Weekly Roundup: October 17 - 21, 2016

Artificial Intelligence to Benefit Government and Society.  Federal News Radioreports that the federal government spends about $1 billion a year on R&D for artificial intelligence.  The White House has put out a strategic plan to develop guidance in seven areas, such as shared data and workforce needs. Meanwhile NextGov reports:“Government-funded artificial intelligence programs could soon be organized under a new effort by the General Services Administration.”

Hiring at 18F. FedScoop reports that “The 18F and U.S. Digital Service teams have each now grown to more than 200 members on their teams — most of them young technologists early in their careers.  . . . . USDS founding member Haley Van Dyck remembers when her team was just six or seven people with a big idea to help fix government. "We weren't sure we'd even be able to recruit 20 people to come and join this team," said Van Dyck, whose team hit the 200-member mark just this week. "It was an experiment — we just wanted to see if this would be able to work."   

Navy Restructures Civilian Workforce Approach.  Federal News Radio reports that the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. John Richardson, has issued his own framework “for improving the health of the civilian workforce on Friday. The new document calls for each of the Navy’s commands to develop their own strategies to support several new high-level Navy-wide goals, including creating an integrated military-civilian workforce, clearly-defined career roadmaps with improved training and development,  a faster, more flexible hiring process and better data analytics for civilian career management.”

Two New Presidential Transition Reports.  The first was released by ACT-IAC, the industry-federal IT community:  Transforming Government Through Technology: A Report for the Next Administration

And the second was released by the Performance Institute:  Governing for Results: A Transition and Management Agenda.

Who Turns Over the Keys? Government Executive writes: “Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s debate bombshell hinting that he might contest the results of the Nov. 8 election should he lose has ears perked up at one federal agency in particular. . . . The General Services Administration, under presidential transition laws going back to 1963, is responsible once election returns are clear for ascertaining which party’s candidates are the “apparent” new president-elect and vice-president-elect.”

$87 Billion.  Government Executive reports that: “Federal agencies are wasting $87 billion by failing to implement more than 15,000 inspector general recommendations, according to a new report released by Republican senators. . . . Many of the proposals have been floated for more than 10 years, wrote Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in their findings. The lawmakers and their staffs compiled the data over the last year from 72 different inspectors general at federal agencies governmentwide.

US Data Federation.  According to FedScoop: “The General Services Administration is working to create a place where data providers can go to see if their data fits into a set of standards others might be already using. . . . This new effort, the recently announced U.S. Data Federation, is a step forward in the open data movement toward not just publishing data on Data.gov but also coordinating it among specific topics to be interoperable and standardized, experts say.”

Shared Services Détente.  Jason Miller, Federal News Radio, writes: “Did Dave Mader, the controller of the Office of Management and Budget, just open the door to private sector firms providing financial management shared services to agencies? I think he might just have propped open a door that has been shut for several years.”

The Transition Duo.  Government Executive writes: “Fresh off a meeting of the Agency Transition Directors Council on Oct. 6, Andrew Mayock, senior adviser for management at OMB, and Tim Horne, federal transition coordinator at the GSA, sat for an interview with Government Executive in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to discuss Obama’s vow to meet or exceed the effective handoff his team was given by the George W. Bush staff in 2008.”

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Next Week’s The Business of Government Radio Show.  What is the U.S. Coast Guard strategic direction? How is the U.S. Coast Guard modernizing to be ready for today and prepared for tomorrow? Join host Michael Keegan as he explores these questions and more with Admiral Paul Zukunft, Commandant, United States Coast Guard.

Broadcast Schedule: The show airs Monday at 11 a.m., and Friday at 1 p.m. on Federal News Radio 1500AM WFED.

If you can't wait, though, you can listen to (or download) this week's program and all our previous interviews at businessofgovernment.org.