The Wrap: NSF’s Innovation ‘Hopper’; Knake Leaves ONCD; Taking Aim at Legacy IT

Welcome to The Wrap for Tuesday, June 20!

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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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NSF’s ‘Hopper’ for Innovation

National Science Foundation (NSF) CIO and Chief Data Officer Dorothy Aronson explained to us in an exclusive interview how the agency has been building out a new internal incubator for innovative tech projects bubbling up from NSF personnel. That project – dubbed Hopper – provides internal resources for nascent projects, and then as they progress gives the agency’s IT operation the means to lasso the tech work on those promising innovations and bring them into the discipline of the agency’s central IT organization. The ever-insightful Aronson speaks at length about how Hopper is geared to meet the needs of agency staff who are already highly tech-savvy, and shepherds their work from “the wild” into the agency’s core operations. Speaking to that spirit of “local innovation,” Aronson said, “What we’ve done over the course of time is create a center of excellence for innovation … We’ve said to the local innovators – who are often highly introverted people who are just wanting to get their jobs done – we’ve said to them, we will help you, we love your innovations, we want them, and we’re collecting them.”

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Knake out at ONCD; Braun Steps In

Rob Knake has stepped down as deputy national cyber director for budget and policy within the White House’s Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD), MeriTalk has learned. Knake?first joined?ONCD in February 2022, and his last day on the job was June 15. He previously served as the White House director for cybersecurity from 2011 to 2015, before joining the Council on Foreign Relations as a senior fellow for cyber policy. It is unclear who will permanently replace Knake. However, Jake Braun – the former senior counselor for transformation at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – joined the ONCD team as a senior advisor on May 22, and he is “going to fill a large part of Rob’s portfolio, including leading the implementation of the NCS [National Cybersecurity Strategy],” a knowledgeable source told MeriTalk. Nevertheless, the source confirmed that Braun is not “a specific replacement for Rob or holding his title.”

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Senators Aiming Again at Legacy IT

Sens. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, are reintroducing legislation that would direct Federal agencies to develop detailed inventories of their legacy IT systems and plans to modernize them. The?Legacy IT Reduction Act?– first?introduced?in March 2022 – aims to reduce the Federal government’s reliance on legacy IT systems by requiring Federal agencies to inventory their legacy IT systems and develop concurring modernization plans. The Office of Management and Budget would get the task of helping agencies out on both fronts. The same bill found support in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee last year, but ultimately got stuck on the question of funding for replacing agencies’ legacy systems.?During last year’s debate, Sen. Hassan called for expanded access to agency IT working capital funds and the Technology Modernization Fund (TMF) to help agencies make headway on IT modernization.

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Better Cyber for Nukes

Three members of the House Armed Services Committee?unveiled?a bipartisan measure late last week aimed at strengthening cybersecurity practices for the United States’ nuclear weapons system, and want to advance that measure in legislation this week. Reps. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., Don Bacon, R-Neb., and Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., intend to push for the inclusion of this language in the June 21 mark-up of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024. The bipartisan proposal would set up a Cybersecurity Risk Inventory, Assessment, and Mitigation Working Group within the Department of Defense. The group would be required to prepare a comprehensive strategy for inventorying the range of National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) systems that are potentially at risk in the operational technology and nuclear weapons information technology environments, assessing the systems at risk, and implementing risk mitigation actions.

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Trusting AI?

The Department of Defense (DoD) is looking to industry for ways to provide an efficient means of measuring user trust in AI-enabled systems. DoD’s?open call?for that assistance – issued on June 6 – is looking for information on how the department can measure AI trust in general, and then in more specific ways. “The US Department of Defense needs a comprehensive way to measure user trust in AI-enabled systems – including how trust may break down into various dimensions and its relationship to other concepts or constructs,” the Pentagon said, adding that forthcoming data on AI trust may impact future deployments of the technology. DoD wants to hear from you by July 3.

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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.

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