Ask the CIO

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued more than 10 million patents and millions of trademarks, but up until now there was no good way to search through the troves of data. The agency is testing natural language processing to let patent examiners and trademark attorneys more easily find historical information. Jamie Holcombe, the chief information officer of the Patent and Trademark Office, said the agency’s new approach to search is one of about 19 ongoing IT modernization projects. He offered more details to Federal News Network's Jason Miller on Ask the CIO.

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The Census Bureau is getting a new chief information security officer just as preparation for the 2020 count hits its full stride. Beau Houser will join Census after spending the last two years as SBA’s chief information security officer. Houser will begin his new position in mid-September and Jeff Harris, SBA's director of security operations, will be the acting CISO until the agency hires a new permanent executive.

Houser replaces Jeff Ruland, who retired last September. Houser said he’s looking forward to the challenge of protecting the technology and systems behind the population count.

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Amira Boland, who is coordinating the implementation of the Customer Experience Cross-Agency Priority Goal and the GEAR Center for OMB, and Jim Thompson. the director of private sector engagement at the State Department, are spearheading different approaches to bringing new thinking into the government.

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The U.S. Marshals Service technology modernization effort actually has little to do with the actual technology.The Justice Department bureau is upgrading its processes that will lead to successful IT implementations. Karl Mathias, the chief information officer of the U.S. Marshals Service, said the agency is adopting a risk-based and agile approach to system updates. He also hired a new CIO to help develop a 5-to-10 year technology modernization roadmap. Mathias joined Jason Miller on Ask the CIO to discuss the agency's agenda.

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Irv Dennis, the CFO of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, says the data analytics portion of the Centers of Excellence effort is helping to transform the agency’s financial management processes and technologies.

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In early fiscal 2020, the Department of Health and Human Services will pilot its new contracting writing system called Accelerate. HHS will work with a small group of contracting officers and industry to prove that using the cloud and blockchain technology is not only possible, but real. Jose Arrieta, who is currently the chief information officer and was the acting deputy assistant secretary for grants, acquisition policy and accountability at HHS, said the agency has made a lot of progress since December when the Accelerate platform received the authority to operate. He shared more details on Ask the CIO with Federal News Network's Jason Miller.

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The U.S. Agency for International Development has no legacy systems. With more than $7 billion in technical debt across the government, USAID is not responsible for any of that. Jay Mahanand, the chief information officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the agency accomplished what few others have been able to do: Get out of deep technical debt, by taking full advantage of the cloud and consolidating data centers. Hear his conversation with Federal News Network Executive Editor Jason Miller on this week's Ask the CIO.

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Since 2004, the Defense Department has been a part of an international Computer Emergency Response Team through NATO.

But only in the last few months has DoD and some of its allies been able to share cyber threat information and work together in real time.Ian West, the cybersecurity chief of the NATO Communications and Information Agency, told Ask the CIO with Jason Miller, the launch of a new encrypted workspace lets five countries test how they can share secure video, voice, chat and information gathering capabilities.

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It’s one thing to get an “A” or a “B” in the different areas of the Federal IT Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) scorecard. It’s another to translate those grades into real IT reforms. While the results are far from final, the Department of Health and Human Services seems to be on a path to transform how it manages technology and delivers services. Amy Haseltine, the deputy chief information officer for enterprise services at HHS, said the agency’s IT reform efforts are starting to pay off in measurable ways. Hear her conversation with Jason Miller on Ask the CIO.

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NSA’s six-year-old program challenges students and others to solve a multi-step cybersecurity problem as a way to expose them to the type of work the agency and the government does.

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