Page 9 - FCW, June 15, 2016

1,600+ COBOL and Fortran coders are employed by federal agencies
NGA follows DOD to Silicon Valley
The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency will soon join the Defense Department in Silicon Valley. NGA Director Robert Cardillo announced plans to open the NGA Outpost Valley this summer in the “geographic heart of American innovation” to engage with technology leaders in Silicon Valley and beyond.
The outpost “will leverage the organic capabilities and energy of the Valley’s open, vibrant, geospatial com- munity,” Cardillo said at the GEOINT Symposium in Orlando, Fla., in May. “It’s a beachhead that will have the authority to reach out to all innova- tion centers.”
NGA officials also want to keep up with technology advances beyond the West Coast. “We’re jumping in with both feet into the Cortex Innovation Community in St. Louis — a grow- ing new hub of tech development,” Cardillo said.
The announcement came just days after DOD touted new leader- ship and organizational structure for
its Defense Innovation Unit Experi- mental in Silicon Valley. DIUx 2.0 aims to make the case to innovators and entrepreneurs that the military can be a key partner and companies can play a special role in national
security.
NGA is tasked with deliv-
ism, interoperability and unity of effort to speed the process toward an inte- grated GEOINT enterprise. The strat- egy takes advantage of the ever more open and connected world, while at
the same time acknowledg- ing the challenges.
“We operate in a dynamic, complex and interconnected threat environment,” Cardi- llo said. “As a community, we will rethink how we inspire our workforce, define problems, invest resources, execute the mission and sat-
ering geospatial intelligence
for policymakers, warfight-
ers, intelligence officers
and first responders. The
NGA outpost is part of the
agency’s effort to encourage research across the geospa-
tial community at national labs, uni- versities and businesses.
Another component of that effort is a new exchange program called eNGAge that allows agency employees to trade places with their counterparts in industry and academia.
In addition to announcing the new outpost at the GEOINT Symposium, Cardillo released the National System for Geospatial Intelligence Strategy for 2016. Priorities include professional-
Robert Cardillo
isfy the evolving needs of our custom- ers at a holistic, enterprise level.”
As NGA director, Cardillo has made several policy moves intended to spur an increase in commercial geospatial data and more rapidly deliver IT capa- bilities at NGA. In February 2015, the agency merged its CIO and IT services functions in a bid to better implement an IT architecture across the intelli- gence community.
— Bianca Spinosa
EDITOR’S NOTE
Help us find the Rising Stars
Time is running out to submit nominations for this year’s Rising Star awards. So please be sure to help us find women and men who are doing great things
today — and who are likely to be filling the senior slots tomorrow.
Not sure what
makes for a Rising
Star? In many ways,
it’s the same criteria
used for the Federal
100 awards but focused on early- career phenoms who are having an
outsized impact on federal IT. Here are five points to remember:
1. Anyone in the federal IT com- munity is eligible: military and civil-
ian, career and political, contractor, academic and association expert alike. 2. Winners go above and beyond — whatever their level or rank. A fancy job title is not required, and just doing one’s job well is not enough.
3.You can make multiple nomina- tions. Do so early and often.
4. Impact matters.The judges need to know not only what a nominee did but also what all that work accomplished.
5. Age does not matter, but nomi- nees must be less than 10 years into their work in the federal community.
So make your nominations today at FCW.com/2016risingstars. And please spread the word to your colleagues so we can get the best possible batch of winners.
—Troy K. Schneider tschneider@fcw.com @troyschneider
June 15, 2016 FCW.COM 9
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