Climate Change, Sub-Saharan Africa, and US National Security

whitePaper | January 27, 2020

On September 27, 1998, football fans who tuned in to watch the game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals witnessed much more than a 31-24 Bengal win. That Sunday, ESPN introduced a technological inno-vation that would forever change the way fans watch sports: a thin yellow line overlaid onto live video representing the distance required for a first down.

whitePaper | April 30, 2022

NeoTech is creating smart city digital infrastructure that can lead to massive improvements in citizens quality of life and increase the protection of the environment while reducing the cost of doing so. NeoTech uses cutting edge technology in both hardware and software to recreate a 1:1 exact replica of the Earth in utterly digital form, enabling thousands of new applications to be spun off on top of our new Metaverse, enabling startups, enterprises, and people alike to take part in this new technological revolution.

whitePaper | January 29, 2020

Individual government contractors face more rigorous scrutiny, as private companies can monitor employee’s social media as part of their continuous vetting and insider threat protocols. However, despite the existence of a directive permitting them to do so, government agencies do not monitor their employees’ social media. Our interviews found this is due to a lack of clear guidance on how to implement the existing directives and security policies. This shortcoming can be remedied by government agencies agreeing upon a single common standard regarding the use of publicly available electronic information, specifically social media, for personnel security and insider threat purposes. The DNI, as Security Executive Agent for the government, must then develop guidelines for the implementation of this standard throughout the sector.

whitePaper | June 1, 2022

The Biden-Harris Administration recognizes the critical role of sustainable water systems and the transformational power that water access has in the life of each person on earth. From its most basic role as the source of life to its advanced role in powering global economies, water matters. Still, its ubiquity in everyday life risks leading us to take it for granted — while global trends in population growth, urbanization, environmental degradation, deforestation, and climate change pose growing challenges to water security around the world. Here at home, water crises are becoming more frequent and intense. Historic droughts threaten our supply of water, and failing infrastructure and chronic underinvestment deprive our most vulnerable communities of safe drinking water. Lack of sanitation threatens public health, individual safety and dignity, equity, and the protection of freshwater resources; extreme weather events intensify these risks where improved sanitation is unavailable. As the source of both life and livelihoods, water security is central to human and national security.

whitePaper | January 22, 2020

Trade in “services” refers to a wide and growing range of economic activities. These activities include transport, tourism, financial services, use of intellectual property, telecommunications and information services, government services, maintenance, and other professional services from accounting to legal services. Compared to goods, the types and volume of services that can be traded are limited by factors such as the requirement for direct buyer-provider contact, and other unique characteristics such as the reusability of services (e.g., professional consulting) for which traditional value measures do not account. In addition to services as independent exports, manufactured and agricultural products incorporate and depend on services, such as research and development or shipping of intermediate or final goods. As services account for 71% of U.S. employment, U.S. trade in services, both services as exports and as inputs to other exported products, can have a broad impact across the U.S. economy.

whitePaper | December 12, 2019

Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere — or so it seems. From navigation apps that automatically reroute us when our usual highway is clogged with traffic to banking websites that pre-approve mortgages seconds after we submit a short application, AI is expanding into our personal and professional lives more every day. Eyeing this trend, state CIOs understand AI is also likely to play an important role in modernizing the delivery of citizen services and furthering government modernization efforts. The question is, how do they separate the potential from the hype for one of today’s hottest technologies?