The House of Representatives on July 20 voted to approve the State and Local Cybersecurity Improvement Act as part of a slate of cyber bills that passed under suspension of normal rules. The bill would create a $500 million-per-year grant program run by the Department of Homeland Security to help state and local governments improve their cybersecurity.

Recent hacks on localities’ water supply have shown the importance of cybersecurity in the water infrastructure. Witnesses sounded the alarm about water infrastructure cybersecurity and called for training and funding investments at a July 21 Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing.

The United States Military Academy at West Point (West Point) is searching for a cloud-based common application platform to collect application data and provide the information to open files on candidates applying to the school.

Republican members of Congress have written separate letters to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai expressing concerns about the companies’ collection of data on students, among other issues.

There’s a long history in the higher reaches of the IT sphere of substantial cross-fertilization in the form of public sector CIOs moving across government levels, transferring among Federal, state and local jurisdictions, and then sometimes landing in the private sector.

For once, the biggest problem with engineering effective IT modernization may not boil down to a lack of money to tackle the job. That conclusion was a top-line takeaway from Republicans, Democrats, and private sector experts at a hearing of the House Government Operations Subcommittee hearing today on how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed state and local governments’ antiquated IT systems, and what governments should do about it now that pandemic conditions are easing in many areas.

Cybersecurity experts from Federal, state, and local governments agree that in wake of increased cyberattacks during the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s increasingly important to protect healthcare data through an elevated cybersecurity posture.

Reps. Tom O’Halleran, D-Ariz., and John Curtis, R-Utah, have introduced the Accelerating Rural Broadband Deployment Act, which would increase internet access in rural America by relaxing government regulations. Sens. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and Steve Daines, R-Mont., introduced a companion bill in April of this year.

After learning remotely for multiple semesters, most college students still prefer in-person learning, but a growing number of students want to see a mix of in-person and online learning post-pandemic, according to a new report.

After a year of distance and hybrid learning, The Conference Board’s Committee for Economic Development (CED) released a report identifying K-12 remote education deficits, as well as ideas on how schools can harness technology for future learning.