Last week each lawmaker shared with FedScoop their own unique vision for how Congress and the federal government should approach AI in the coming months, with Lieu criticizing parts of the European Union’s proposed AI Act while Buck took a shot at the White House’s AI Bill of Rights blueprint.

Buck and Lieu recently worked together to introduce a bill which would create a blue-ribbon commission on AI to develop a comprehensive framework for the regulation of the emerging technology and earlier this year introduced a bipartisan bill to prevent AI from making nuclear launch decisions.

The bicameral National AI Commission Act would create a 20-member commission to explore AI regulation, including how regulation responsibility is distributed across agencies, the capacity of agencies to address challenges relating to regulation, and alignment among agencies in their enforcement actions. 

The AI Commission bill is one of several potential solutions for regulating the technology proposed by lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who recently introduced a plan to develop comprehensive legislation in Congress to regulate and advance the development of AI in the U.S.

Buck said he would like to see “experts studying AI from trusted groups like the Bull Moose project and other think tanks, including American Compass,” to be a part of the AI commission. 

Buck and Lieu are both strongly focused on ensuring Congress and the federal government allow AI companies and their tools to keep innovating to ensure the US stays ahead of adversaries like China while ensuring any harms caused by the technology are understood and mitigated. 

With respect to increasing and supporting AI innovation in the U.S., Lieu said he is currently pushing for more funding within the Congressional appropriations process for AI safety, research and innovation that the federal government would disperse to qualified entities and institutions.

“I would like to see more funding from the government to research centers that create AI and to have different grants available for people who want to work on AI safety and AI risks and AI innovation,” said Lieu, who is a member of the House Artificial Intelligence Caucus and one of three members of Congress with a computer science degree.

Buck on the other hand highlighted that one of the keys to encouraging AI innovation is the government ensuring that “we don’t have a single controlling entity that we have dispersed AI competition,” in order to “make sure that we don’t have a Google in the AI space. I don’t mean Google specifically but I mean, I want to make sure we have five or six major generative AI competitors in the space,” he said.

For the past two years, Buck was the top Republican on the powerful House antitrust subcommittee and has played a key role in forging a bipartisan agreement in Congress that would rein in Big Tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple for anti competitive activities.

Buck also said he’s not in favor of OpenAI and ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman’s key approach to regulating the technology, which calls for the creation of a new federal agency to license and regulate large AI models. That proposal was floated by Altman along with other legislative ideas during congressional testimony in May.

“I’m not in favor of one agency with one commission, because it’s too easy to be captured by an outside group. So I think dispersing that oversight within the government is important,” Buck told FedScoop during an interview in his Congressional office on Capitol Hill. 

Tech giant Google has also pushed the federal government to divide up oversight of AI tools across agencies rather than creating a single regulator focused on the technology, in contrast with rivals like Microsoft and OpenAI. 

Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, told the Washington Post in June that he was in favor of a “hub-and-spoke model” of federal regulations that he argued is better suited to deal with how AI is affecting U.S. economy than the “one-size-fits-all approach” of creating a single agency devoted to the issue.

When asked about which AI regulatory framework he supports, Buck said the main frameworks currently being debated in Washington including the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) voluntary AI Risk Management Framework, the White House’s AI Bill of Rights Blueprint, and the EU’s proposed AI Act all have “salvageable items.”  

However, Buck added that the White House’s AI Bill of Rights “has some woke items that won’t find support across partisan lines,” indicating Republicans will push back against parts of the blueprint document which consists of five key principles for the regulation of AI technology: safe and effective systems, algorithmic discrimination protections, data privacy, notice and explanation and human alternatives, consideration and fallback.

On the other hand, Lieu, a Democrat, is strongly in favor of the White House’s AI blueprint which is intended to address concerns that unfettered use of AI in certain scenarios may cause discrimination against minority groups and further systemic inequality.

“The biggest area of AI use with the government [of concern] would be AI that has some sort of societal harm, such as discrimination against certain groups. Facial recognition technology that is less accurate for people with darker skin, I think we have to put some guardrails on that,” Lieu told FedScoop during a phone interview last week.  

“I am concerned with any AI model that could lead to systematic discrimination against a certain group of people, whether that’s in facial recognition or loan approval,” Lieu said.

Lieu added that the federal government should be focused on regulating or curtailing AI that could be used to hack or cyberattack institutions and companies and how to mitigate such dangerous activity. 

In a paper examining popular generative AI tool ChatGPT’s code-writing model known as Codex, which powers GitHub’s Co-Pilot assistant, OpenAI researchers observed that the AI model “can produce vulnerable or misaligned code” and could be “misused to aid cybercrime.” The researchers added that while “future code generation models may be able to be trained to produce more secure code than the average developer,” getting there “is far from certain.” 

Lieu also said that “AI that can be very good at spreading disinformation and microtargeting, people with misinformation,” which needs to be addressed and highlighted AI will cause “there to be disruption in the labor force. And we need to think about how we’re going to mitigate that kind of disruption.”

Alongside the White House’s AI blueprint, Lieu said he was strongly in favor of the voluntary NIST AI framework AI regulatory framework focused on helping the private sector and eventually federal agencies build responsible AI systems centered on four key principles: govern, map, measure and manage.

However, Lieu took issue with parts of the EU’s AI Act which was proposed earlier this year and is currently being debated but unlike the White House AI Blueprint and the NIST AI framework would be mandatory by law for all entities to follow.

“My understanding is that the EU AI Act has provisions in it that for example, would prevent or dissuade AI from analyzing human emotions. I think that’s just really stupid,” Lieu told FedScoop during the interview.  

“Because one of the ways humans communicate is through emotions. And I don’t understand why you would want to prevent AI from getting the full communications of the individual if the interviewer chooses to communicate that to the AI,” Lieu added.

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New York Democrat Schumer’s plan, called the “Safe Innovation Framework for AI Policy,” outlines ways to “protect, expand, and harness AI’s potential” as Congress pursues legislation, his office said.

In a keynote speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, Schumer said there is “no choice but to acknowledge that AI’s changes are coming,” and pointed out the need for a strategy to support innovation.

He also highlighted the role of the federal government in AI regulation.

“How much federal intervention on the tax side and on the spending side must there be? Is federal intervention to encourage innovation necessary at all? Or should we just let the private sector develop on its own?” Schumer questioned during his remarks.

At the same time, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif. and Ken Buck, R-Colo., introduced legislation Tuesday that would create a blue-ribbon commission on artificial intelligence to develop a comprehensive framework for the regulation of the emerging technology.

The bicameral National AI Commission Act would create a 20-member commission to explore AI regulation, including how regulation responsibility is distributed across agencies, the capacity of agencies to address challenges relating to regulation, and alignment among agencies in their enforcement actions. 

“We must come up with a plan that encourages — not stifles — innovation in this new world of AI, and that means asking some important questions,” Schumer said Wednesday. “We are going to work very hard to come up with comprehensive legislation. Because this is so important, we are going to do everything we can to succeed.”

In April, Schumer met with the CEOs of AI giants like OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google to discuss the development and regulation of the technology. 

President Joe Biden and his administration have also expressed commitment to safeguarding Americans’ rights and safety with a focus on protecting user privacy and addressing bias and misinformation in AI. Biden earlier this week met with tech leaders and academics in the AI space in Silicon Valley.

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Through the Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) pilot program, the DOD aims to push existing innovative projects across the “valley of death” — the phenomenon in which companies win small projects with the DOD that succeed in the prototype phase but fail to scale into production, often due to the time it takes within the budget cycle for a full procurement — and to “deliver war-winning capability earlier than scheduled.”

Ten DOD program offices were given $10 million to procure innovative tech from nontraditional, startup contractors that have received less than $500 million in cumulative revenue from the department.

“APFIT holds great promise to transform the way the Department procures next generations solutions. This pilot program is well positioned to be a key asset as we continue to work to bridge the valley of death,” Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu said in a statement. “The ten companies being funded will fill critical capability gaps. Without APFIT, their innovative technologies could take much longer to reach the hands of our warfighters.”

The APFIT program was mandated by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act as a mechanism to deliver “innovative and mature technologies and products that can meet warfighter demands but currently lack the necessary funding to transition the capability into the production delivery phase,” per a release from the DOD.

The programs selected were:

• Navy’s Advanced Sensor Package Procurement, awarded to Arete Associates
• Marine Corps’ Anti-Jam Radio-links for Maritime Operations Resiliency, awarded to Pacific Antenna Systems, Titan Systems LLC, and Naval Systems, Inc.
• Marine Corps’ Atmospheric Plasma Coating Removal System, awarded to Atmospheric Plasma Solutions
• Special Operations Command’s Augmented Reality Tactical Assault Kit, awarded to Eolian
• Air Force’s Autonomous Unmanned Aerial System – Vertical-BAT, awarded to Shield AI
• Army’s Drop-Glide Munitions, awarded to Orbital Research
• Missile Defense Agency’s Lightfield Directing Array Secure Production, awarded to Bright Silicon Technologies
• Special Operations Command’s Lightweight Wide Field of View Aviation Goggle, awarded to Aviation Specialties Unlimited
• Defense Innovation Unit’s Rapid Analysis of Threat Exposure, awarded to Philips Healthcare
• Space Force’s Real-Time Sensor Data Transformation, awarded to Meroxa

California Rep. Ken Calvert, the ranking Republican on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, was a cheerleader for the inclusion of APFIT in the 2022 NDAA. Calvert called the funding announcement an “exciting step in overcoming the long-standing challenges with transitioning defense technologies from prototypes to production at scale.”

“The so-called ‘Valley of Death’ has been an obstacle to getting emerging technology and commercially available resources into the hands of our warfighters on the battlefield,” Calvert said. “I pushed for the creation of APFIT to overcome this hurdle and ensure we stay ahead of near-peer adversaries like China in our technological advantage.”

Last week, the heads of 19 national security-focused technology startups and small businesses pressed Congress in a letter to resolve specific hurdles they’re encountering associated with how the Pentagon buys software and other innovative technologies.

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More funding and resources are needed to drive innovation and confront difficulties impacting the military’s research infrastructure, they said Thursday during a House Armed Services cyber, innovative technologies, and information subcommittee hearing on the Pentagon’s science and technology-aligned proposals for fiscal 2023.

“If we expect the department to attract the world’s best and brightest to produce state-of-the-art technologies, we must modernize our laboratory and test ranges,” Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu told legislators in her opening statement.

Tens of thousands of officials are employed by DOD’s labs, which include dozens of facilities spanning more than 20 states. The scientists and engineers involved conduct basic scientific research and work to develop advanced military applications for present and future conflicts.

“Our basic research programs enable the foundational work that will define the technological capabilities of the Army of 2040 and beyond,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology William Nelson told lawmakers. “At the center, the Army Research Lab has built a network of regional hubs and labs to give us access to the widest spectrum of scientists in colleges and universities across the country. These talented researchers and academic partners perform cutting-edge research in a variety of critical areas to the Army including quantum science, synthetic biology and artificial intelligence.”

Nelson, who also serves as the Army’s chief scientist, added: “Due to several factors, many research and several test facilities would greatly benefit from revitalization and recapitalization. We’re making slow but steady progress by relying on a spectrum of Congressional authorities to resource and modernize these facilities. Your support to raise the laboratory infrastructure construction cost caps would be greatly appreciated.”

President Biden has repeatedly committed to bolstering America’s R&D pursuits and the public assets, like national labs, that make them possible. However, during the hearing a number of the officials pointed to continuously unfunded requirements amounting to billions of dollars needed to enable military-related lab building projects.

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said more needs to be done regarding the infrastructure challenges that the DOD is grappling with.

“I have to say that it is shocking that we face a massive backlog in laboratory investment, more than $5.7 billion in the latest report to Congress. These challenges affect not just the pace and breadth of innovation, but also our ability to attract and retain the top-tier talent that we depend on. I’m committed to doing everything in my power to address this issue, and I look forward to hearing just how to put the department on a sustainable path of research facility investment. This could not be more pressing,” he said.

Shyu said a key priority of hers is to help the department land more funding for military construction (MilCon) to improve its labs and testing enterprise.

“There’s about $500 million needed by the Navy’s Electromagnetic and Cyber Countermeasures Laboratory to modernize the lab in order to develop and evaluate emerging threats and to be able to support an increased number of classified processes. This is just one example of a chunk of money that we need,” she said.

Meanwhile, officials see a need to improve technology transition from R&D to procurement.

Air Force Deputy Assistant Secretary for Science, Technology and Engineering Kristen Baldwin noted that officials on her team recently completed a comprehensive study on the topic. In a briefing with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall next month, they plan to recommend increased funding for efforts to help technologies “cross the valley of death.” The DOD acquisition community often uses the term “valley of death” to describe how promising emerging tech often fails to transition from labs and testing facilities to a program of record and get fielded.

“I would say that many of us are frustrated, as you are, with our struggle to keep up with the pace of technology transition and modernization that perhaps some of our peers have achieved,” Baldwin told lawmakers.

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Military units have been increasingly acquiring and deploying VR capabilities to supplement and advance real-world education options for their personnel in recent years. But what’s unique about this latest VR-centered request for quotations from the 92nd Air Refueling Wing at Fairchild Air Force base is that it blossomed out of a winning idea from one of the branch’s innovation-focused Spark Tank contests.

“The Virtual Welder Trainer requirement is a result of winning the Inland Spark Tank Competition, which is the competition at the installation level,” Contracting Officer Paul Blais and Contract Specialist, Commodities and Services Flight Staff Sgt. Carlos Melendez, both with the 92nd Contracting Squadron, told FedScoop in an emailed statement. “Because of the entry of this idea into the Spark Tank competition, it was one of the winners to receive the funding from Spark Tank for the purchase of a system.”

One branch of extended reality emerging technologies, VR immerses users into seemingly real, but computer-generated, environments via wearables that are usually headsets. As their computing infrastructure evolves and advances to allow for it, the military and government are investing in applications associated with medicine, education, suicide prevention and more.

Meant specifically for classroom training, the capability the Air Force is eyeing is what Blais and Melendez deemed to be “a highly realistic, multi-process” welding simulator. 

“For beginner to advanced-level weld students, the virtual welding system simulates multiple welding processes, blending real world and computer-generated images into a unique, virtual reality environment,” they wrote in the email. “This technology will allow the welders to train without utilizing real world resources, saving the Air Force a ton of money!”

According to a document attached to the VR welder solicitation, officials want a physical tool and digital program that leans on open-source code for system updates and teacher software. The training instrument also needs to come with a VR welding helmet with oversized adjustable straps, a work stand, and torch, among other features.

This year’s Inland Northwest Spark Tank Competition was hosted in February — this time by the brand new Fairchild Innovation Cell within the base. Such cells are being established across the nation by the branch and are essentially designed to enable new opportunities around collaboration and innovation.

The annual contest is meant to drive airmen and women to think of and execute novel ideas to benefit the force. Some of the other top performers in the 2022 competition included a stress vest, an integrated tech platform, and an engine preservation kit.

While Pentagon components at times struggle with transitioning innovative technologies from concept to wide use by military personnel, this solicitation demonstrates how competitions like Spark Tank hold some promise to bridge that gap.

“The Inland Spark Tank competition can lead to new purchases when the Airmen of Fairchild AFB have innovative ideas that can help better the Air Force,” Blais and Melendez wrote to FedScoop.

Responses to the RFQ are due May 10.

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The online portal, www.ctoinnovation.mil, will provide a “one-stop shop” for outside organizations to access the department’s innovation “ecosystem,” according to a press release.

The site “serves as a gateway to the Department’s efforts to bring in new ideas and technology, with a special focus on students, universities, and businesses,” the release said.

“The Innovation Pathways website is one part of our on-going efforts to make it easier for those across the innovation ecosystem, including small businesses, new entrants to the defense markets, universities, and traditional defense suppliers, to find ways to collaborate with the DoD and each other,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks. “For the first time, the Department has a website that puts the range of these different opportunities across the Department in one place.”

One of the pathways will allow students and faculty to search for available internships, grants, scholarships and research opportunities.

Another is intended for companies in the commercial sector seeking business opportunities with the DoD.

“Businesses can also learn about ways to seek specific science, technology, prototyping, and experimentation opportunities,” the release said.

A third pathway is designed for military personnel and DOD civilians seeking to leverage existing projects, participate in workshops, or collaborate.

Users can apply filtering criteria based on their interests to find relevant innovation organizations within the department.

The Pentagon plans to periodically update the website to be responsive to user needs and technology advances.  

The new online portal stemmed from work conducted by the Pentagon’s Innovation Steering Group, which was created by Hicks and chaired by Heidi Shyu, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

“One thing that drove me nuts is talking to small companies, I realized that, you know, the DoD is just a giant fortress. They don’t know where the door is,” Shyu said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association.

“One of the key things I wanted to do is create an R&E website so they’re able to go into the R&E website and be able to navigate through this maze,” she said. For example, “we’re linking to each of the services in terms of, if you’re interested in what the Army is doing and the Air Force is doing in terms of innovation opportunities, you can click on a link and it will take you right to the portal. So … hopefully you’re no longer groping in the dark.”

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As employees adapted to working from home and experienced new flexibilities around when and where they worked, they also discovered greater latitude to seek out employers willing to offer more flexible work-life arrangements.

As a consequence, it’s increasingly evident that traditional telework arrangements and recent efforts to support remote work are no longer enough to compete for top talent in government, suggests David C. Wyld, Merritt Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University.

The report, “Gearing up for the ‘work-from-anywhere’ workforce,” produced by FedScoop and underwritten by Zoom Video Communications, cites a number of studies including Wyld’s analysis, that reflect the extent to which knowledge workers are now more emboldened to choose employers who offer work flexibility.

A study noted in the report of 4,912 workers conducted in January by Momentive and Zoom, for instance, found:

• Just over two-thirds (69%) of workers say it’s important for them to be able to choose whether they work in-person, remotely, or a hybrid model.
• Almost half (45%) say it’s likely they would look for a new job if they weren’t able to work from their ideal location.

To compete for talent, agencies will need to move more deliberately to embracing a work-from-anywhere (WFX) mindset. However, doing so also promises to strengthen the ability for agencies to deliver public services more effectively and efficiently, says Stephen Ellis, government solutions lead at Zoom Video Communications, in the report.

The report notes examples over the past two years where federal, state and local government organizations that deployed Zoom’s video communications platform — initially to facilitate collaboration between remote workers and partners — discovered how Zoom’s capabilities also enabled new and more innovative ways to serve their constituents.

Federal officials are already recasting the technical and policy groundwork to support more permanent adoption of remote work, according to the report. The Office of Personnel Management, for instance, released new guidelines in November on “the future of work” to better meet the government’s “human capital needs and improve mission delivery.”

The report, however, adds that organizations that deploy greater technical support for hybrid and remote work are also likely to see wider employee satisfaction. A Future Forum Pulse survey cited in the report found that people who work at organizations they describe as technology innovators report much more positive work experiences. The report also includes links to Wyld’s recommendations for “8 building blocks for managing a remote workforce.”

Download the full report.

This article was produced by Scoop News Group for FedScoop and sponsored by Zoom Video Communications.

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“Why is software so important? Because the next battles will be fought based on software supremacy. They really will be,” said Schmidt, the former chair of the Defense Innovation Board and a major advocate for the U.S. military’s adoption of modern software practices and AI. “And you understand this — you’ve heard it. But you don’t have it yet.”

Speaking at the Air Force Association’s Warfare Symposium, Schmidt offered direct, blunt criticisms about the DOD’s continued struggle to innovate and adapt to the increasingly digital nature of defense. It’s something the Defense Innovation Board grappled with repeatedly under his leadership, during which time it produced a Software Acquisition and Practices (SWAP) study for the department.

“If I look at the totality of what you’re doing, you’re doing a very good job of making things that you currently have better, over and over and over again,” he said, adding that the DOD and military services often ritualize processes and systems as “God-given” without considering innovative alternatives.

He continued: “If I’ve learned anything in my now 45 years of innovative tech companies, it’s that rules can be changed with focus, with cleverness and with some real buy-in. And I would suggest that if we look at the things that are missing in terms of technological innovation, they’re precisely the things that we need to actually change the system to account for.”

In pockets across the military, though, this is happening, Schmidt said, pointing to the Air Force’s approach in developing the B-21 Raider. And it needs to be applied to “things other than bombers,” he said. “Like let’s try to do the same thing for software” and concepts like Joint All Domain Command and Control and “actually get it in your hands, get it working, get it now.”

But there are several challenges at play across the DOD as the department looks to buy software. The primary issue, Schmidt said, “is you don’t have enough software people. And by software people, I mean people who think the way I do, you come out of a different background, and you just don’t have enough of these.”

On top of that, the military doesn’t yet understand that “software is never done,” he said. “So if you’re a person who accounts for something that has to be done,” as the military tends to think about acquiring weapons systems, “you’re always unhappy. Because software is never done. It’s a process of continuous improvement.” And what that tends to result in is “every time you try to do something in software, one of these strange scavenging groups within the administration takes your money away,” Schmidt said. “It’s insane.”

Schmidt’s points about software are largely in anticipation of the DOD’s need to more rapidly adopt AI.

“AI is a force multiplier like you’ve never seen before,” said Schmidt, who spent several years as chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. “It sees patterns that no human can see. And all interesting future military decisions will have as part of that an AI assistant.”

Still, the same cultural and resourcing challenges remain, Schmidt said, urging for more attention to this space.

“To be very blunt, you don’t have enough people. You don’t have the right contractors. And you don’t have the right strategy to fill in this,” he said. And while the DOD has fought tough battles to stand up the AI resources it currently has, like the Joint AI Center, that’s not nearly enough. “We need 20, 30, 40 such groups, more and more. And as that transformation happens, the people who work for you, the incredibly courageous people will have so much more powerful tools.”

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Read the full report.

Having a comprehensive federal data strategy involves more than cataloging what data your agency has, which data is most valuable and where it resides. It also requires the ability to gather and analyze operational and security data in real time — and then have the additional ability to discern how various types of data are being put to work over their lifetimes.

“The world is moving to a place where there is too much data coming at us all day, every day,” says Juliana Vida, group vice president and chief strategy adviser at Splunk. A former deputy CIO at the Pentagon and retired U.S. Navy commander, Vida argues that despite the challenges of capitalizing on cloud services, agencies have “no other option” but to move to the cloud.

“There is no other way to manage the volume, velocity, variety, and pace without leveraging cloud technology. So the end state has to be figuring out how and when to leverage these mature data analytics capabilities that are optimized in the cloud,” she says.

But without a foundational data strategy upfront — and the tools to develop and foster that strategy — deciding what to move the cloud becomes even harder than it already is, she says in the report, “Why data analytic platforms hold the key to smarter cloud investments.”

Vida, and others in the report, maintain that organizations need to move beyond rationalizing applications and data centers in the name of efficiency. Instead, they need to adopt a platform approach that has the capability to gather, unify, analyze and act on data from all types of systems across an organization, including data operating in the cloud.

“The right platforms help you identify which data you’re actually using, which applications you actually need … and take the human effort out of it to figure out what’s important,” she explains.

Without a fully informed data strategy, organizations run the risk of transferring workloads to the cloud only to lose out on the potential insights and value the cloud can offer, says Geoff Woollacott, a senior strategy consultant and principal analyst at Technology Business Research.

“Cloud solutions alone will not deliver data clarity,” adds Dion Hinchcliffe, vice president and principal analyst at technology research and advisory firm Constellation Research. “In fact, they may create even less clarity because the data may be more dispersed.” That’s also in part because cloud providers only see a portion of a customer’s data.

The report cites findings from a recent Harvard Business Review Analytics Services study that found 66% of executives polled globally say that leveraging real-time data analytics, is “very or extremely important to monitoring and gaining insights across cloud services, applications and infrastructure.”

The report, underwritten by Splunk, highlights how Splunk’s Data-to-Everything Platform was instrumental in helping the U.S. Census Bureau unify and analyze data across the Census Bureau’s 52 systems and 35 operating divisions onto a single platform. That effort was part of a sweeping initiative to overhaul the bureau’s legacy systems and build a cloud-enabled IT environment in time for the 2020 census.

The report also highlights how Splunk’s Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) system can support hundreds of tools and thousands of unique APIs, enabling IT teams to coordinate complex workflows.

“Platforms aren’t just a solution for putting your data into a cloud,” she Vida. “It’s being able to see across the entire lifecycle of the data and where it’s being used to help inform these decisions about migration and where to place investments — and where to pivot from what we used to do, to what we want to do. It offers end-to-end visibility of the data. And not all platforms do that.”

Vida also describes how establishing real-time observability puts federal agencies in a stronger position to achieve four longer-term benefits including greater efficiency, resiliency, security and innovation that provide added value to their investment strategies.

Download and read the full report.

 This article was produced by FedScoop and sponsored by Splunk.

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The firm now has a new managing director, Jake Chapman who spoke with FedScoop in his first interview. Chapman is still working to get funding from Congress to invest in startups, but if given $50-$100 million, he says the Army Venture Capital Corporation could be a critical part of getting more startups and emerging technology in the hands of troops.

“I think our organization can play in that liminal space where there is a working product, and there is a buyer but most [venture capital firms] won’t touch the company, but we could step in and say alright we will bridge you for the next 18 months to two years until that contract comes through,” Chapman told FedScoop.

The Army Venture Capital Corporation’s (AVCC) first iteration was a failure, investing in companies that deflated during the 2008 recession and not building the goodwill it needed in the valley to be a trusted partner. Or a least, that’s Chapman’s diagnosis and exactly what he wants to avoid.

“The first ten years were not super successful from a financial perspective,” Chapman said. “Army circa 2002 did not really know what was going on in venture capital.”

Chapman said he brings the type of experience the Army needs to succeed this time around. He is a trained lawyer and has led venture firms in the valley focusing on “deep tech” like aerospace and biotech.

“The number of people that looked hard at the defense tech space … is a small group of people. I am one of them,” he said.

The problem for many startups that want to work in the defense space is that money is relatively easy to find in small, short bursts but major contracts take years to land. Without big contracts in hand, venture firms are often reluctant to bet on a company that wants to work with the military. That dynamic has often pushed startups to focus on commercial clients that can bring them revenue.

Chapman’s solution: give startups a few million dollars as a signal to investors that the Army is really interested. The power of the AVCC will be in the “signal” they send to the investor community with their cash. Couple its investments with a strong network in the valley, Chapman says AVCC can be a critical part in bridging the so-called valley of death.

In addition to bridge funding, Chapman wants the AVCC to focus on deterring adversarial capital from funds with ties to countries like China and Russia and doing what he called “ecosystem mapping,” or building data sets on the startups and private funds that want to work with DOD.

“We want to push and pull technology into the department,” he said.

Chapman

Chapman has more than a decade of experience in the valley and working with venture investments, work he says gives him the perspective to know what venture firms need to hear from companies seeking a new funding round.

His pivot from the commercial world to DOD was largely driven by a desire to apply his skills to national security problem sets. His father and members of his family served in the military and he felt his skills could best be applied to financing the tech needed to win the next war.

“I think one of the best ways of doing that is investing in national security tech,” he said.

Lobbying Congress

Chapman continues to work on building support for the orginization. While the authorities for AVCC remain on the books, it doesn’t have money. He hopes to bring on six people to help run the shop but so far his top priority is lobbying Congress for money.

He said he has seen support from both sides of the aisle and chambers for the idea. Similar initiatives have been raised to appropriate $100 million for an “innovation” fund.

“This is a totally unique tool in the DOD tool set and it would be a shame to let it go away,” he said.

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