The Wrap: Barcodes for IRS; Replicator on Track; NRC CIO Nelson Retiring

Welcome to The Wrap for Thursday, January 25!

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From the newsroom at MeriTalk, it’s the quickest read in Federal tech news. Here’s what you need to know today:

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Barcodes for IRS?

A technology that was pioneered in the 1950s with a basis in Morse Code and came into its own in the 1970s as a mainstay for automated checkout in grocery stores may soon find its next best use at the Internal Revenue Service if the Senate has anything to do with it. Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Todd Young, R-Ind., have introduced the Barcode Automation for Revenue Collection to Organize Disbursement and Enhance (BARCODE) Efficiency Act that would instruct the IRS to use 2-D barcode technology to help it speed conversion of paper-based tax filings into digital formats, which they said will save the agency money and speed the tax filing process for citizens. “The archaic, manual transcription process the IRS uses to process paper returns today results in substantial delays and imposes significant costs on the agency, and this bill works well with the agency’s current plans and existing allocated funding to modernize processing protocols to more efficiently process paper returns and clear the backlogs,” the senators said.

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Replicator on Track

The Pentagon’s Replicator initiative – announced?last year by the United States Department of Defense (DoD) with the aim of fielding thousands of autonomous systems to counter China’s military mass – is on track to meet 2025 deadlines for the first phase of the effort, dubbed Replicator One. That was the news from Aditi Kumar , the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) ’s deputy director for Strategy, Policy, and National Security Partnerships, who said at a Jan. 24 Hudson Institute event that a team comprised of DIU and the combatant commands and service branches are “working to identify the barriers to acceleration the DoD needs to overcome to ensure those capabilities are fielded and in the hands of warfighters by that 2025 timeframe.” What kind of systems that Replicator ends up producing – drone swarms, anyone? – is still hush-hush, and Kumar said it will likely stay that way. One thing that is known is that AI tech will be playing some kind of role in training and information strategy. “We’ve got all the right experts, data, and AI training … [Chief Digital and AI Office] is a great partner in this helping us think through, you know what that piece needs to look like. So, it’s bringing all of those together so that when we deliver this in the end, it is the full capability,” Kumar said.

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NRC CIO Retiring

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) went official today with news that’s been known in the background for weeks – CIO David Nelson is retiring from public service on Friday after nearly 20 years in the upper ranks of Fed tech management. Nelson has been CIO at NRC since 2016, and before that was the top tech leader at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services . He was nice enough to sit with MeriTalk for a full-length interview last year, and his description of taking gobs of agency data from microfiche into the AI world is one for the ages. For the time being, Scott Flanders, NRC’s deputy CIO, will take over the CIO role in an acting capacity.

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NCD’s new Policy Hire

Congrats to Jeff Rothblum , who has departed the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) where he led the cybersecurity and tech security portfolio for Chairman Gary Peters, D-Mich., and landed at the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD) as director of cyber policy and plans. “I can’t wait to continue working to improve national cybersecurity from a new vantage point, and join a new(ish) team of incredibly talented people,” Rothblum said on his LinkedIn account. Sharing that excitement is Federal CISO and Deputy National Cyber Director Chris DeRusha , who said, “[S]o excited to have you on the team! And congratulations on your five years at HSGAC as one of the leading voices and advocates for cyber on the Hill. Can’t wait to see what you do in the executive branch.”

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Once again, let’s “call IT a day,” but we'll bring you more tomorrow. Until then please check the MeriTalk breaking news website throughout the day for the latest on government IT people, process, and policy. And finally, please hit the news tip jar [with leads, breaking news, or simply your two cents] at [email protected].