Shows
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 290 AI + Zero Trust: The New Line of Defense for Federal Data Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com We are at the point where AI is almost expected in any technology offering. Today, we sat down with John Kindervag from Illumio to learn how AI can be applied to the world of federal Zero Trust. Some have characterized today's current cybersecurity situation as an arms race; some call it a whack-a-mole game. An innovative technology, such as AI, becomes popularized, and adversaries use it to improve attacks. As a...
2025-12-1626 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 287 Protecting Federal Data with Zero Trust Architecture and the Enterprise Browser Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com John Kindervag began the concept of Zero Trust; he probably did not realize the impact it would have on the technological community. Today, we look at the federal government and Zero Trust implementation from 40,000 feet. Kindervag will opine on topics such as browser security, the importance of data, and operational technology. Instead of using his technical knowledge as a cudgel, Kindervag reinforces the importance of a balanced approach in which fe...
2025-12-0923 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 264 How Automation is Accelerating Digital Transformation Across Federal Agencies Ep. 264 How Automation Is Accelerating Digital Transformation Across Federal Agencies Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com In this episode of the Federal Tech Podcast, host John Gilroy interviews Nabil Amiri, Vice President of Business Development for the federal practice at NWN. The discussion introduces NWN's expanding role in helping federal agencies adopt advanced technologies, particularly artificial intelligence (AI), as part of broader digital transformation efforts. Amiri explains NWN's recent acquisition of Leverage Information, a move that br...
2025-08-0820 min
The John Rocha Channel NetworkTony Gilroy Talks ANDOR vs ROGUE ONE, Mia Goth Cast in STARFIGHTER🌌 The Jedi Way: Mia Goth in Star Wars: Starfighter, Tony Gilroy talks Andor vs Rogue One, 🌌Join John Rocha, Laura Kelly and Kevin Smets for this episode as they dive deep into the latest happenings in the Star Wars universe! In this episode, we discuss:✨ Mia Goth Cast as a Villian in Shawn Levy's STAR WARS: STARFIGHTER film✨ Andor Showrunner Tony Gilroy weighs in on Andor vs Rogue One ✨ Laura's Thoughts on Andor S2✨ THR's report on Filoni and Beck taking over for Kathleen Kennedy at Lucasfilm, Mark Hamill is done appearing in Star Wars , and more!
2025-06-121h 03
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 235 How Tech Leaders Can Streamline Federal Contracting for Real Efficiency Gains Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com The federal government is releasing so many RFIs and RFQs that it is increasingly challenging to select which ones to respond to. For example, let us say you get 60 requests. You do not have an equal chance to win any of the sixty messages. Do you assign the same amount of time to each one? Do you review each and rank the chances of success? What about the time you used in th...
2025-04-2924 minThe John Rocha Channel NetworkAndor S2 Trailer Breakdown, TONY GILROY Talks Star Wars's Future | THE JEDI WAY🌌 The Jedi Way: EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT ANDOR S2 AND THE ACOLYTE S2 FANS GET A BOOST! 🌌Join John Rocha and Laura Kelly as they soldier on without Kevin Smets for this episode as they dive deep into the latest happenings in the Star Wars universe! In this episode, we discuss:✨ Our breakdown of the new ANDOR S2 trailer✨ Andor Showrunner's Hopes for ANDOR S2✨ The Acolyte S2 fans get a boost from new analytics✨ Plus, and more!Whether you're a die-hard fan or just curious about the galaxy far, far away, this episode is packed with i...
2025-03-3050 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 225 Why Identity is the First Pillar of Federal Security in the Digital Age Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Once the transition to the cloud became dominant, the importance of identity was placed ahead of permission to access apps and data. When data centers were down the hall, one could have physical access to a room and sign-on permission. The hybrid cloud, private clouds, and an interest in "alternative clouds" make identity the keystone of modern computing. Companies like Okta, Ping, and SailPoint work with identity and access management bu...
2025-03-2519 min
Podcasting in Professional ServicesThe Federal Tech Podcast, Constellations, and Farm Kid City Kid, with John Gilroy Today we're gonna talk with a guy who did 1200 podcast episodes and give you tips on how you can be successful.On this episode of Podcasting in Professional Services, John Gilroy, host of The Federal Tech Podcast, Constellations, and Farm Kid City Kid joins the show to share his podcasting experience. In this conversation, you'll hear:What motivates John to be an active ocean swimmer, even in his 60sThe transition from radio to podcasting in the DC marketThe difference between a $25 million studio and recording from a local BBQ jointA diversified approach to podcast sponsorshipsAudio -vs- vi...
2025-03-2044 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 203 Dangers that Lurk inside Your Phone Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com We have all heard that the phones we carry around have more computing power than was used in the Apollo moon mission. Breaking news: these powerful devices in our pockets are vulnerable to attacks of which we cannot dream. We can just pick up our phones and read the headlines. Brian Krebs reports federal charges against SMS attacks, Salt Typhoon getting into our phone systems, even the FBI telling us to use en...
2024-12-1723 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 202 Innovation in Handling Complexities of AI Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Malicious actors are taking advantage of AI and the federal government. As a result, we are in a strange Wack-a-Mole game in which applying AI for defense has become so complex that each application seems to require specific skill sets. Today, we sit down with two leaders of NRLabs to discuss their unique approach to applied AI. NRLabs leverages the founders' diverse aerospace engineering and cybersecurity backgrounds to provide innovative so...
2024-12-1228 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 201 Misdirection, feints, trojan horses Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com In Frank Herbert's classic Dune, Paul Atreides's martial arts instructor discusses knife fighting and a "feint within a feint." Today, we apply for this martial art tactic in federal information technology. Malicious actors are flooding networks with false attacks, which are, in essence, feints with knives. Digital technology can multiply this activity, or noise, to such an extent that the real attack may be missed. The question is: How can we...
2024-12-1019 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 200 Data Usage Across Silos and Boundaries Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com In 1967 the movie Cool Hand Luke gave us this famous quote, "what we have here is a failure to communicate." Surprisingly, this adage may apply to federal technology as well. If a federal leader allows secure information to be communicated, they can get fired. If they do not allow enough access to appropriate information, decisions can go sideways. The federal government is being bombarded with data, some important, some trivial. Th...
2024-12-0520 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 199 Managing Mobile Security Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Using a phone to read or communicate has become so standard that church people are expected to read scripture with their phones. Using mobile devices to transmit secure information. Traditionally, secure communication was based on desktop systems; today, we need to pivot and learn how to apply mobile device management to leverage the cloud to provide safe and secure communications through mobile devices. Our guest today, Harold Smith, has spent th...
2024-12-0328 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 198 Creating a Solid Foundation for AI Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com When Qlik was founded in 1993, hard drives were measured in megabytes, and the Internet was primarily text-based. If lucky, you could get information in structured columns and formats. Fast forward thirty years, and some estimate YouTube alone has 4.3 petabytes of data loaded every day. The federal government certainly has its share of formatted data. A recent survey showed that 80% of data collected by the federal government is unstructured. Thi...
2024-11-2622 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 197 Managing Federal Cyber Tools Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com With public speaking, everyone has butterflies before they begin; instructors tell speakers to get them to fly in formation. When it comes to tools for cybersecurity, we have a similar situation – you may have End point Detection and Response, Extended Detection and Response, Managed Detection and Response, DR, XDR, MDR, Security Information and Event Management, and many others. ThreatQuotient was founded with the intention of making sure these disparate tools prov...
2024-11-2125 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 196 How to take a Federal Network Above and Beyond Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Ep 196 How to take a Federal Network Above and Beyond Today, we see our network being pushed and pulled in every direction: remote users demand access, millions of endpoints must be managed, and wireless networks abound. The Internet we use every day was designed for a much more humble requirement: essentially, bursts of communication between small entities. Our interview with Dan DeBacker from Extreme Networks will define these new...
2024-11-1929 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 195 AI in a World of Data Poisoning and Automated Chaos Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Federal technology leaders operate in a confusing world. On the one hand, they must grant access to data that is needed by users; on the other hand, they must comply with security requirements that severely restrict that access. Craig Mueller from Varonis offers a solution: efficient data management will ensure that all information will be carefully categorized to allow this razor's edge of operation. The approach will allow for a concept called "com...
2024-11-1421 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 194 Where does ServiceNow fit in Federal Technology? Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Our guest today is Jonathan Alboum, the Federal CTO for ServiceNow Federal. This interview should begin like Mission Impossible movies. "Jonathan, your mission, should you accept it, is to describe all the variations ServiceNow serves federal technology leaders. You have 25 minutes. This message will self-destruct in ten seconds." This is an "impossible mission" because Service Now has customers in over one hundred agencies. It sure appears each instance is unique. On...
2024-11-1221 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 193 Evolution of DevOps to AIOps Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Everyone awake in biology class remembers the difference between a somatic and an autonomic nervous system. (Cheat sheet: You can control somatic, but the other kicks in without knowing.) What does this have to do with federal information technology? Today, we sat down with Dave Link, the founder of Science Logic, and he talked about how to manage complex federal systems. We all know in the early days, one could us...
2024-11-0723 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 192 Forensic Analysis and Digital Footprint Ep 192 Forensic Analysis and Digital Footprint Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Cellebrite is a company that earned its stripes in the commercial world with its ability to find a needle in a haystack. In other words, they have developed an ability to sift through mountains of data, find the essential parts of an investigation, and leverage that information to close a case. In other words, anyone can find the proverbial needle; who can fi...
2024-11-0519 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 191 The Surge of Google Public Sector Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Google's public sector has exploded into the federal technology marketplace. Today, we recapitulated the recent Google Public Sector event and tried to understand the reasons for the success. Our guest is Troy Bertram, Executive Managing Director of Google's public Sector Partner Ecosystem. Together, we review the keynote presentations, essential concepts, and the value Google can bring to rapid innovation in the federal government. The event kicked off with Karen Dahut, CE...
2024-10-3119 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 190 Going Deeper with Federal User Experience Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Humans can be easily deceived. You look at an iceberg and think that is all you have; the same approach can be applied to federal websites. At first glance, you notice the visual and do not understand how the website may be providing valid information or if this can be done in a timely manner. Those aspects of web design are essential and can be measured easily with well-known tools like heat ma...
2024-10-2922 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 189 Unlocking the $178 billion-dollar small business market. Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Robb Wong helps clients at Deep Water Point & Associates better understand the U.S. Small Business Administration. They recently announced that Fiscal Year 2023 had a record-high 28.4 % of federal contracts to small businesses. Robb is in the perfect position to help. He has started several small businesses and was appointed associate administrator at the Office of Government Contracting & Business Development in the U.S. Small Business Administration. This experience makes him th...
2024-10-2427 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 188 Understanding Public Sector Partnerships Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com The federal government is the largest employer in the United States, employing approximately three million people. It buys everything from rubber bands to rockets. In the area of technology, it buys everything from toner for a copier to communications to a satellite. How can a small company sell to this monolith? Some will argue that the best approach is to develop a relationship with a successful company to understand the dynamics of fe...
2024-10-2227 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 187 Accelerating Application Refactoring with AI in DevSecOps Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Joel Krooswik from Gitlab has seen more code reviews than he can count. He has seen duplicate code, insufficient data, and insecure code. "Work harder" may be the maxim in the NFL, but this is a fool's errand regarding software development. Traditionally, a code review would yield remediation that would take hours and detailed work. During the interview today, Joel looks at how Artificial Intelligence can be applied to four areas: Cl...
2024-10-1721 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 186 How AI is Shaping The Future of Work in Government Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Last year, we were all dazzled by Artificial Intelligence vacuuming up words to spit out text, collecting code, and generating code. Well, it's time to see if those parlor tricks can be applied to federal work. Bob Ritchie is a self-proclaimed "code warrior" with years of experience evaluating federal software projects. He mentions three areas where AI can help federal projects. It's tedious work to review code and tr...
2024-10-1523 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 185 Post Quantum Encryption: Defense Against the Dark Arts John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com When it comes to preparing for a hurricane, the federal government has FEMA, NOAA, and a wide range of recovery options. However, we all know quantum is coming down the road, and many are not prepared for what will come. And it will come. We do not know when. Serious scholars have posited that future quantum computers will be able to break our current encryption. What is quantum encryption? You can go to...
2024-10-1026 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 184 Managing Microservices in a Complex Federal Environment John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com If you read federal mandates, "continuous monitoring" is becoming popular. If you type the phrase into Google Trends, you will see a drastic rise in the past five years. However, very few people can detail ways to implement this noble policy. Today, we sit down with Branden Wood from Tetrate to explore an option that can assist federal leaders in taking a strong step toward the elusive goal of Zero Tru...
2024-10-0826 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 183 Hidden Relationships in Large Data Sets John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com History books will document the origin of the relational database at around 1970. About a decade later graph technology was introduced but it has taken decades for the cost of storage to go down and the ability to compute to go up. Finally, we can take advantage of a new way to unlock answers from a database. A typical relational database looks at information in tables. This can be fantastic for many actions, which is why...
2024-10-0322 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 182 Sorry, not your father's Oracle Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Today, we talk about a 47-year-old company whose income was up 21% last year. Yes, the company is Oracle. Kim Lynch is a well-known technology executive, and she highlights how Oracle can solve complex federal tech concerns. She begins by giving a brief overview of the recent Oracle Cloud World announcements. Kim Lynch takes all these announcements from Oracle Cloud World and applies them to specific federal problems. If yo...
2024-10-0119 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 181 Software Testing in the Real World John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Once upon a time, requirements would be collected and a software team would write custom code and after a year or two, a solution would be released. This seems like the Land of Oz. Today's software developers grab code off the shelf, assemble it, and then deploy it. Then iteration after iteration must be evaluated and deployed in a world of constantly changing system requirements and cyber attacks. Let us not...
2024-09-2623 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 180 Keys to Success in FedRAMP https://content.leadquizzes.com/lp/fk1JL_FgeQ Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com FedRAMP was launched fourteen years ago; today we get an update on metrics and use cases to help companies considering certification. James Leach has been immersed in the world of FedRAMP since the beginning. Today, he gives listeners insight on navigating the FedRAMP compliance process. Commercial companies understand, in detail, the business problem they can solve. For some reason, when it c...
2024-09-2323 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 179 Managing the Chaos of Enterprise Software Development Fun fact #1: 90% of software developed today comprises third-party apps. Fun fact #2: 48% of organizations have over one hundred tools in the toolchain. What could go wrong? Today, we sat down with Ben Chicoski from CloudBees. He discusses the evolution of software development, emphasizing the importance of testing in the software delivery lifecycle. CloudBees acquired Launchable to use AI to analyze test patterns and results to surface only important tests. He highlights that up to 80% of tests are unnecessary, consuming significant developer time. CloudBees leverages AI and machine learning to optimize test...
2024-09-2019 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 177 A New Perspective on Understanding Threat Intelligence Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com When you watch a spy movie you get the impression that the federal government's intelligence agencies have unlimited funds for intelligence, satellites, and anything else that sounds mysterious. Well, today's interview will reinforce the concept that every federal agency has a limited budget. Money is allocated to buy test tubes at NIH or purchase intelligence data. There may be situations where federal agencies may not be able to access information fro...
2024-09-1022 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 176 Improving UX for 26,000 Federal Websites Want to make the most out of your next podcast appearance? https://content.leadquizzes.com/lp/fk1JL_FgeQ Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com According to the MIT Technology Review, the federal government has over 26,000 websites. What good is it if citizens cannot access the information they require? Today, we have Angela Mercado from RELI Group discuss User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) for federal websites. One of the many impacts of CO...
2024-08-2923 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 175 Technical debt, code abstraction, and federal application development Want to make the most out of your next podcast appearance? https://content.leadquizzes.com/lp/fk1JL_FgeQ Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Every software developer knows about the meeting in February 2011 at a skiing lodge in Utah. Seventeen people met to produce the "Agile Software Manifesto." Large software projects were falling left and right. This was a group of experienced developers who thought interaction and flexibility were keys to producing complex code effectively....
2024-08-2921 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 174 Observations on AI & Federal AI https://content.leadquizzes.com/lp/fk1JL_FgeQ Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com Forrester is well-known for conducting surveys with technology leaders and releasing conclusions. Today, we sat down with Sam Higgins, a Principal Analyst for Forrester, and looked at several studies he has participated in regarding the public sector and Artificial Intelligence. We begin with some findings showing that 35% of global public sector organizations indicate an interest in implementing AI. Reduced cost, improved security, an...
2024-08-2723 min
Home Building HubEp. 65 | Global Investment Opportunities: Insights from Dubai with John GilroyJoin us as we chat with John Gilroy about Dubai's booming property market. Learn why investors are flocking to this dynamic city and what Australian investors can gain from global strategies. Get key insights into maximizing returns in international marketsTopic timestamps1:44 - Introducing our Guest, John Gilroy.4:30 - Tell us why people are moving to Dubai?6:30 - Why are people investing in Dubai?7:50 - Dubai has both a 2033 and 2040 plan, can you shed some light on this?14:30 - What is your role?...and what do you do for potential customers?17:20...
2024-08-1945 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 168 Who do you trust? Zero Trust & the Federal Government Want to make the most out of your next podcast appearance? https://content.leadquizzes.com/lp/fk1JL_FgeQ Connect to John Gilroy on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gilroy/ Want to listen to other episodes? www.Federaltechpodcast.com John Kindervag is the father of Zero Trust; Greg Touhill is the general of Zero Trust; today, we sit down with Dr. Zero Trust, Chase Cunningham. Dr. Chase Cunningham has a solid background for his opinions. He served in the military, has a PhD., five patents, and has written five books....
2024-07-3023 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 152 Insights on Managing Federal DataWe are in a whirlwind of change. Data is pouring into federal agencies. A recent report indicated that data was growing at 25% a year; cloud usage at a rate of 61%; and Software as A Service an astounding 200%. Oh, did I forget to mention that Generative AI is also increasing data exploding? It is one thing to worry about data from John's Doughnuts, and quite another to worry about sensitive military, financial, and health information that the federal government is charged to protect. Data. gov estimates that 250 million data sets are being used by...
2024-05-2825 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 142 Artificial Intelligence applied to Threat IntelligenceNot all threats to the United States are discussed in English. That simple concept is well known in the intelligence community; however, making an obvious statement and being able to understand the nuances of a foreign language is a different matter. Today's interview is with John Weaver, the Chief Strategy Officer for a company called Babel Street. The company began in 2009 with its name recognizing its ability to understand languages. From this humble beginning, it has grown into a powerhouse for looking at open-sourced information and doing advanced analytics. During the interview, John Weaver talks...
2024-04-0925 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 114 Improving Digital Adoption for Secure Federal TechnologyEp. 114 Improving Digital Adoption for Secure Federal Technology Commercial enterprises and the federal government have a challenge in managing the tremendous tsunami of data that has been released in the past few years. On top of that, federal agencies are under an unfunded mandate to adopt Zero Trust for all its systems. During this interview, Billy Biggs from WalkMe suggests that Artificial Intelligence may provide solutions to this complex problem. He begins by addressing the concept of digital automation. For example, when a person requests time off, they may have to engage five separate systems...
2023-12-1923 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 113 MGM, CISA, and non-human entitiesJosh Brodbent has an amazing technical background. When he was still in his teens, he started a company that managed services. For the past twenty years, he has immersed himself in the world of technology with a particular focus on ICAM and cyber security. During today's interview, we tapped his technical expertise to comment on some trends in cybersecurity that can impact the federal government: the MGM hack and CISA updates. The MGM attack was a curious combination of old-school methods and artificial intelligence. According to reports, a malicious actor used a telephone call to g...
2023-12-1424 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 112 Going from Observability to Deep ObservabilitySome will argue that providing cybersecurity to a federal agency is a balancing game. On the one hand, you must encrypt network traffic; on the other hand, you provide a mechanism where this encrypted traffic is inspected. This must be done in compliance with many regulations and not have any impact on the speed of the network. Sounds easy when a group of software developers are arguing around a white board. However, in the real world this task must be accomplished in a rapidly changing environment in the hybrid cloud. Systems are under attack daily; mountains of...
2023-12-1220 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 111 Gaining a Deeper Understanding of CMMCIn Calvinball, the rules were always changing. When it comes to the DoD's Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, it seems to look increasingly like Bill Watterson's masterpiece, Calvin and Hobbs. Today's interview is with Dr. Amy Williams from Coalfired Federal. She has years of experience in the nuances of CMMC and has a strong academic background to be able to understand complex topics and present them in an understandable manner. Amy begins the interview with the range of activities that companies have regarding CMMC compliance. Some companies have invested thousands of hours in preparing for this...
2023-12-0727 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 110 Visibility and Federal NetworksIn the early days of computer networking, one was taught to make the network hard on the outside and soft in the inside. A more popular variation on this concept was your network should be like a castle with a moat around it to prevent entry. Well, both metaphors have been destroyed. Today, you would be naïve if you did not assume the bad guys are inside your network. The proposed solution is, of course, zero trust. However, you do not flip a switch and have a zero-trust network assembled. Before the world ushers i...
2023-12-0525 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 109 When Enterprise Detection and Response isn't enough.Traditionally, a threat was detected, and a remediation plan was deployed. This is classic Endpoint Detect and Response (EDR). Would that life be that easy. Today, we have malicious actors using generative Artificial Intelligence to slightly alter code, so it doesn't resemble previous attacks. This kind of eliminates the "detection" part of EDR. This isn't rare anymore. In fact, in August of 2023 Deep Instinct did a study where it concluded that there was a significant increase in cybersecurity attacks fueled by generative Artificial Intelligence. Some findings · 75% increase in attacks last year · 85% if these attacks a...
2023-11-2824 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 108 Federal IT and Collisions in SpaceEveryone who has watched everything from Star Wars to Star Trek has never encountered some of the problems we see in space today: collisions and space junk. It just doesn't make for a good story on the big screen. However, the reality is that there will be 30,000 satellites launched before 2030 and we are encountering challenges in what is called situational awareness. In this application, situational awareness is the concept that a satellite must know where it is heading, and whether other objects in space may be on a collision course. This is such a complex pr...
2023-11-2125 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 107 Data in MotionToday, we have Will Laforest from Confluent explain how federal leaders can harness the power of data streaming. We all know that data has exploded since the advent of cheap storage, remote computing, and the proliferation of the Internet of Things. Several lessons have been learned. First, just because you have petabytes of data doesn't mean it can help in making decisions; second, if you delay acting on that data you can leave your agency vulnerable. The Federal Data Strategy recognizes these concepts. In this interview, Will LaForest unpacks the idea of getting ins...
2023-11-1621 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 106 Federal Spend ManagementKenny Rogers once had a popular song where he sand, "There's time enough for countin' when the dealin' is done." Well, there was a lot of spending during Covid and now is the time to reflect on how we could have optimized that spend. In the studio today is Tom Voshell from Coupa. He will bring a new perspective on how to efficiently allocate resources. The focus is not on shopping for the best price; the emphasis is to admin that acquisition is a complex process and systems should be administered to make sure the sp...
2023-11-1423 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 105 The Value of Notifications for Cyber and Physical ThreatsDonald Rumsfeld is famous for saying there are "unknown unknowns." Today's interview with OnSolve takes this concept down a practical road: once something Is known, how can you quickly inform people of the issue? When it comes to the federal government, notifications can range an incredible gamut. A systems administrator needs to know if a server is malfunctioning in a data center; a FEMA administrator needs up-to-date information on weather conditions; satellite operators need to know if a collision is imminent. OnSolve has been helping commercial organizations as well as the federal government since 1998. Ou...
2023-11-0924 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 104 Can AI Assist Federal Software Development?Artificial intelligence in software development has been top-of-mind for federal technology leaders once ChatGPT was popularized. This concern is documented in the recent "Request for Information on Open-Source Software Security: Areas of Long-term Focus and Prioritization" which was issued in August of 2023. Their concerns include the Secure Open-Source Software Foundation, incentives to secure open-source software, as well as research and development. If you are interested in commenting on this RFI, you may want to review a recent survey by GitLab. They recently published its 2023 Global DevSecOps Report: The State of AI in Software Development. They su...
2023-11-0719 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 103 Effective data management at end of lifecycle and after a breachIf you have ever raised teenagers, you know the phrase, "unintended consequences." In today's world of federal technology, this concept can be applied to data storage. What are the consequences if you do not thoroughly erase data? It could be an open door for data leakage. For example, what happens when your agency moves data from one cloud to another? Is it erased? How do you know? Let's talk about the 500-pound elephant in the room – a cybersecurity event. Today's malicious actors have been known to place trojan horses in other areas of a system...
2023-11-0225 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 102 Trends in Cyberlegislation and ThreatsIt is always nice to occasionally get out of the trenches to look at the larger issues. Today, we sat down with Michael Mestrovich from Rubrik. He has decades of experience in three letter agencies and has a perspective that is hard to match when it comes to getting a handle on current trends in cybersecurity. Michael gives a quick review of current trends in cybersecurity legislation. He notes that many have overlooked something as simple as the Internet of Things. IoT is projected to have as many as 30.9 billion endpoints by 2025. Much of this...
2023-10-3123 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 99 Explainable Artificial IntelligenceArthur C. Clark once wrote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." This observation certainly applies to Artificial Intelligence. Unfortunately, there are federal agencies that aren't quite enthralled with "magic", and they do require some information on how AI derives its conclusions. Kind of like your high school math teacher asking you to show your work on that last answer. Today, we have an accomplished practitioner of AI giving listeners an idea of what understanding AI is. The interview is based on a recent article Patrick Elder wrote called, "Explainable AI." The cha...
2023-10-1030 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 98 What Federal Leaders Need to Know about Cloud Computing with David LinthicumSometimes, you need to pull back and try to separate reality from the shenanigans. During today's interview, world-famous David Linthicum pulls back the curtain on many of the misconceptions of federal cloud technology and puts a focus on reality. In some academic circles, David would be classified as an "iconoclast." This is quite an impressive word that means a person who attacks or criticizes beliefs. The perfect summary for David's latest book, An Insider's Guide to Cloud Computing. Let us just take a few of the opinions that go against common beliefs.
2023-10-0527 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 97 Infrastructure Enables InnovationWhen the history of Covid and federal information technology is written, historians will talk about the amazing ability to transition to remote workers. As in all history, when time separates incidents, one gets a more nuanced perspective. It is true that massive amounts of effort were expended. That kind of pressure resulted in over provisioning of systems. From today's perspective, it is obvious that this transition was not as optimized for cost as it could have been. It makes sense, the major cloud service providers vary in ways they handle data and invoice for usage. It i...
2023-10-0321 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp 96 Data Scientist: The Sexiest Job of the 21st CenturyWhen you use the term "data scientist" you normally think of an inarticulate introvert who is dazzled by numbers and has week social skills. Well, this interview with Aaron Pujanandez from Excella may change the preconception. We start off with referencing an article from the Harvard Business Journal from 2012. This was probably a conceit eleven years ago, but in the last decade we have seen cheap storage, available compute, and ubiquitous fast Internet. Perhaps the title is getting closer to the truth. We begin the interview with having Aaron differentiate "data analyst" from "data...
2023-09-2625 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 95 How Akamai Improves Federal SecurityAkamai has been a well know partner in many federal technology projects for many years. Some of their activities are obvious – some not as easy to see as it may appear. Rob San Martin is a twenty-year veteran of Akamai and sits down to give a broad overview of some of the ways Akamai is improving federal cybersecurity that may not be obvious to the common observer. One: Akamai sees one-third of the world's Internet traffic every day. Being in the "catbird" seat allows it to see threats that are not apparent to smaller organizations. Of c...
2023-09-1923 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 94 Can the Service Mesh address Federal Challenges?In the early days of the networking one could put together a simple diagram of computers, routers, and switches. The more complex it became, the more detailed was the diagram. When you combine containers, services and virtualization, today's networks make early systems look like child's play. Containers have proliferated because they can house all the necessary elements to run in any environment. When you combine them into pods and clusters you can increase effectiveness; however, this next generation relies on services to communicate. During this interview Branden Wood details how Tetrate offers a solution to this...
2023-09-1222 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 93 Predictive Identity Document VerificationWe begin the interview with statistics on fraud from several organizations, including PBS, AP, and others. Covid fraud estimates range from $80 to $200 billion. One way to prevent future abuse is with a robust identity proofing platform. The miliary likes to talk about "force multipliers." This can also apply to technology companies who serve the federal government. Let's take Socure – a well known company that provides identity proofing for many federal agencies. While Socure was developing its expertise another company, Berbix was laser-focused on helping federal identity checks. In June of this year Socure acquired...
2023-09-0522 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 92 Identity Management and Digital TransformationCovid forced federal organizations to move to the cloud. Federal leaders discovered a confusing world of multi-clouds, public cloud, private cloud, and even hybrid cloud. We have even seen federal systems using cloud tools to manage premises applications and data. There is one constant variable: an organization must be able to identify users. Years before Covid, this was a small, isolated field of knowledge. However, the complex nature of the cloud has forced system administrators to gain an understanding of the identity ecosystem. One crucial aspect of that ecosystem is identity management. Companies have had to...
2023-08-2924 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 91 Insights on the National Cyber Security StrategyThe Great Lakes used to have iron ore boats running from Minnesota to Ohio. The ship was not very agile but was unstoppable at 12 knots. There is a close parallel with the federal government. It is such a massive entity that it is unstoppable when it sets its sights on a goal. However, when challenged with new threats, it has a difficult job altering course. Right now, the federal government understands it is being attacked every second. Sometimes, the traditional methods can leave it vulnerable to attack. In 2023 the Executive Office of the...
2023-08-2224 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 89 Federal Websites: How to Transform the ExperienceOnce upon a time, surveys had meaning. However, today, if you buy a toothbrush, you are sent a five-page survey on customer satisfaction. Let us say you are trying to comply with the December 2021 Executive order to improve citizen experience with your federal website. What kind of feedback do you expect from a typical citizen who cannot take another survey? Today, we sat down with Matt Chong from Federal Qualtrics. They take a different approach to improving a citizen's website experience. Qualtrics has been in business for fifteen years and is used in eighty-five of...
2023-08-1526 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 88 Ethics, Artificial Intelligence, and Federal TechnologyAdvances in artificial intelligence are being released every day and being proposed as solutions for federal problems. Anyone who has raised children through their teen aged years is aware of the phrase, "unintended consequences." We must be careful not to be dazzled by modern technology and not realize what unintended consequences are in store before we understand the ethics of modern technology. Today, we have Reggie Townsend, the Vice President, of Data Ethics at SAS in the studio. He provides listeners with some commonsense guidelines to use artificial intelligence ethically. In addition to h...
2023-08-1030 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 87 How Cloud Native Can Benefit Federal IT SystemsThe federal government has been told to move to the cloud since Vivek Kundra famously coined the phrase "cloud first" fifteen years ago. Unfortunately, somehow the "how" was not included in the prescription. In an attempt to achieve assigned goals, we have seen agencies "lift and shift" on premises applications to the cloud. There is the checkbox complete. A simile here is you have a broken-down Fiat in your garage, you move to California and put the broken-down Fiat Spyder in your new west coast garage. Different garage, same malfunctioning automobile. Why not take advantage o...
2023-08-0825 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 86 Privacy Enhancing TechnologiesPainting with a wide brushstroke, there are three kinds of data: data at rest; data in transit; and data in use. Today, we speak to the person who pioneered the concept of protecting data in use. Her name is Dr. Ellison Ann Williams and has an impressive background, having an MS in Mathematics, an MS in Computer Science, and a Ph.D. In Mathematics. Additionally, she served at the NSA for ten years and has a thorough knowledge of federal security requirements. Let us state the challenge: tech companies are scraping the Internet for as m...
2023-08-0129 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 85 Cyber Security is National SecurityMost listeners have heard of Palo Alto Networks. Today, we bring in Eric Trexler to give us an overview of what the venerable Palo Alto Networks has developed to help federal agencies reach their goals. Eric started his career as a U.S. Ranger and has held leadership positions in many companies. He has chosen to work for Palo Alto Networks because he views it as the largest cybersecurity company in the world. From Eric's perspective, he views it as the one company that can make a significant difference in protecting federal assets. He reflects...
2023-07-2522 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 84 Is the API the Network?Definitions are always tough in the world of networking. The initial concept was all hardware: a group of computers connected through cards, routers, and cables. Oh, how things have changed in a mere fifty years! Software virtualization allowed systems administrators to spin up "hard drives" in no time. This was so practical that it was applied to the network itself in something called a Software Defined Network. Unfortunately, it took several decades for hardware to catch up to this kind of virtualization. The hybrid cloud has accelerated the adoption of virtual networks in today's federal...
2023-07-1824 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 83 Protecting Your Identity with IntelligenceLast year Americans lost $10.3 billion to online crime; contrast that with the estimated $1.3 billion lost to home robberies. Today's interview with Dr. Zulfikar Ramzan from Aura gives our federal listeners ideas on how to protect your identity. We have learned that when a person's identity gets compromised, it can lead directly to their employer, an especially sensitive problem when considering people who work for the federal government. In the cybersecurity community the gold standard for a detached perspective on understanding cyber threats is the annual Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, commonly referred to as the D...
2023-07-1126 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 82 Improving Search Results for Law Enforcement AgenciesA wise man once said two things can be true at once. On the one hand, federal law enforcement agencies are being bombarded with data. Petabytes seem to be leaking in from the roofs and seeping in from the basement. On the other hand, they are being pushed to give analysis quickly while being understaffed. Not a problem to solve for the sight of heart. Into the fray steps Siren. During today's interview, Brian Gilkey explains that Siren was founded with the idea of using concepts from the semantic web to be able to absorb mo...
2023-07-0523 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 81 Improving Automation for Complex Federal SystemsIt seems like everybody in federal information technology was at the AWS Washington, DC event a couple of weeks ago. We didn't manage to interview Tyler Johnson from the floor, so we got him on a Zoom call to explain how his company can help federal leaders achieve the goals for their agency. Tyler Johnson says that CloudBees can take all the point providers at the AWS event and wrangle them into one continuous build. This allows a kind of unified test and deployment for software pipelines. Ok, let's make this simple. A bee goes from...
2023-06-2924 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 80 Empowering Federal Teams to Deliver and Control their Software.The good news is that today's digital technology allows for seemingly infinite variations on a code; the bad news is malicious actors know this and change their code constantly. One of today's responses to this constant attack is called "continuous" improvement. Quite a simple phrase to type, but difficult to accomplish. How do you continuously improve a complex software application that is used by a federal agency? How can anyone know what impact revised code will have on dependencies? We all know that large teams produce the application programs used by the federal government. That code...
2023-06-2720 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 79 Agentless Cloud SecurityThere are certainly many ways to approach security in today's complex hybrid federal cloud. raditionally, a manager would look at a system and have an agent assigned to each machine. This could be a virtual machine or a real instance. This structure goes back to the days of servers in the back room and megabytes of storage. Once you put a few "zeros" behind some data stores, then you have a problem with scaling. The business problem is simple: the old "tried-and-true" may have worked for years, but it doesn't work in the cloud. When Av...
2023-06-2224 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 78 What's Hot and What's Not at the AWS Summit, Washington, DCWhen 10,000 people show up to talk about cloud computing, what topics do they cover? Today, we sit down with Jeffery Kratz, Vice President, of Worldwide Public Sector Channels & Alliances to find out. With a conference this large, there are hundreds of stories to tell. To focus on the needs of the federal government, we will look at how improvement with Amazon partners can help federal agencies reach their goals. First, Amazon is targeting partners with Transformation Modules. This means that a partner can do the face-to-face work of understanding the needs of a specific federal pr...
2023-06-2011 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 77 The Value of Federated Governance have for Massive Data StoresForty years ago, the boxer Roberto Duran famously said, "No mas." Translated from Spanish, it means, "no more." Sugar Ray Leonard was bombarding him with too many punches to handle. The flood of data and the incredible size of data stores in the federal government is causing the federal government to examine how to store and categorize data more efficiently. We could be reaching the point where federal agencies say, "No mas." Today's interview with Chris Brown from Immuta offers a solution: federated governance. This is a decentralized approach to ingesting data where tags can be...
2023-06-1525 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 76 Federal Chief Data Officer Survey ResultsIf you go to Google Trends and compare "Artificial Intelligence" to "Chief Data Officer" you will find a hockey stick for AI and a pancake for Chief Data Officer. It seems that many are ignoring the importance of the Chief Data Officer in assuring that the data used for AI is accurate. The importance of managing data in the federal government has been reflected in the formation of the Federal Government's Chief Data Council. In a remarkably mature analysis, they decided that they needed to ask fellow members what their priorities were to serve them better.
2023-06-1228 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 75 Digital Transformation Culture at the Defense Logistics AgencyOur interview is with Steve Forster, a data scientist from the DLA. Steve started in the warehouse and through years of struggle and hard work managed to rise to the position of Senior Data Strategist. This parallels the transformation that the DLA is undergoing. The DLA was formed in 1961 and has over 25,000 people supporting the Department of Defense worldwide. To reduce costs and improve service to the military, the DLA is undergoing a transition from an outdated COBOL warehouse system to a modern system. Much of the warehouse has sensitive military...
2023-06-0627 minFederal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 74 Digital Transformation of an enterprise financial systemConsider this: a few years ago, a Navy officer would have a financial question about how a program was executed, and its t took 45 days to get an answer. Certainly, a contrast for a Naval Aviator's need for speed. Today, we interview two leaders in the Navy's Financial Management Data and Digital Transformation program. They provide insight on a wide range of topics with a focus on giving leaders near real-time information on key decisions. One fascinating phrase that both use is the term, "decision advantage." From their perspective, the next major conflict will...
2023-06-0124 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 71 Equity and Federal IdentityCovid prioritized identity verification. It went from the bottom of the tech stack to the top. Many federal agencies have zero trust initiatives divided into segments; each group starts with identification as the first pillar. Our guest Jordan Burris has years of experience in managing identities for large organizations. He has worked in commercial enterprise technology as well as the Office of Management and Budget. During the interview, he makes the claim that digital identity is a critical infrastructure. Listen to the interview to see how he defends that statement. Jordan begins the discussion with...
2023-05-2324 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp.70 How to Manage Machine IdentitiesIf you can distill today's cybersecurity recommendations down to one word, that word me be "trust." We have Executive Orders that talk about "trust" in digital architecture. Look at the motto for today's enterprise architecture, "Zero Trust Architecture." The way most of us apply this trust is to garden a variety of humans. This may involve using some kind of a." system to assure that a person is a human they represent themselves to be. Kevin Bocek from Venafi states machines interact on networks more than humans. It seems warmer to call them "non...
2023-05-1622 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 69 Digital Adoption Platforms Save Money for Federal WebsitesWhen industries mature, users learn how to optimize them. For example, early televisions were huge, expensive, and black and white. Technology has made them small, cheap, and stunning. When the cloud was introduced 15 years ago, there was a rough transition with rough starts, failures, and much money wasted. Recent figures from Gartner indicate that, in 2023, the global public services cloud market will increase by 20% to an amazing total of $591 billion. It is one thing to move to the cloud, and another effort completely to take advantage of all the savings and efficiency it can provide. Frequ...
2023-05-1225 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 68 Generative AI for US Federal AgenciesFor some reason, the topic of Artificial Intelligence has embedded itself into the common mind. It is so pervasive that one might walk into a local Seven-Eleven and hear a conversation about ChatGPT. It may be fine for an undergraduate student to use generative AI to help write a term paper, but those who manage federal agencies must get serious about how Generative AI can help, or hurt, their agency. Today, we sat down with Dr. Jennifer Sample from Accenture Federal Services. In addition to her academic achievements, she also has decades of experience in...
2023-05-0427 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 67 Improving Citizen Experience on Federal WebsitesWhen you look at the Executive Orders that have been issued you can see many references to user experience. The initial order, #14058, included thirty-six customer experience improvements across seventeen different federal agencies. This was followed up in March of 2023 with further fact sheets that detail improving the typical citizen experience with federal websites. It is one thing to issue an Executive Order and quite another to implement it in the complicated world of federal technology. We interviewed Frank Antezana, the CEO of a company called iTechAG. They have a good history of assisting federal agencies...
2023-05-0224 minFederal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 61 Identity Verification and Federal SystemsIn every spy movie, you see there is a scene where someone is in line at an airport and there is emotional music where the government agent looks at the passport, looks at the actor, and makes a decision. Well, the world of digital identities is much more complicated that any scene in a Bourne movie. In our digital world, identification is such a hot topic we have conferences that have an extensive list of speakers who discuss aspects of ways a network can identify the person trying to log in. Today's interview introduces the...
2023-04-2528 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 65 A Better Approach to Intelligence Analysis and Data VisibilityOur post-Covid world is full of clouds merging, remote data being collected, and a rash of new federal security initiatives. This is causing federal technology professionals to look for better ways to see what is on their network and then make decisions on how to use that data. In the last six months, there has been a surge of interest in a company called Elastic. During today's interview with George Teas from Elastic, he shares with listeners the importance of accurately knowing what is on your system and how to manage data from multiple sources.
2023-04-2022 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 64 Open-Source Security and Federal SoftwareWhen the history of software development is written, they will look back at the decade that preceded 2023 as the era where developers started to pull pre-written code off repositories and assemble code in this "modular" manner. Many federal systems are constructed in this "cut and paste" method. This is all well and good if the code can be trusted. But can it? Today, Emile Monette from Synopsys shares with listeners some fascinating statistics that document this historical transition and he offers solutions as well. During the interview, Emile Monette references a recent study b...
2023-04-1825 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 63 Gaining insights on managing the federal hybrid cloudWhen it comes to the federal government, the old news is "move to the cloud." Today, the question is, how can your agency optimize its presence in the hybrid cloud? Today, we sit down with a tech veteran, Michelle Rudnicki, the Vice President of the U.S. Public Sector for NetApp to answer that question. Her company has been involved in data management for decades and it is difficult to shoehorn her observations into a 25-minute interview. We have decided to look at some of the newer offerings from NetApp and see where they can be applied...
2023-04-1324 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 62 Advances in Threat Detection and ResponseOut of all the phrases that technology has generated in the past ten years, I think I like the phrase, "cloud washing" the most. The concept is that a traditional company would promote itself as always being cloud native. Kind of like being a Monday morning quarterback. In 2023, the variation on that theme is "Artificial Intelligence washing." Now that AI is a trending phrase you can see technology websites suddenly claiming the long history they have with artificial intelligence, or, what may be called, "artificial intelligence washing." This brings us to today's interview with Chris How...
2023-04-1125 minFederal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 62 Advances in Threat Detection and ResponseOut of all the phrases that technology has generated in the past ten years, I think I like the phrase, "cloud washing" the most. The concept is that a traditional company would promote itself as always being cloud native. Kind of like being a Monday morning quarterback. In 2023, the variation on that theme is "Artificial Intelligence washing." Now that AI is a trending phrase you can see technology websites suddenly claiming the long history they have with artificial intelligence, or, what may be called, "artificial intelligence washing." This brings us to today's interview with Chris How...
2023-04-1124 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 61 Understanding the National Cybersecurity StrategyIn March of 2023, the National Cybersecurity Strategy was released. Lots of pundits opined a day or two after the release; rather than an immediate reaction, it seems best to wait for a news cycle or two to look at the strategy from a better perspective. Well, what better perspective than a person who has worked inside the government, is an attorney, and has some serious credentials in the tech world? Today, we sat down with Bill Wright, Global Head of Government Affairs at Elastic. The strategy document talks about the importance of infrastructure. Bill Wright comments that 80...
2023-04-0623 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 60 Solving a Billion Dollar Paper ProblemWhen the history of technology of the twentieth century is written, one of the giants will probably be Ray Kurzweil. As most listeners know, he designed the first Optical Character Recognition (OCR) machine. The drudgery and error-inducing process of keying in forms was reduced. Today's interview is with Chirs Harr from Hyperscience. During the interview, he gives listeners an understanding of how OCR has become Intelligent Document Processing. He argues that the founders of Hyperscience produced innovation that combines expanding OCR's ability and have it reducing clerical errors, improving performance, and deliver better customer experience. Not only that...
2023-04-0423 min
Federal Tech Podcast: for innovators, entrepreneurs, and CEOs who want to increase reach and improve brand awarenessEp. 59 How to deliver software with impact beyond mere project deliveryIf you toss a baseball anywhere inside the Washington, D.C. beltway, you will probably hit a company that develops software. Well, what differentiates them? Size? Degrees the staff hold. The number of contracts? Today, we sit down with a couple of software development experts from Excella to talk about completing more that the bare minimum for a project. They argue, quite cogently, that quality is the characteristic that is the hardest to achieve and has the most lasting impact on federal projects. Two representatives from Excella are in the studio to argue their case. Dogu...
2023-03-3026 min