Ensuring the security of Federal elections is always a tall task for local election officials, but amid a global pandemic and increasing cyber threats from foreign adversaries, those local officials have a particularly full plate.
In April, the State of Texas launched a coordinated effort to handle a surge of new payment activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. To accommodate the increased workload, Accenture, which administers the Texas Medicaid and Healthcare Partnership (TMHP) program on behalf of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, immediately called on its robotics process automation (RPA) group to plan an expansion of its digital worker program.
While the commander of U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM) emphasized action in protecting the elections on July 20, so too did a group of over 30 former government officials in a letter to House and Senate leadership.
The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee called for the Senate to pass more election funding, joining calls from state officials across the country who have asked for more funding to secure November’s election.
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation advanced key IT legislation, as well as a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) nomination, out of today’s business meeting.
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announced today it has established three new Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes. The institutes will receive a total of $75 million in funding for quantum information science research and development.
Like other states across the country, Maryland needs to reduce the number of COVID-19 infections to flatten the curve. Contact tracing—the process of reaching out to people who tested positive for the virus and alerting people who have been in contact with them—is an essential part of the state’s strategy.
C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute (C3.ai DTI) announced the recipients of $5.4 million in research grants to combat the COVID-19 pandemic using cloud and AI.
The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that its National Broadband Availability Map (NBAM) now has 20 participating states. In a July 10 statement, NTIA confirmed that Wyoming and Washington State have been added to the NBAM.
The Commonwealth of Virginia’s cloud-based data sharing platform is pulling double duty in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to its original purpose combating the opioid crisis, the state’s chief data office said July 9 during a webinar hosted by AWS and MeriTalk.
