Towards the end of last year, top leaders in the government IT community gathered for the 5th annual FedTalks event to discuss the future of technology and how it can change our society and government. On TechSource, we posted a few of the IT highlights from 2015 including a call to action for cybersecurity, shifting the agency culture to embrace IT efficiencies and a move to the cloud. So what’s in store for agencies in the New Year?
Here is a look forward at some of the changes that they believe will be coming in the year 2016, and what to be ready for.
Preparing For The Long Haul: Cyber Security Isn’t Going Anywhere
Tony Scott: U.S. CIO, Executive Office of The President
In 2015, Tony Scott said that the cyber security sprint was a focus. But he warned us that the sprint was just a warm-up exercise for the long journey ahead. In the New Year, Scott says, “We’re focused on a couple of key things: PIV cards, and two-factor authentication is a particularly important notion, especially for privileged users and for system administrators. This is a key entry point today for many of the things that we’re curving, whether you’re public sector or private sector. We’re focused on that as wells as critical vulnerability and a number of other things that we know are basic cyber hygiene.”
Big Changes For The FCC Licensing System
Christine Calvosa: Deputy CIO of Resiliency, FCC
“Our biggest initiative and our biggest push this year is going to be re-architecting the FCC licensing system. We’re also completing our cloud migrations and our “share put” migrations to the cloud. And last but not least, we’re executing out first ever incentive auction where we are buying back HDF TV stations, repacking spectrum for broad bands.”
A Fundamental Change: Introducing New Technologies Faster
Herb Strauss: Assistant Deputy Commissioner and Deputy CIO, SSA
“For us, we need to focus on introducing new technology faster, which means that we fundamentally have to change our business. We need to be able to change the way we deliver technology faster, smoother, and smarter.”
Struss knows this is a tall order that involves a shift in culture, budget and talent. He also understand that his agency can’t do it alone. He stressed that in order to make this fundamental change to how they do business, colleagues in other agencies that are also facing the same challenges need to share information. “Because we are increasingly inter-related in the operations that we have in terms of information and data exchange, it becomes a core issue for us across the federal government. So these are the things that we think about that are foundational to our 2025 vision for how to change the agency, and the underlying strategies and plans for how to apply budget recourses and talent to change the agency in some very fundamental ways.”
Don’t Fear Change, Embrace It
Frank Baitman: CIO of US Department of Health and Human Services
“Change is one of those things that’s really hard, in fact its one of those things that we fear the most, and we shouldn’t…because when you look outside of government, we see industry after industry being changed by technology, and unless we do the same thing in government, change the way government does business, change the way we deliver services to the American people, we are going to lose their confidence. We are losing the confidence of the American people because we are NOT embracing change, and I think its within our control to do so.”
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