The Buzz with ACT-IAC

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Fighting Fires with AI with Dr. Ilkay Altintas Mar 29, 2022

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Year after year, the United States experiences larger, more frequent, and more destructive wildfires as a result of a changing global climate. These disasters, although a natural part of our ecosystem, have become an increasingly disruptive force that endangers human lives and livelihoods.
To combat this growing threat, researchers at the WIFIRE Laboratory at the University of California San Diego are leveraging data analysis and modeling to better predict how and where fires will spread and plan fire mitigation efforts.
This week, the Buzz is joined by Dr. Ilkay Altintas, Founding Director of the WIFIRE Lab and Chief Data Science Officer of the UCSD Supercomputer Center, to share how her team collects, manages, and visualizes fire data to support fire management efforts by public and private-sector organizations.
More about the WIFIRE lab: https://wifire.ucsd.edu/

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Intro/Outro Music: See a Brighter Day/Gloria Tells
Courtesy of Epidemic Sound
(Episodes 1-159: Intro/Outro Music: Focal Point/Young Community
Courtesy of Epidemic Sound)

Tracing Theft on the Blockchain with Josephine Wolff Mar 22, 2022

Show notes

In February of this year, the DOJ made the largest financial seizure in the department's history - $3.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency that had been stolen from the Bitfinex crypto exchange nearly 6 years earlier. They traced the laundered money through a complex web of currency swaps, darknet markets, and fiat bank accounts, all of which led them to arrest NYC-based couple Heather Morgan and Ilya Lichtenstein.
While the outcome of this case is touted as a win for law enforcement over cybercriminals, it also reveals a lot about the state of cryptocurrency in the United States - fractured regulatory schemes, technical complexities, even the idiosyncratic culture that surrounds it.
This week, The Buzz is joined by Josephine Wolff, Assistant Professor of Cybersecurity at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, to discuss what the arrests of Morgan and Lichtenstein show about crypto's place in financial crime and how law enforcement and regulators can respond.

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ICYMI: Innovate or Perish - A CIA Perspective on Digital Transformation Mar 15, 2022

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In case you missed it, The Buzz presents a keynote session from ACT-IAC's most recent Digital Transformation Summit.
Jennifer Ewbank, Deputy Director of Innovation at the CIA, discusses the digital threat landscape and how digital innovation is enabling CIA’s success against America’s most daunting national security challenges.
This recording also includes a Q&A moderated by Sam Cottrell, Vice President and General Manager at GDIT.

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More Thoughts on Internet Access with Former FCC Chair Tom Wheeler Mar 09, 2022

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Last week, The Buzz explored some of the complexities of ensuring affordable, reliable internet access to all Americans - as well as how the 2021 Investment Infrastructure and Jobs Act looks to improve this.
This week, The Buzz gets some perspective from someone who played a key role at the federal level in overseeing the regulation and development of modern broadband infrastructure - Tom Wheeler. Wheeler is a businessman, author, and was Chairman of the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) from 2013 to 2017.

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Getting America Online with Kathryn De Wit Mar 01, 2022

Show notes

Last November, after much deliberation and negotiation in the house and senate between congressional Democrats and Republicans, President Biden finally signed the $1.2 Trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. This is an enormous, comprehensive piece of legislation that touches nearly every sector of the US economy – including the Internet. And that’s why we at ACT-IAC are talking about it. This is the first time in US history that funding for the “information superhighway” is included in the same category as funding for our physical highways. It represents a shift in how we think about infrastructure into something more comprehensive than just roads and bridges.
So, how will this bill deliver on the promise of reliable, affordable internet access for all Americans? To help lay out where this funding will go and how it will be implemented is this week's guest - Kathryn De Wit, Project Director of the Broadband Access Initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts.
The Pew Charitable Trusts' Broadband Access Initiative: https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/projects/broadband-access-initiative

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Rethinking Digital Bank Transfers with FedNow CIO Dan Anthony Feb 22, 2022

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As a follow up from our recent episode about digital transformation, this week The Buzz presents an interview with Dan Anthony, Senior Vice President and CIO of FedNow, a new digital payment rail being developed by the Federal Reserve - the first since ACH was introduced roughly 50 years ago.
Erika Flora, one of the authors of ACT-IAC's digital transformation case study, interviewed Dan to understand his path to working on FedNow, how this service can help American citizens, and how the concepts behind digital transformation have manifested in FedNow's development.
Learn more about FedNow here.
Check out some of Erika's work: Digital Transformation: Industry and Agency Best Practices and Lessons Learned
Register for ACT-IAC's upcoming Digital Transformation Summit!

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Demystifying Procurement: Getting Creative within the FAR with Soraya Correa Feb 15, 2022

Show notes

For those outside of the acquisitions community, the practices, policies and processes of federal procurement can seem quite impenetrable. But given that the US Government spent more than $665 billion on contracts in 2020, it is not a subject to be ignored.
To that end, The Buzz with ACT-IAC presents: Demystifying Procurement - a series designed to take you through the ins and outs of this complex, but vital, topic.
In this episode, Soraya Correa, former Chief Procurement Officer at DHS, returns to the Buzz to offer more insights about federal acquisitions. She shares some of her thoughts on how to be successful as a contracting officer, how to find space within the FAR to innovate, and how she'd like to see procurement change in the future.
Demystifying Procurement Series:
Episode 1 - A Brief History of Government Contracting with Jim Nagle
Episode 2 - A Crash Course in Modern Acquisitions with Lesley Field
If you missed Soraya's first appearance on the Buzz, you can check that out here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1615747/9007540

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Why Digital Transformation is About More than Just Technology Feb 09, 2022

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While emerging technologies like Robotic Process Automation, 5G, and Quantum Computing may capture our imaginations (and headlines), there is more to digital transformation than buying a shiny new toy.
As a new case study from ACT-IAC's ITMM Community of Interest details, digital transformation is about more than the tools we use, but rather the people who build, use, and maintain the tools, and the larger systems that exist outside of the technology. It means considering the context in which a new digital tool is used to fulfill an organization's mission.
This week, The Buzz is joined first by the paper's authors to discuss their findings. Afterwards, listeners will hear from different members of the government IT community about what digital transformation has meant to them.
Authors:
Erika Flora - President and CEO of Beyond20
Alison O' Mara - Innovation Adoption Lead at the GSA's Centers of Excellence
Jeannette Bruno - Innovation Adoption Lead at the GSA's Centers of Excellence
ITMM COI Speakers:
Eddie Hartwig - Deputy Administrator at USDS
Sarah Hall - User experience Practice Lead,Office of Innovation and Technology, City of Philadelphia
Darryl Peek - Head of Federal Strategic Partnerships, Google
Anthony Rogers - Director of Technology Transformation Services, State of Michigan
The Paper: Digital Transformation: Industry and Agency Best Practices and Lessons Learned
Register for ACT-IAC's upcoming Digital Transformation Summit!

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From the Archives: Dr. Michio Kaku's Predictions for the Future Feb 01, 2022

Show notes

This week, the Buzz presents a recording from ACT-IAC's 2012 Executive Leadership Conference.
That year's theme was "“Charting a Course Through Changing Times", so renowned theoretical physicist, author and futurist Dr. Michio Kaku took the stage to present a vision of how society would change as a result of technological advances in the far-off year of 2020.
Admittedly, not everything he predicted has come to pass, but many of Dr. Kaku's forecasts for the future of technology were remarkably prescient, including the role of big data, digitization, and IoT.
This recording has been edited and condensed for time. You can watch the full presentation and Q&A here.

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Demystifying Procurement: A Crash Course in Modern Acquisitions with Lesley Field Jan 25, 2022

Show notes

For those outside of the acquisitions community, the practices, policies and processes of federal procurement can seem quite impenetrable. But given that the US Government spent more than $665 billion on contracts in 2020, it is not a subject to be ignored.
To that end, The Buzz with ACT-IAC presents: Demystifying Procurement - a series designed to take you through the ins and outs of this complex, but vital, topic.
In this episode, host Colin Larsen interviews Lesley Field, Acting Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy at OMB, where she guides the office to provide government-wide direction to promote economy, efficiency, and effectiveness in acquisition processes.
Lesley takes us on a crash course through the procurement process and talks about ways the government is trying to modernize and streamline the process to make delivery of services more efficient.
Demystifying Procurement Series:
Episode 1 - A Brief History of Government Contracting with Jim Nagle
Resources:
OMB M-22-03
OFPP "Mythbusting" Memo 3
Periodic Table of Acquisition Innovation

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