third Wave AI and Negative-Time-to-Detection℠ cybersecurity solution," said Chris Wilkinson, EVP of Sales of Four Inc. "MixMode's self-learning platform enables our partners and government customers to protect their assets, detecting both known and unknown attacks designed to bypass legacy defenses." Four Inc. and MixMode will work together to integrate MixMode's AI technology into existing security systems and provide ongoing support to ensure the success of the partnership. MixMode's Cybersecurity platform is available immediately via Four Inc.'s SEWPV Contract Vehicle. About MixMode MixMode is a no-rules-required Cybersecurity platform, serving both the US government and large enterprises with big data environments across a variety of industries. MixMode delivers a patented, self-learning platform that acts as the Cybersecurity Intelligence Layer℠ to detect both known and unknown attacks, including novel attacks designed to bypass legacy cyber defenses. This is accomplished in real-time, across any cloud or on-premise data stream. Trusted by global entities in banking, public utilities and government sectors, industry cyber leaders rely on MixMode to protect their most critical assets. The platform dramatically improves the efficiency of SOC teams previously burdened with writing and tuning rules and manually searching for attacks. The MixMode platform can be deployed remotely, with no appliances, in under an hour with business outcomes evident within days. Backed by PSG and Entrada Ventures, the company is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA. About Four Inc. Four Inc. is a Small Business boutique aggregator and has been recognized as a Top 100 government contractor on Washington Technology's Top 100 Report consecutively for the last seven years. Four Inc.'s expertise of the federal IT contracting process and their carefully crafted ecosystem of manufacturers and partners has enabled them to expertly deliver the right technology solutions and services to their customers. Through their proven experience and dedication to their core values, they have earned the IT community's respect and trust.

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Emerging Technology, Cybersecurity

Striveworks Partners With Carahsoft to Provide AI and Machine Learning to Government Agencies

PRNewswire | March 24, 2023

Striveworks, a pioneer in responsible MLOps, today announced a partnership with Carahsoft Technology Corp., The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider®. Under the agreement, Carahsoft will serve as Striveworks' public sector distributor, making the company's Chariot platform and other software solutions available to government agencies through Carahsoft's reseller partners, NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V, Information Technology Enterprise Solutions – Software 2 (ITES-SW2), OMNIA Partners, and National Cooperative Purchasing Alliance (NCPA) contracts. "We are excited to partner with Carahsoft and its reseller partners to leverage their public sector expertise and expand access to our products and solutions," said Quay Barnett, Executive Vice President at Striveworks. "Striveworks' inclusion on Carahsoft's contracts enables U.S. Federal, State, and Local Governments to make better models, faster." Decision making in near-peer and contested environments requires end-to-end dynamic data capabilities that are rapidly deployed. Current solutions remain isolated, not scalable, and not integrated from enterprise to edge. The Striveworks and Carahsoft partnership helps simplify the procurement of Striveworks' AI and machine learning solutions. Striveworks' Chariot provides a no-code/low-code solution that supports all phases of mission-relevant analytics including: developing, deploying, monitoring, and remediating models. Also available through the partnership is Ark, Striveworks' edge model deployment software for the rapid and custom integration of computer vision, sensors, and telemetry data collection. "We are pleased to add Striveworks' solutions to our AI and machine learning portfolio," said Michael Adams, Director of Carahsoft's AI/ML Solutions Portfolio. "Striveworks' data science solutions and products allow government agencies to simplify their machine learning operations. We look forward to working with Striveworks and our reseller partners to help the public sector drive better outcomes in operationally relevant timelines." Striveworks' offerings are available through Carahsoft's SEWP V contracts NNG15SC03B and NNG15SC27B, ITES-SW2 contract W52P1J-20-D-0042, NCPA contract NCPA001-86, and OMNIA Partners contract R191902. About Carahsoft Carahsoft Technology Corp. is The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider®, supporting Public Sector organizations across Federal, State and Local Government agencies and Education and Healthcare markets. As the Master Government Aggregator® for our vendor partners, we deliver solutions for Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Cybersecurity, MultiCloud, DevSecOps, Big Data, Open Source, Customer Experience and more. Working with resellers, systems integrators and consultants, our sales and marketing teams provide industry leading IT products, services and training through hundreds of contract vehicles. About Striveworks Striveworks is a pioneer in responsible MLOps for national security and other highly regulated spaces. Striveworks' MLOps platform, Chariot, enables organizations to deploy AI/ML models at scale while maintaining full audit and remediation capabilities. Founded in 2018, Striveworks was highlighted as an exemplar in the National Security Commission for AI 2020 Final Report.

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Cybersecurity

Linux Foundation and Rancher Government Solutions Partner to Support U.S. Government & Military Mission to Securely Modernize Tech

Rancher Government Solutions | November 23, 2022

Today, the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced it has partnered with Rancher Government Solutions https://www.ranchergovernment.com/, which is specifically designed to address the unique security and operational needs of the U.S. Government and military as it relates to application modernization, containers and Kubernetes. The partnership combines the expertise of the Linux Foundation, the world's leading resource for open source training and certifications, with the breadth and depth of RGS which is dedicated to helping the U.S. Government and military achieve its missions to securely modernize via the cloud using containers and Kubernetes all with a focus on DevSecOps. "Partnering with RGS to support the United States government in their adoption of open source through secure tools and training is critically important in these uncertain times, We could not be more proud to be working with RGS, whose focus on secure, open source tools and code – particularly Kubernetes and cloud-enabled DevSecOps – for the U.S. Government is mission critical." -Clyde Seepersad, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Training & Certification, the Linux Foundation. The partnership will enable U.S. Government personnel, through their relation with RGS, to easily access the Linux Foundation's full catalog of nearly 100 training courses including courses focused on: Kubernetes DevSecOps/DevOps Cloud & Containers Personnel will also be able to easily enroll in certification exams for any of the standard setting cloud and open source certifications built by the Linux Foundation. The certifications cover a range of mission critical cloud and container exams, including: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Certified Security Specialist (CKS) Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) "The Linux Foundation's training and certification offerings are perfectly aligned to our core product and service offerings, Together we will be able to offer a single source for support, tools, training and certifications essential to the U.S. Government mission to securely modernize its tech infrastructure." -Don Poole, Vice President of Corporate Communications & Marketing, Rancher Government Solutions. About The Linux Foundation: Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation's projects are critical to the world's infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. About Rancher Government Solutions: Rancher Government Solutions, a SUSE company, is specifically designed to address the unique security and operational needs of the U.S. Government and military as it relates to application modernization, containers and Kubernetes. Rancher allows Government customers to deploy containerized applications on multiple Kubernetes clusters from the data center to the cloud to the edge and unites them with centralized authentication, access control and advanced observability. RGS supports all Rancher open source products with U.S. based American citizens with the highest security clearances who are currently working on programs across the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and civilian agencies.

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Emerging Technology, Cybersecurity

Four Inc. Announces Partnership with MixMode to Offer Advanced AI Cybersecurity Solutions to Government Agencies

MixMode | March 31, 2023

Four Inc., a federal aggregator, has partnered with MixMode, a leading provider of next-generation Cybersecurity solutions, to provide MixMode's Advanced Threat Detection Platform to government agencies through Four Inc.'s boutique aggregation program. Under the agreement, Four Inc. will offer MixMode's Third Wave AI solution to the public sector through Four Inc.'s NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWPV) contract and its network of channel partners. "Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of legacy Cybersecurity solutions are not well-suited for real-time risk detection at massive scale," said John Keister, MixMode CEO. "MixMode's platform is able to detect risks from both known and novel attacks in large data environments, making Cybersecurity programs 20x more efficient and effective. We are pleased to partner with Four Inc. to deliver our platform to government agencies to defend against sophisticated attacks." The MixMode platform utilizes self-supervised and generative AI-driven analysis and predictive threat detection to identify and respond to threats in real-time, making it an ideal solution for organizations looking to enhance their Cybersecurity posture. With MixMode's precise, efficient alerting, government agencies can analyze vast amounts of data from various sources, such as network traffic, logs, and cloud environments. The MixMode solution is a lightweight, efficient AI that requires no rules, historical training data or ongoing tuning, and can be integrated into existing security systems, making it easy for government agencies to enhance their Cybersecurity capabilities without disrupting their operations. Since MixMode does not require historical training data, it is up and running very quickly and is not susceptible to biases and blind spots that plague most AI systems. "We are excited to partner with MixMode to provide our customers access to a Third Wave AI and Negative-Time-to-Detection℠ cybersecurity solution," said Chris Wilkinson, EVP of Sales of Four Inc. "MixMode's self-learning platform enables our partners and government customers to protect their assets, detecting both known and unknown attacks designed to bypass legacy defenses." Four Inc. and MixMode will work together to integrate MixMode's AI technology into existing security systems and provide ongoing support to ensure the success of the partnership. MixMode's Cybersecurity platform is available immediately via Four Inc.'s SEWPV Contract Vehicle. About MixMode MixMode is a no-rules-required Cybersecurity platform, serving both the US government and large enterprises with big data environments across a variety of industries. MixMode delivers a patented, self-learning platform that acts as the Cybersecurity Intelligence Layer℠ to detect both known and unknown attacks, including novel attacks designed to bypass legacy cyber defenses. This is accomplished in real-time, across any cloud or on-premise data stream. Trusted by global entities in banking, public utilities and government sectors, industry cyber leaders rely on MixMode to protect their most critical assets. The platform dramatically improves the efficiency of SOC teams previously burdened with writing and tuning rules and manually searching for attacks. The MixMode platform can be deployed remotely, with no appliances, in under an hour with business outcomes evident within days. Backed by PSG and Entrada Ventures, the company is headquartered in Santa Barbara, CA. About Four Inc. Four Inc. is a Small Business boutique aggregator and has been recognized as a Top 100 government contractor on Washington Technology's Top 100 Report consecutively for the last seven years. Four Inc.'s expertise of the federal IT contracting process and their carefully crafted ecosystem of manufacturers and partners has enabled them to expertly deliver the right technology solutions and services to their customers. Through their proven experience and dedication to their core values, they have earned the IT community's respect and trust.

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Emerging Technology, Cybersecurity

Striveworks Partners With Carahsoft to Provide AI and Machine Learning to Government Agencies

PRNewswire | March 24, 2023

Striveworks, a pioneer in responsible MLOps, today announced a partnership with Carahsoft Technology Corp., The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider®. Under the agreement, Carahsoft will serve as Striveworks' public sector distributor, making the company's Chariot platform and other software solutions available to government agencies through Carahsoft's reseller partners, NASA Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement (SEWP) V, Information Technology Enterprise Solutions – Software 2 (ITES-SW2), OMNIA Partners, and National Cooperative Purchasing Alliance (NCPA) contracts. "We are excited to partner with Carahsoft and its reseller partners to leverage their public sector expertise and expand access to our products and solutions," said Quay Barnett, Executive Vice President at Striveworks. "Striveworks' inclusion on Carahsoft's contracts enables U.S. Federal, State, and Local Governments to make better models, faster." Decision making in near-peer and contested environments requires end-to-end dynamic data capabilities that are rapidly deployed. Current solutions remain isolated, not scalable, and not integrated from enterprise to edge. The Striveworks and Carahsoft partnership helps simplify the procurement of Striveworks' AI and machine learning solutions. Striveworks' Chariot provides a no-code/low-code solution that supports all phases of mission-relevant analytics including: developing, deploying, monitoring, and remediating models. Also available through the partnership is Ark, Striveworks' edge model deployment software for the rapid and custom integration of computer vision, sensors, and telemetry data collection. "We are pleased to add Striveworks' solutions to our AI and machine learning portfolio," said Michael Adams, Director of Carahsoft's AI/ML Solutions Portfolio. "Striveworks' data science solutions and products allow government agencies to simplify their machine learning operations. We look forward to working with Striveworks and our reseller partners to help the public sector drive better outcomes in operationally relevant timelines." Striveworks' offerings are available through Carahsoft's SEWP V contracts NNG15SC03B and NNG15SC27B, ITES-SW2 contract W52P1J-20-D-0042, NCPA contract NCPA001-86, and OMNIA Partners contract R191902. About Carahsoft Carahsoft Technology Corp. is The Trusted Government IT Solutions Provider®, supporting Public Sector organizations across Federal, State and Local Government agencies and Education and Healthcare markets. As the Master Government Aggregator® for our vendor partners, we deliver solutions for Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Cybersecurity, MultiCloud, DevSecOps, Big Data, Open Source, Customer Experience and more. Working with resellers, systems integrators and consultants, our sales and marketing teams provide industry leading IT products, services and training through hundreds of contract vehicles. About Striveworks Striveworks is a pioneer in responsible MLOps for national security and other highly regulated spaces. Striveworks' MLOps platform, Chariot, enables organizations to deploy AI/ML models at scale while maintaining full audit and remediation capabilities. Founded in 2018, Striveworks was highlighted as an exemplar in the National Security Commission for AI 2020 Final Report.

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Cybersecurity

Linux Foundation and Rancher Government Solutions Partner to Support U.S. Government & Military Mission to Securely Modernize Tech

Rancher Government Solutions | November 23, 2022

Today, the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization enabling mass innovation through open source, announced it has partnered with Rancher Government Solutions https://www.ranchergovernment.com/, which is specifically designed to address the unique security and operational needs of the U.S. Government and military as it relates to application modernization, containers and Kubernetes. The partnership combines the expertise of the Linux Foundation, the world's leading resource for open source training and certifications, with the breadth and depth of RGS which is dedicated to helping the U.S. Government and military achieve its missions to securely modernize via the cloud using containers and Kubernetes all with a focus on DevSecOps. "Partnering with RGS to support the United States government in their adoption of open source through secure tools and training is critically important in these uncertain times, We could not be more proud to be working with RGS, whose focus on secure, open source tools and code – particularly Kubernetes and cloud-enabled DevSecOps – for the U.S. Government is mission critical." -Clyde Seepersad, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Training & Certification, the Linux Foundation. The partnership will enable U.S. Government personnel, through their relation with RGS, to easily access the Linux Foundation's full catalog of nearly 100 training courses including courses focused on: Kubernetes DevSecOps/DevOps Cloud & Containers Personnel will also be able to easily enroll in certification exams for any of the standard setting cloud and open source certifications built by the Linux Foundation. The certifications cover a range of mission critical cloud and container exams, including: Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA) Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) Certified Security Specialist (CKS) Kubernetes and Cloud Native Associate (KCNA) "The Linux Foundation's training and certification offerings are perfectly aligned to our core product and service offerings, Together we will be able to offer a single source for support, tools, training and certifications essential to the U.S. Government mission to securely modernize its tech infrastructure." -Don Poole, Vice President of Corporate Communications & Marketing, Rancher Government Solutions. About The Linux Foundation: Founded in 2000, the Linux Foundation is supported by more than 1,000 members and is the world's leading home for collaboration on open source software, open standards, open data, and open hardware. Linux Foundation's projects are critical to the world's infrastructure including Linux, Kubernetes, Node.js, and more. The Linux Foundation's methodology focuses on leveraging best practices and addressing the needs of contributors, users and solution providers to create sustainable models for open collaboration. About Rancher Government Solutions: Rancher Government Solutions, a SUSE company, is specifically designed to address the unique security and operational needs of the U.S. Government and military as it relates to application modernization, containers and Kubernetes. Rancher allows Government customers to deploy containerized applications on multiple Kubernetes clusters from the data center to the cloud to the edge and unites them with centralized authentication, access control and advanced observability. RGS supports all Rancher open source products with U.S. based American citizens with the highest security clearances who are currently working on programs across the Department of Defense, Intelligence Community, and civilian agencies.

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