Critical Update: Recent Episodes
Nextgov
Nextgov's Critical Update explores the future of government technology. Each episode, we dive into how the government is using the latest tech and more importantly, you’ll hear from some of the people who are trying to make change possible.
NASA futurist Michael LaPointe joins the podcast to talk about what it will take—in technology, time and treasure—to get a human out of our solar system.
The environmental agency collects vast amounts of data each day from its constellation of satellites.
NASA invents a lot of cool and cutting edge technology to make space exploration possible—tech that often ends up pretty close to home as well.
Oak Ridge National Lab’s Travis Humble discussed the state of quantum technology development and what it demands for future development.
Leaders from GSA’s 10x program join the podcast to talk about how they’re mapping paths through the Valley of Death.
Nextgov looks at the use of cooperative research and development agreements by some major industry players to highlight how the meaning of the phrase, and implementation of its associated authorities, has shifted over the years.
The future of warfare could be determined by the Defense Department’s ability—or lack thereof—to quickly adopt emerging technologies.
Agencies will soon be required to ask vendors for a software bill of materials—or SBOM—to help manage vulnerabilities like those found in the Log4J library, but much of its contents could still be open for negotiation.
Re-writing the law for agencies to procure more secure cloud services is now mandated by executive order.
A nascent team is developing platforms that are enabling new discoveries and insight sharing across the federal agency.
Federal Chief Information Officer Clare Martorana joins Critical Update to talk about the technology underpinning the President’s Management Agenda, particularly with regard to improving customer experience.
Nextgov digs into the Veterans Affairs Department’s strategic efforts to deploy future-facing technologies to modernize the care it provides. Department officials are experimenting with augmented and virtual reality—and also figuring out how tiny devices like sensors could improve the canes used by the visually impaired or help prevent falls in facilities.
Time isn’t one of the things agencies facing cyberattacks usually have, but according to federal Chief Information Security Officer Chris DeRusha, that’s exactly what they need. To address the new age of cyberattacks, DeRusha previewed changes to cybersecurity reporting practices and his role working with other cyber leaders, agency CISOs and the Federal Acquisition Security Council.
Technology is not good or evil—it all depends on how it is used. The same is true of cryptocurrencies, which are often used to purchase illicit goods and services or for questionable “investment” schemes but can also help vulnerable communities not served by—or taken advantage of by—traditional financial institutions. The latest episode of Critical Update looks at how cryptocurrencies can be used for social good, framed around recent debate in Congress.
Deepfakes have a range of compelling applications in the modern communication and entertainment realms but the techniques underpinning them can also be repurposed for nefarious uses. This form of synthetic media, which often presents people doing and saying things they did not actually do or say, rose in popularity over the last several years, including seemingly real videos of public officials that have gone viral. And they’ve caught the attention of America’s federal and state governments, which are trying to figure out just what to do about these powerful tools for disinformation.
The eventuality of a quantum computer won’t mean the end of information security as it’s often described. But experts say the threat it poses to encryption and security does demand urgent action from federal agencies, even as they fend off current cyberattacks. This episode dives into what policy efforts from the White House and Congress could push agencies to focus on post-quantum cryptography.
In 2017, the Defense Department started kicking around a disruptive idea: What if the department buys—not builds—an enterprise cloud? The department initiated a multibillion-dollar procurement for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure cloud, which hit legal snag after legal snag until DOD cancelled the project in July. Though JEDI was never realized, experts say the contract's true legacy may lie in what it symbolized rather than what it actually produced.
U.S. national laboratories are about to enter the exascale era by turning on supercomputers that can perform a billion billion operations per second. But all hardware needs software, which led the Energy Department to create the Exascale Computing Project—a vast network of some of the nation’s top scientists to create programs to simulate wind farms and nuclear stockpiles, perform precision medicine and more.
In the wake of several high-profile cyberattacks, the federal government wants to shore up the security of its software supply chain. A recent executive order aims to raise the standard of software the government buys based on basic cyber hygiene practices, auditing capabilities, and transparency measures, like requiring a software bill of materials. Two experts explain the merits of some approaches and why there’s no silver bullet.
DevSecOps is enabling incredible accomplishments at the Defense Department—like updating code on a U-2 jet during a live flight. With software factories popping up across the department, Nextgov sought out the story of one program in particular to understand how DevSecOps works at DOD. That program is called Platform One, and though it's been around for less than two years, it already supports major programs across the military services and DOD components.
Too often, talk about modernizing the federal government’s technology turns to innovation groups. But the IT systems delivering services to the American people day-in and day-out are built, maintained and updated by career federal employees. Meet two agency software developers: One at the start of their career and the other nearing the end.
CRISPR is a gene-editing technology that the world is still figuring out. The tool allows a user to reprogram the DNA of cells in plants, animals and humans but with that comes a slew of ethical and legal questions. Scientists are still exploring potential uses—and they aren’t the only ones. Some individuals experiment on themselves. In this episode, a Food and Drug Administration official and a biohacker share their perspectives on what’s happening now and where things could go.
Inside the government, talk of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UFOs isn’t as taboo as it used to be. This episode of Critical Update offers a glimpse into how the government explores the unexplainable—and whether or not humans are alone in the universe.
An electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, capable of knocking out all electronics in its area could come in the wake of an atomic blast or, if TV and movies are to be believed, from a small non-nuclear device. But are EMPs a real threat? Experts join Critical Update to weigh in.
The Defense Department has a well-documented interest in bringing artificial intelligence to fruition so human operators can focus on high-level decisions while the tech takes care of the rest. But there’s a significant hurdle: If people don’t trust AI, the technology won’t be useful. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Air Combat Evolution program is not only bringing AI to the cockpit, it’s also figuring out how to measure trust so that AI can be tailor-made for pilots to create a symbiotic human-machine team.
Artificial intelligence is already transforming the way government works. But federal agencies face an urgent need to invigorate their workforces with AI-capable talent in order to realize the true promise of this technology, experts say. Dr. José-Marie Griffiths, president of Dakota State University, is a member of the National Security Commission on AI in charge of the workforce line of effort. She also had words of advice for federal workers: read up.
The COVID-19 pandemic moved a lot of federal employees from agency offices to home offices this year, requiring remote, cloud services so they could keep doing their jobs. But the federal cloud journey has been slow and uneven—so, did COVID-19 actually push more cloud adoption across government? The answer is complicated.
America’s space agency is undergoing a drastic digital transformation set to impact its Earth-based day-to-day operations—and next-level moves beyond the home planet. And, one day, there could even be a “data center on the moon,” according to Ron Thompson, the agency’s chief data officer and digital transformation officer. Steering the unfolding modernization, he offers a front-seat view into what’s to come.
For more than a decade, federal agencies have been told to adopt cloud computing for a variety of reasons, including improved security. But in a cloud model, vendors and customers share responsibility for protecting data. Federal officials looking to instill more clarity around the roles of cloud-based providers and their government customers could help chip away at one factor that might be affecting adoption of the technology: security officials’ fear of losing control.
Inside the Fiscal Service Bureau’s Office of Financial Innovation and Transformation, almost two dozen Treasury Department officials explore emerging and evolving technologies that could be scaled across the federal government in the not-so-distant future. Adam Goldberg, the acting assistant commissioner of FIT, shared insights on the agency’s blockchain and artificial intelligence projects, how to get buy-in from colleagues, and why co-creation has become a top priority across the office’s pursuits.
NASA’s iconic Apollo program was about landing humans safely on the moon and returning them back to Earth. The agency’s contemporary missions—like Artemis, which aims to land the first woman and next man on the moon—are focused on one thing: going beyond. The final episode of Nextgov’s Critical Update, Season 6 explores what those forthcoming missions will entail, the evolution of commercial companies’ roles in NASA’s missions, what water ice on the moon could mean for the future of our journeys deeper into the solar system—and more.
Can federal agencies and hackers work together to improve security? Vulnerability disclosure programs—a path for security researchers, a.k.a hackers, to report bugs and issues—are old hat to the tech industry but would be new ground for most of the U.S. federal government. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has been working on a directive for such a program, though public comments show an uneasiness from some federal officials. Nextgov spoke to some seasoned vulnerability disclosure coordinators, and Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., to get a deeper understanding of what’s behind the pending policy and give implementers a glimpse of what lies in store.
How does an agency know where to start modernizing its outdated systems? That’s one of the things that the Centers of Excellence program can help agencies figure out. The CoE, which operates out of the General Services Administration and is backed by Jared Kushner and the Office of American Innovation, works with customer agencies on their needs and matches them with vendors. The program started out working with agencies one at a time, but in less than three years, it sped up, staffed up and spread out across government.
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s mission is no small feat: The agency maps and models activity on Earth from the sea to space to support combat missions and disaster response. NGA Director Vice Adm. Robert Sharp discusses the agency’s recently unveiled 2025 priorities, where technology and partnerships fit in, and how the coronavirus helped the agency rethink its operations.
“What do you need help with today?” That’s how the Veterans Affairs Department’s first chatbot starts a conversation with a user. The department launched the bot to help vets navigate health care and benefits during a surge of coronavirus-related inquiries. CTO Charles Worthington and Presidential Innovation Fellow Dr. Kaeli Yuen discuss creating the bot with vet input and under an intense time crunch.
As the coronavirus interrupted the daily lives of millions of Americans and shuttered the offices of most federal agencies, the Veterans Affairs Department relied on technology to help meet the moment. Deputy Chief Veterans Experience Officer Barbara Morton explains how her office is using data, customer experience tools, technology and engagement to help VA—and the veterans the agency services—meet new challenges.
As governments of all sizes respond to the novel coronavirus pandemic, scientists and researchers at U.S. national laboratories are harnessing advanced technologies—and creating new networks of collaboration—in the global fight against COVID-19. In addition to their own work with gene-editing and advanced modeling, the labs are opening up their cutting-edge systems and supercomputers to other scientists through the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium. Nextgov’s Brandi Vincent talks with the Energy Department’s Undersecretary for Science Paul Dabbar, Director of IBM Research Dario Gil, Argonne National Laboratory’s Rick Stevens, and Sandia National Laboratories’ Joe Schoeniger and Oscar Negrete.
Before the end of the year, the Defense Department intends to finalize a rule change that will require any contractor it engages with to have obtained a certification of its cybersecurity practices from an approved external auditor. The program—known as Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification—looks to eventually cover 300,000 contractors and subcontractors, many of which are anxiously waiting for the costs and details. Nextgov’s Mariam Baksh dives into the issue with DOD’s Katie Arrington, CEO of the Professional Services Council David Berteau, senior vice president of policy for the Information Technology Industry Council Gordon Bitko and principal director of strategic programs at the National Defense Industrial Association Corbin Evans.
Critical Update contributors Heather Kuldell and Brandi Vincent recently appeared on the GovExec Daily podcast and we’re sharing the full episode with you. Listen to hear about how CISA advice to federal employees for safer teleworking, NSA’s input on how to choose a video conferencing platform and other ways tech may smooth the way for workers to return to offices.
One year into managing IT for the entire State Department—his first government job—the agency’s chief information officer, Stuart McGuigan, is starting to see his early initiatives pay off. For example, a shift to the cloud paid off during the current COVID-19 crisis, as his staff and bureaus are well-suited to remote, distributed working. McGuigan shares his plans for the department, as well as which IT and budget management principles from the private sector he’s found still apply in government and the parts of his management style he’s had to adjust.
Federal agencies can’t just connect their systems to the internet; they need to follow a policy called Trusted Internet Connection to ensure a certain level of security. The policy was recently updated and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency was tasked with providing use cases for guidance and a reference architecture explaining key concepts. The draft documents for the latter include a concept called “trust zones,” which caused confusion about whether it was related to a popular cybersecurity concept called “zero trust.” Nextgov Senior Editor Aaron Boyd talks to the people shaping the program—and a critic—to set the record straight.
With the coronavirus pandemic gripping the nation—and the world—federal employees and contractors are dealing with unprecedented times while trying to work from home. To kick off Critical Update Season 5, Nextgov reporters came together for a roundtable discussion of our latest reporting on how the federal IT workforce is dealing with COVID-19 and leading the charge in response to a global crisis. GovExec Senior Correspondent Eric Katz also breaks down how the stimulus bill affects the federal workforce.
Sponsored by Booz Allen Hamilton
We rely on a variety of different encryption techniques to keep our digital lives safe as we bank, chat and conduct business online. It takes today’s most powerful computers thousands, if not millions of years to break the strongest codes, but quantum computers threaten to crack through them in a fraction of the time. The National Science Foundation’s Thyaga Nandagopal explains where quantum efforts are now and where they’re going.
Sponsored by Raytheon
If 4G networks connected everyone, 5G promises to connect everything—self-driving cars, service robots, wearable devices and sensors. But with more connectivity comes greater cyber risk and serious national security questions about network infrastructure, including how Chinese telecoms fit in. Nextgov talks to former Federal Communications Chairman Tom Wheeler, current FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, and former National Security Council Senior Director for Strategic Planning Robert Spalding about risks, benefits and whether America can keep the edge it established during the 4G boom.
Sponsored by Raytheon
Salary caps, lengthy onboarding and rigid career ladders have historically made it hard for federal agencies to recruit top cyber talent, and as threats increase, the competition is only going to get stiffer. Nextgov talks to Homeland Security Department’s Chief Human Capital Officer Angela Bailey and former undersecretary for the National Protection and Programs Directorate Suzanne Spaulding about the challenges the agency faces when recruiting cybersecurity pros and how officials have tried to overcome them.
Sponsored by Raytheon
They say you catch more flies with honey, and a research team at Sandia National Laboratories has taken that to heart. The team—led by Vince Urias, a distinguished member of the technical staff, Caleb Loverro, principal member of the technical staff, and Will Stout, senior member of the technical staff—created a massive honeypot to lure hackers into a fake environment. From there, defenders can gain valuable insight into who is attacking the system and what they appear to be after.
Sponsored by Raytheon
Critical Update is coming back! Heather and Aaron preview Season 4, “The New Cyber Landscape.”
In the late 1990s, Eric Schmieman, then-chief engineer at Battelle Memorial Institute, and his team were tapped to head to Chernobyl—the infamous site of the largest nuclear accident in history—to build a never-before-attempted containment system for the radioactive facility. The New Safe Confinement team faced difficult bureaucratic conditions left in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse plus other barriers that may sound familiar to many federal employees trying to solve problems in innovative ways.
“If you care about people, they’ll care about their work,” Labor Department Director of Employee Engagement Kristin McNally told Nextgov. Figuring out clever ways to engage employees can pay off big for agencies. Engaged employees perform better, but in the long run, the agency wins by being able to retain great workers.
In the latest episode of Critical Update, USDA’s Undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation, Bill Northey, joins Nextgov’s Brandi Vincent to highlight how the agency is leveraging new technologies to enhance its service to farmers and producers across America. For Northey, such an endeavor—continuing to operate while simultaneously making improvements and introducing new tech—is “like driving a car down the road 70 miles an hour and changing your tire at the same time.”
You can read more about USDA’s modernization efforts and its centerpiece—Farmers.gov—on Nextgov.
The Pentagon’s research wing, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, was created when Russia launched Sputnik and the U.S. had no response. And within DARPA, the Defense Sciences Office tackles big, forward-looking technology issues so the country is never caught off guard by another “technology surprise.” Nextgov’s Jack Corrigan chats with DSO Director Valerie Browning to discuss the implications of machines that can think for themselves, when we should expect our first personal quantum computer and why more money doesn’t always mean more results when it comes to government research.
The Defense Digital Service has a simple motto: Get shit done. But within the government's largest agency, that’s easier said than done. Nextgov’s Aaron Boyd talks to then-Director Chris Lynch (who announced he would leave government shortly after our interview) and former Chief of Staff and current Hack the Pentagon program manager Reina Staley about the projects and challenges the team has been working on since its inception in 2015.
The U.S. Digital Service doesn’t work on just one project: Its teams tackle governmentwide projects and drop in to help with specific agency tasks. Nextgov’s Aaron Boyd talked to Director of Engineering David Holmes, software engineer Alberto Colon Viera, and digital service experts Misu Tasnim and Scott Haselton to learn how they push the government’s old systems to modern technology and how they build partnerships with federal employees.
The U.S. Digital Service started in 2014 as a kind of tech SWAT team after the disastrous initial rollout of Healthcare.gov. But USDS isn’t the same as when it started. We chatted with USDS Administrator Matt Cutts about the current state—and future of—one of the high profile innovation programs in government. And by the way, USDS is hiring.
Facebook’s mantra may be “move fast and break stuff” but the federal government doesn’t work like that. Change can be an uphill battle with regulations, compliance checklists and oversight often slowing things down even more. So what does innovation in government look like? Nextgov asked Alla Seiffert, director of cloud policy and counsel at the Internet Association, and Molly Cain, founder of GovCity, both former federal officials who had innovation in their titles.
Upgrading from legacy systems to modern, nimble tech cost big bucks. And when it comes to federal government projects, that can mean billions of dollars on the line, plenty of pitfalls to avoid, and high stakes (like our nation's cybersecurity). Here are three Nextgov is watching closely.
Defense Department’s JEDI
Veterans Affairs Department’s electronic health records
Homeland Security’s Continuous Monitoring and DIagnostics program
Critical Update assembled an all-star cast to discuss the partial government. Nextgov, Government Executive, Defense One and Route Fifty staff discuss how the shutdown affects federal employees, government contractors, and state and local governments.
The coming year will have a focus on procurement speed, Deltek Director of Federal Market Analysis Deniece Peterson and Senior Manager of Research Ashley Sanderson tell Nextgov’s Frank Konkel. Plus: the longer-term effects of the partial shutdown.
Some helpful reading:
The Devil’s in the Details as GSA Seeks to Consolidate the Multiple Award Schedules
Agencies Spent $10.4B in 10 Years Using Other Transactions. Here's Where It Went.
JEDI: One Year in the Pentagon’s Push for a Revolutionary Cloud
It’s a new year and we’re looking at a new Congress. We chat with Mike Hettinger about what the federal tech community needs to know about oversight, committee assignments and yes, the partial government shutdown.
A few stories we mention during the show:
How Midterms Shake Up Tech Oversight
New Armed Services Chair Says He Will Fund Military, Not Drive Foreign Policy ‘Like McCain Did’
The Pentagon’s Getting More Secretive — and It’s Hurting National Security
We talk to the U.S. Marine Corps’ Advanced Manufacturing Operations Cell about how they’re using 3D printing in the field to get the warfighter everything they need—from buckles to barracks. It’s one of the bold innovations in government that you can catch at our live event, the Bold Showcase on Oct. 11.
You can find all the details on this year’s Bold Showcase at www.govexec.com/feature/fedstival-2018-boldthursday.
The use of social media could mark as fundamental a change to the way we conduct politics and conflict as the telegram, telephone and television did in earlier centuries, Peter Singer writes in his new book “LikeWar.” But federal agencies and executives face a slow learning curve—and that has major consequences. For more on Singer's book, visit likewarbook.com.
Critical Update is on a short recess but we’ll be back in October with some very cool new stories.
Government agencies will always be a valuable target to hackers.The biggest problems—and fixes—in federal cybersecurity start at the top. Congressional Cybersecurity Caucus Co-founder Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., joined Critical Update to talk about what that leadership looks like and the impact of the White House eliminating its cybersecurity coordinator.
This episode is underwritten by Leidos.
Congress shapes the technology priorities for federal agencies, which is why we spoke to Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, a two-term congressman and chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on IT. Hurd helped develop the FITARA Scorecard, a tool Congress uses to track whether agencies are complying with major IT initiatives and law such as the Modernizing Government Technology Act and MEGABYTE Act. More specifically, he’s been pushing hard to give federal CIOs more authority over their employees and budgets, as well as real influence over the direction of their agencies.
This episode is underwritten by Leidos.
In the last episode, we talked about the kind of people agencies need to successfully deploy new technology. For this bonus episode, we go back to the U.S. Digital Service’s Chief of Staff Elaine Ho for tips on how to get those people to work for the government and how to keep quality employees from leaving.
This episode is underwritten by Leidos.
The government faces a serious brain drain: For every one tech worker under 30 years old, there are almost five who are 60 and older. One way to fix that is lure talent from the private-sector for short-term stints in the government. Marcy Jacobs runs one such team: the Digital Service team at the Veterans Affairs department. She shares what she looks for when she’s building her team and how some fall in love with the mission.
Here’s more on the work Jacobs’ team does and more information on the Sammies, an awards program that recognizes the work of public servants.
Read more about the U.S. Digital Service’s work, and by the way, the team is hiring.
This episode is underwritten by Leidos.
Suzette Kent was named the federal CIO in February, chosen to lead the government’s IT efforts. In the Trump administration, those efforts are focused squarely on modernization: upgrading the government’s aging IT systems in the name of cost-savings, security and to better provide services to the customer, who is often the citizen.
Kent joined Nextgov Senior Editor Aaron Boyd on Critical Update to discuss the challenges government faces in modernizing its IT, the lessons she’s brought from the private sector, what it means to lead an IT enterprise and what success will look like.
Read more about the IT modernization push, the Technology Modernization Fund Board, which Kent chairs, and the administration’s whole-of-government approach to technology.
The Homeland Security Department plays a critical role in cybersecurity. The agency not only oversees cybersecurity for the entire civilian government, but it gives cyber help to other industries as well. Nextgov Senior Correspondent Joseph Marks and Homeland Security’s cyber lead Jeanette Manfra discuss how to protect election systems from hacking, forging new alliances with industry, and the importance of a diverse and inclusive cyber workforce.
Show notes:
At RSA, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen promised the U.S. would strike back against cyberattacks. The agency also announced its security as a service program for industry partners.
Here’s that Government Accountability Office report that says only 11 percent of industry cyber pros are women. Meanwhile, women represent about 30 percent of the federal IT—not just cyber—workforce, though that number has decreased.
This episode is underwritten by Leidos.
Blockchain, cryptocurrencies, software-defined networking—new, game-changing technologies are surfacing all the time but getting them into federal agencies is another matter. Part of the issue is that agencies have to know what problem they’re trying to solve when they bring new tech onboard. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which maps human activity around the globe, has an office dedicated to finding innovative ideas and ushering them through adoption across the agency. Nextgov Senior Editor Aaron Boyd chats with NGA’s Chief Ventures Officer Christy Monaco about working with industry partners, refining pitches and tapping the agency’s intrapreneurs.
Not familiar with NGA? Read about the agency’s efforts to partner with academia and industry to develop new tools and some of its innovative programs to recruit Silicon Valley data talent into its workforce.
This episode is underwritten by Leidos.
New, game-changing technologies are surfacing all the time but getting them into agencies can be challenging. In this sneak peek of episode 2, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's Chief Ventures Officer Christy Monaco talks about some of the tech prototypes she's encountered that blow her mind.
This episode is underwritten by Leidos.
Before we talk about the future of government technology, let’s find out where we are. Nextgov’s Senior Editor Aaron Boyd chats with Dave Powner, the head of IT management issues for the Government Accountability Office, about the present state of agency tech, why it’s so hard for government to integrate new ideas, plus how to take advantage of emerging tech.
Here are some of the things they mentioned:
The GAO High Risk List, which are projects flagged for possible mismanagement or waste. And waste happens: The Coast Guard leadership recently had to defend a failed five-year health record project.
GAO updates Congress on how agencies comply with data centers, software licensing and other IT metrics mandated by FITARA. Here are the latest FITARA grades.
GAO also keeps tabs on federal workforce issues, such as the Department of Homeland Security cyber skills and diversity in agencies’ tech staff.
This episode is underwritten by Leidos.