In an interview with FedScoop, Charles Worthington, the VA’s CAIO and CTO, said the agency is engaged in targeted hiring for AI experts while also sustaining its existing modernization efforts. “I wish we could do more,” he said.

While Worthington wrestles with the proposed fiscal year 2025 funding reductions, the VA’s Office of Information and Technology also finds itself in the legislative crosshairs over modernization system upgrades, a supposed lack of AI disclosures and inadequate tech contractor sanctions and ongoing scrutiny over its electronic health record modernization initiative with Oracle Cerner. 

Worthington spoke to FedScoop about the VA’s embrace of AI, the status of its modernization push, how it is handling budget uncertainty and more.

Editor’s note: The transcript has been edited for clarity and length. 

FedScoop: I know that you’ve started your role as the chief AI officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs. And I wanted to circle back on some stuff that we’ve seen the VA engaged with this past year. The Office of Information and Technology has appeared before Congress, where legislators have voiced their concerns for AI disclosures, inadequate contractor sanctions, budgetary pitfalls in the fiscal year 2025 budget for VA OIT and the supply chain system upgrade. What is your response to them?

Charles Worthington: I think AI represents a really big opportunity for the VA and for every agency, because it really changes what our computing systems are going to be capable of. So I think we’re all going to have to work through what that means for our existing systems over the coming years, but I think really there’s hardly any part of VA’s software infrastructure that’s going to be untouched by this change in how computer systems work and what they’re capable of. So I think it’s obviously gonna be a big focus for us and for Congress over the next couple of years. 

FS: I want to take a step back and focus on the foundational infrastructure challenges that the VA has been facing. Do you attribute that to the emerging technologies’ need for more advanced computing power? What does that look like?

CW: I think overall, VA’s technical infrastructure is actually on a pretty good footing. We’ve spent a lot of time in the past 10 years with the migration to the cloud and with really leaning into using a lot of leading commercial products in the software-as-a-service model where that makes sense. So, by and large, I think we’ve done a good job of bringing our systems up to standard. I think it’s always a challenge in the VA and in government to balance the priorities of modernization and taking advantage of new capabilities with the priorities of running everything that you already have.

One of the unique challenges of this moment in time is that almost every aspect of the VA’s operations depends on technology in some way. There’s just a lot of stuff to maintain; I think we have nearly a thousand systems in operations. And then obviously, with something like AI, there’s a lot of new ideas about how we could do even more [to] use technology and even more ways to further our mission. 

FS: In light of these voiced concerns from legislators, as you progress into your role of chief AI officer, how do you anticipate the agency will be able to use emerging technologies like AI to its fullest extent?

CW: I think there’s really two priorities that we have with AI right now. One is, this represents an enormous opportunity to deliver services more effectively and provide great technology services to the VA staff, because these systems are so powerful and can do so many new things. One priority is to take advantage of these technologies, really to make sure that our operations are running as effectively as possible. 

On the other hand, I think this is such a new technology category that a lot of the existing processes we have around technology governance in government don’t apply in exactly the same ways to artificial intelligence. So in a lot of ways, there are novel concerns that AI brings. … With an AI system that is, instead, taking those inputs and then generating a best guess or generating some piece of content, the way that we need to make sure that those systems are working effectively, those are still being developed. At the same time, as we’re trying to take advantage of these new capabilities, we’re also trying to build a framework that will allow us to safely use and deploy these solutions to make sure that we’re upholding the trust that veterans put in us to manage their data securely. 

FS: In what ways is the agency prioritizing AI requirements, especially from the artificial intelligence executive order that we saw last October, and maintaining a competitive edge with the knowledge that the fiscal year 2025 budget has seen a significant clawback of funds?

CW: We are investing a lot in standing up, I would say, the AI operations and governance. We have four main priorities that we’re focused on right now. One is setting up that policy framework and the governance framework for how we’re going to manage these. We have already convened our first AI governance council meeting — we’ve actually had two of them — where we’re starting to discuss how the agency is going to approach managing our inventory of AI use cases and the policies that we’ll use. 

The second priority is really focused on our workforce. We need to make sure that our VA staff have the knowledge and the skills they need to be able to use these solutions effectively and understand what they’re capable of and also their limitations. We need to be able to bring in the right sort of talent to be able to buy and build these sorts of solutions. 

Third, we’re working on our infrastructure [to] make sure that we have the technical infrastructure in place for VA to actually either build or, in some cases, just buy and run AI solutions. 

Then, finally, we have a set of high-priority use cases that we’re really leaning into. This was one of the things that was specifically called out to the VA in the executive order, which was basically to run a couple of pilots — we call them tech sprints — on AI.

FS: I would definitely love to hear some insights from you personally about some challenges you’re anticipating with artificial intelligence, especially as you’ve referenced that the VA has already been using AI.

CW: I think one of the challenges right now is that most of the AI use cases are built in a very separate way from the rest of our computing systems. So if you take a predictive model, it maybe takes a set of inputs and then generates a prediction, which is typically a number. But how do you actually integrate that prediction into a system that somebody’s already using is a challenge that we see, I think, with most of these systems.

In my opinion, integrating AI with more traditional types of software is going to be one of the biggest challenges of the next 10 years. VA has got over a thousand systems and to really leverage these tools effectively, you’d ideally like to see these capabilities integrated tightly with those systems so that it’s all kind of one workflow, and it appears naturally as a way that can assist the person with the task they’re trying to achieve, as opposed to something that’s in a different window that they’ve got to flip back and forth between. 

I feel like right now, we’re in that awkward stage where most of these tools are a different window … where there’s a lot of flipping back and forth between tools and figuring out how best to integrate those AI tools with the more traditional systems. I think that’s just kind of a relatively unfigured-out problem. Especially, if you think of a place like VA, where we have a lot of legacy systems, things that have been built over the past number of decades, oftentimes updating those is not the easiest thing. So I think it really speaks to the importance of modernizing our software systems to make them easier to change, more flexible, so that we can add things like AI or just other enhancements.

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He joins the Treasury Department bureau from the financial services industry and holds a master’s degree in accounting and an MBA from the International Management Institute Universiade de Brussels.

In the role of deputy comptroller and chief financial technology officer, Bhardwaj will lead a team that analyzes trends in financial technology and evaluates potential risks.

The OCC in October last year announced that it would set up a new office of financial technology to ensure it has the tools to supervise the fast-changing banking sector, including fintech companies.

Commenting at the time, Acting Comptroller of the Currency Michael Hsu said: “Financial technology is changing rapidly and bank-fintech partnerships are likely to continue growing in number and complexity. To ensure that the federal banking system is safe, sound, and fair today and well into the future, we need to have a deep understanding of financial technology and the financial technology landscape.”

He added: “The establishment of this office will enable us to be more agile and to promote responsible innovation, consistent with our mission.”

The new office is particularly focused on enhancing the OCC’s expertise on digital assets, fintech partnerships and other changing technologies and business models within and that affected OCC-supervised banks.

OCC is an independent bureau of the Treasury Department that is responsible for chartering, regulating, and supervising all national banks, foreign banks and savings associations in the United States. All told, these institutions hold more than $15 trillion in assets.

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The department said in a statement the new office will have a team of dedicated staff, which will double the number of technologists working at the agency, and will be led by FTC Chief Technology Officer Stephanie Nguyen.

Its core mission will focus on three key areas: strengthening and supporting law enforcement investigations, advising commission staff on policy and research initiatives, and highlighting market trends.

The office’s new mandate will include helping the FTC to develop new investigative techniques and engaging external stakeholders.

“For more than a century, the FTC has worked to keep pace with new markets and ever-changing technologies by building internal expertise,” FTC Chair Lina Khan said. “Our office of technology is a natural next step in ensuring we have the in-house skills needed to fully grasp evolving technologies and market trends as we continue to tackle unlawful business practices and protect Americans.” 

Details of the new office come as the FTC pursues a range of high-profile enforcement initiatives including those against major technology companies and entities that force workers to sign broad non-compete contracts.

They also follow a letter published in the Wall Street Journal last week by the FTC’s remaining Republican Commissioner Christine Wilson, in which she announced her intention to resign because of concerns that the agency is exceeding its legal authority. 

Stephanie Nguyen was formally appointed as chief technology officer of the FTC in October, a role she had performed for one year on an acting basis. Previously she worked at the U.S. Digital Service and was a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The FTC Commission voted 4-0 to approve the creation of the Office of Technology.

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Elanchezhian started work at FDIC on Sept. 12. He joined the agency from the National Science Foundation, where for 13 years he was chief enterprise architect — the equivalent of a chief technology officer at other agencies.

The architecture and design section at FDIC sits within the enterprise strategy branch of the department’s chief information officer organization.

Chezian adds more than 25 years of IT experience including leading large-scale digital transformations across federal government.

“In his free time, Chezian loves playing sports and spends time with his adorable dog, Sneakers,” reads the Chief Information Officer Organization’s hiring announcement. “Please welcome Chezian to the FDIC and CIOO family!”

Chezian co-chairs the Federal CIO Council‘s Innovation Committee, which makes recommendations on trustworthy artificial intelligence, zero-trust security architectures and cloud computing.

At NSF, Chezian advised the CIO and coordinated the agency’s IT strategy and architecture. Prior to that he worked in the private sector including at Deloitte Consulting.

Chezian earned his bachelor of electrical and electronics engineering degree from Anna University’s College of Engineering in India.

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In an interview with FedScoop, Nick Skytland highlighted the approach his team takes to developing sophisticated leading-edge technology that might make it possible to land and live sustainably on the Moon, and said this is being similarly applied to IT.

“There’s quite a bit of overlap,” said Skytland, who is also director of the center’s Business Development & Technology Integration Office. “The way we think about it is: How does IT enable the mission across the board?”

The Artemis program aims to land the first woman and person of color on the Moon and lay the groundwork for subsequent missions to Mars in 2024, which not only requires new exploration tech but IT as well.

As in other sectors such as aviation and defense that have long relied on government-supported innovation, the space agency now also takes into account its role in nurturing a commercial space industry. Working with partners to ensure multiple options for, say, a new type of spacesuit or advanced software or hardware could be considered a win.

“No longer do we measure our success just by NASA’s budget but by the total space economy and the growth of that,” Skytland told FedScoop.

He added that NASA has gone from having one spacesuit to adding two commercial ones, and from having one space station to three additional, commercial options. The space agency will likely have multiple, commercial human landers and lunar terrain vehicles, Skytland said.

To this end, Johnson Space Center assembles tech teams that integrate its own priorities with those of NASA and programs such as Artemis when developing a project’s strategy. Turning spacesuit development over to an industry partner may give a company more technological autonomy, while JSC can offer them an optional head-up display.

The space center is currently focused on early stage human landing system (HLS) and extravehicular activities (EVA) projects, and its new Business Development & Technology Integration Office is responsible for identifying supporting technologies that will make it possible to land and live sustainably on the Moon.

Informatics is perhaps the best example with the center working to embed more sensors presenting user-friendly information in heads-up displays inside new spacesuits and lunar terrain vehicles. And NASA continues to consider how to use digital twins, virtual representations of systems throughout their simulated life cycle, in engineering.

Skytland in July became CTO of the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, which is NASA’s center for human spaceflight, where human spaceflight training, research and flight control are conducted.

He’s working with Lauren Goodwin, the center’s new chief information officer, to strengthen cybersecurity over the next two-to-five years in preparation for increased partnerships with industry.

“We need a [zero-trust] framework that allows us to securely collaborate with users in industry, internationally, even with citizens,” Skytland said. “Something that allows us to authorize who they are, to authenticate them to our systems, to validate constantly for security to make sure we can share our data via data usage agreements with industry.”

NASA’s budget generally falls between $25 billion and $28 billion, while the global space economy is $400 billion and projected to reach the trillions in the next decade.

In addition to its own $90 million portfolio of early stage projects, JSC regularly runs internal and external open challenges aimed at entry level talent or specific disciplines. A gas chromatography challenge aims to have an outside partner develop a data system for analyzing geological samples to understand the habitability of Mars.

“This has become a really important part of our technology strategy is to say, ‘What ideas exist out there that we can take internally and then mature and embed into our programs?” Skytland said.

While the International Space Station is built out and research focused, the Gateway will be a Moon-orbiting outpost for deep space exploration that needs new propulsion, battery and power systems.

Within Skytland’s office is the Office of Technology Transfer, which looks at new technologies from a patentability standpoint. Viable materials, coding, instrumentation, sensors and communications are placed in a patent database for licensing by startups or individuals.

The majority aren’t licensed, but JSC also offers experimental licenses letting companies try technologies before they buy them, Skytland said.

Skytland not only previously stood up NASA’s data science program but its Open Innovation Program and api.nasa.gov, data.nasa.gov and code.nasa.gov to attract the next generation of data-literate engineers and scientists.

Upskilling JSC’s workforce to unleash algorithms, analytics and artificial intelligence and assist with digital transformation is a top priority. JSC is also rethinking the digital and physical environments employees work in along with the zero-trust IT architectures needed to secure them, Skytland said.

“NASA is an incredible place to work,” Skytland said. “But we have a long way to go when it comes to the future of work.”

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Top IT officials at the Secret Service, including Chief Information Officer Kevin Nally, did not follow and execute the agency’s legal document retention policy, leaving it up to individual agents as to whether or not they preserved relevant text messages in regards to the Jan 6th attack or any other text records that are legally required to be archived, sources familiar with the agency’s policies told FedScoop.

The controversial deletion of Secret Service phone data around the time of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot has raised awareness of wider systemic problems with federal government digital records preservation.

Currently, the prevailing norm for preserving text message communications within federal agencies is that individual employees are expected to back up and share their work phone records manually.

Federal IT sources canvassed by FedScoop said this problem could be solved by requiring that all text messages about official business sent by any federal agency employee be automatically saved in an internal database and sent to NARA for archiving.

It remains unclear whether most federal agencies store and backup text message communications from work issued phones on an internal server or a government certified cloud service which would enable digital records to be retained even if an individual employee deletes those records on their own device.

While Secret Service Director James Murray and Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari are the top officials who are legally responsible for the preservation of agency records to be safeguarded and submitted to the National Archives, the day-to-day training and execution of data collection from agents occurs through the agency’s chief information officer (CIO) and the general counsel. 

“It seems that ​​individual agents made the call as to whether to delete their messages or not,” a former senior Secret Service official told FedScoop. “It’s not good governance to leave it up to individuals to do what they want. This needs to be fixed and tightened.”

The former official said that it was the responsibility of the Secret Service’s CIO and general counsel to ensure that digital records like text messages are correctly preserved.

“What thought was given to maintaining these records? Not much it seems. No one seems to be going through the trouble of archiving them as they should. Either way it’s not a good look,” the official added.

Although it’s unclear what motivated some individual Secret Service agents not to preserve their phone records around the time of the Capitol riot, government data privacy experts say that IT leaders within the agency are ultimately responsible.  

“One of the key problems with this Secret Service episode is the reliance on the good faith of Service employees to back up federal government records – whether it be out of laziness, forgetfulness, bad judgement or something else,” said Nick Schwellenbach, senior investigator at the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a prominent government watchdog.

“The Secret Service as an agency failed here, but leaders like the CIO and the general counsel have primary responsibility. These high level leaders dropped the ball,” Schwellenbach added.

The Secret Service says it is fully committed to the Jan. 6 investigation and the principle of preserving digital records for posterity. 

“The United States Secret Services fully respects and supports the important role of the National Archives and Records Administration in ensuring preservation of historical and government records.  The agency will have our full cooperation in this review and we will complete the internal review of our information as directed and promptly respond to their inquiry. The Secret Service has long standing established policies regarding the retention of Government Records,” a U.S. Secret Service spokesperson told FedScoop.

The inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, under which the Secret Service operates, sent a letter to Congress in early July to inform lawmakers that text messages sent by agents around the Jan. 6 Capitol riot had been deleted.

The Secret Service claims the text message erasures were part of a long-planned “system migration,” but such actions have prompted a criminal investigation by DHS after agency investigators could only find one pertinent text message regarding Jan. 6 from over 20 agents that are subject to congressional subpeonas.

The text messages have become particularly significant after former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson highlighted during a House hearing that former President Donald Trump allegedly tried to wrestle control of a Secret Service vehicle in order to try and join his crowd of supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

One former top Secret Service official speaking on the condition of anonymity reiterated that responsibility for the failure to preserve relevant text messages lies with agency leadership rather than with individual agents.

“The Secret Service and the director have to take responsibility for the lost texts and documents related to Jan 6th, but did the director even have knowledge of this occurring, I doubt it,” said Ralph Basham, former director of the Secret Service between 2003 to 2006 and former commissioner for U.S. Customs and Border Protection between 2006 to 2009.

“The CIO and the assistant director for technology would be really in charge of this data transition to ensure proper instructions and protocols were followed for text preservation,” said Basham.

Federal government IT experts say that although individual agents play some role in the preservation of relevant digital records, the system created by senior tech leaders in an agency is key to fully preserving records under federal law.

“The CIO should have caught this issue, its malfeasance at a very high level, they should be held accountable. They’re meant to monitor such records once a month or once a quarter,” said a former National Archives IT official.

“Ultimately there’s a chain of command from the agent who uses the device and then goes up to the agency IG to finally report the data to the National Archives but the agency CIO plays the most critical role in the middle to ensure the data is preserved and sent onwards,” they said.

The former official also said emphasised that although the National Archives has issued guidance on how text messages and other digital records must be preserved in some fashion for archiving purposes, each agency has to create its own set of rules or a “schedule” that outlines the specific mechanism by which digital records are preserved and sent to the National Archives.

Multiple federal agencies appear to have highly flawed practices when it comes to capturing and preserving digital records, a top former National Archives lawyer said.

“Many big major agencies like DHS or DOD haven’t put in place policies of automatically capturing such digital records, compliance is very problematic with thousands or millions of text messages,” said Jason R. Baron, the former director of litigation at the National Archives. 

Baron added that part of the problem is that the law which requires government employee communications to be preserved, the Federal Records Act, requires that messages in regards to government business must be preserved but the law doesn’t specify exactly how to do so. 

“If you leave the archiving to individuals like Secret Service agents or DOD officials that are extremely busy people with different priorities this is bound to happen,” said Baron. “Someone within an agency, like the CIO or the legal team need to make sure records are captured in a 21st century context.”

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Paul Brubaker is spearheading a departmentwide effort among operating administration staff offices to get policy control of that data, he said Thursday at Swish’s GIST 2022 conference produced by FedScoop.

VA is integrating AI operations into its DevSecOps environment to speed up and remove humans from some decision-making processes, but more data is needed to understand veterans’ journeys and better deliver services to them.

“That doesn’t mean we’re not doing some things with AI today,” Brubaker said. “Particularly around network resiliency with identifying behaviors and applications and devices that we can get in front of an employee, identifying if things are crashing or not working well.”

VA remains in the early stages of the effort; AI algorithms lack a “robust” neural network or the ability to learn, but “it’s on the radar,” he added.

Chief Technology Officer Charles Worthington and his innovation team are currently identifying AI best practices to be implemented departmentwide.

“You’re going to see environment testing a lot more,” Brubaker said.

To that end, VA’s National Simulation Center (SimLEARN) in Orlando, Florida, is constructing a virtual test environment for a host of AI applications.

VA also plans to “dramatically” transform its complex supply chain using AI, Brubaker said. The department’s chief acquisition officer is leading that effort with Brubaker assisting. 

“We’re going to issue a statement of objectives to industry asking for best ideas, and it’s not going to be your typical statement of work,” Brubaker said. “It’s not going to be overly prescriptive.”

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Mulchandani brings more than 25 years’ experience working in Silicon Valley and for the Department of Defense, to a role in which he’ll be identifying emerging technologies to apply to the CIA’s mission.

CIA Director William Burns has prioritized technology and the hiring of a CTO since his confirmation.

“I am honored to join CIA in this role and look forward to working with the agency’s incredible team of technologists and domain experts, who already deliver world-class intelligence and capabilities, to help build a comprehensive technology strategy that delivers exciting capabilities working closely with industry and partners,” Mulchandani said in the announcement.

Mulchandani previously served as CTO and acting director of DOD’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center. Before that he co-founded several startups including Oblix, Determina, OpenDNS and ScaleXtreme acquired by Oracle, VMWare, Cisco and Citrix respectively.

Mulchandani has a degree in computer science and math from Cornell University, a Master of Science in management from Stanford University, and a Master in public administration from Harvard University.

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As undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, Shyu will essentially be DOD’s chief technology officer, a position to which she brings extensive science and technology experience.

Before rising through the ranks of the Army’s Office of Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, she worked in the defense industry as a senior engineer and executive and her work spanned unmanned, space and electronic warfare technologies.

If confirmed by the Senate, Shyu’s main responsibilities will be focused on delivering advanced technology to the DOD through its massive research and engineering enterprise. There is growing support for dramatically increasing DOD’s the research and development budget to reach technological superiority in key areas, including 5G, hypersonic missiles, quantum computing and artificial intelligence.

Shyu is a recipient of the DOD medal for distinguished public service, the Army’s medal for distinguished civilian service and the Air Force’s decoration for exceptional civilian service.

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By working with other DHS IT organizations, FEMA can get on the same page and automate its compliance,  said Ted Okada, chief technology officer at FEMA.

However, compliance with data and privacy controls coming out of agencies like the National Institute of Standards and Technology is challenging because they haven’t kept pace with developments in cloud computing and DevSecOps.

While emerging NIST standards like the Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL) are diving deeper into Cabinet-level departments’ approaches to compliance, outdated controls remain.

“The common controls in the existing paradigm of client-server, hub-and-spoke computing, which are still with us even with cloud computing, those controls are fast becoming antiquated,” Okada said during an ATARC event Tuesday.

One such control asks whether organizations have a fire extinguisher, and no one would ever ask Microsoft Azure or Amazon Web Services that, he added.

At the same time that FEMA is establishing better cyber metrics, it’s developing application programming interfaces (APIs) that communicate with authorizing engines to generate system security plans and standardize them in open, text-based language for automation.

That way FEMA can store data and compute at the edge, closer to the source of the data, while adopting a zero-trust security posture that assumes breach, Okada said.

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