The latest news and opportunities in government data and analytics                                                   

VOLUME 6. ISSUE 22.

Email-Header-Generic.jpg

Welcome to Carpe Datum’s weekly newsletter, the Federal Data Prospector, the only publication of its kind dedicated exclusively to data and analytics companies that share our passion for serving the public sector. Our featured items begin with GSA’s request for detailed national commercial real estate market data to support the Public Building Service's performance management and lease optimization efforts. The data will be used to assess market conditions across the U.S. and aid the agency in lease negotiations.

 

  • General Services Administration, Public Buildings Service — RFI - National Commercial Real Estate Market Data - GSA seeks comprehensive real estate market data to use in the Lease Cost Relative to Market (LCRM) performance measure, Bullseye research and reporting for regions, and to calculate the savings on PBS’s Lease Optimization measure (LO).  We are looking for national real estate data that provides assessments and forecasts of real market conditions for over 190 major metropolitan statistical areas, secondary markets, tertiary markets, and 1,800 submarkets nationwide. Historical and ongoing quarterly data, with up to 30 data fields including Historical Trends and Forecasts, Rents, Lessor free rent concessions, and Lessor TI concessions.

 

In other data news, on May 23rd, BreakinDefense published an article entitled DefendAI: Army wants industry help with safety testing for artificial intelligence. In this story, Sydney J. Freedberg describes the Army's efforts to develop a layered defense framework for artificial intelligence, known as #DefendAI, which aims to ensure the safe and secure adoption of AI technologies across various military applications. The initiative calls for industry feedback and contributions to refine the security measures and accelerate the integration of third-party AI algorithms into the Army’s systems.

 

  • 'We really do appreciate industry support here. We do need your help,' [Young] Bang [Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology] emphasized to a contractor-heavy audience at the Defense Scoop DefenseTalks conference Wednesday morning. 'As I’ve been saying since I got here, we’re not going to do this better than you, we’re going to adopt what you have. This framework is going to be an attempt to really help us accelerate the adoption of third-party-generated algorithms.'”

 

Please take a moment to share our newsletter with anyone who you think might find it useful and/or interesting ... as the saying goes, "the more, the merrier!" - Click here to subscribe.

 

The Carpe Datum Team

Artificial Intelligence Quantified (AIQ) Special Notice

Dept. of Defense

The Artificial Intelligence Quantified (AIQ) program will develop technology to assess and understand the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) to enable guaranteed performance. The program will test the hypothesis that mathematical methods combined with advances in measurement and modeling will allow guaranteed quantification of generative AI capabilities.

Defense Industrial Base Adoption of Artificial Intelligence for Defense Applications; Notice of Availability

Dept. of Defense

The DoD Office of Industrial Base Resilience seeks public comment on actions it can take to enable the Defense Industrial Base (DIB) to continue to adopt artificial intelligence (AI) for defense applications. Feedback from the public will guide the DoD in developing policies, initiatives, and resource distribution to ensure support for the DIB in integrating AI into defense systems. Public comments will also be used to formulate PA&T's Trusted AI Defense Industrial Base Roadmap.

NATO Request for Information: Threat Intelligence Analytics Platform

Dept. of Commerce

NATO HQ Supreme Allied Commander Transformation's (HQ SACT) is conducting a survey to gain an understanding of Threat Intelligence Analytics Platform (TIAP). This survey allows Nations and industry to offer potential solutions for consideration to meet the operational requirement for Threat Intelligence Analytics Platform (TIAP). Through the data collected from this survey, NATO's Cyber Space Capability Programme will be better informed to develop TIAP targets planning, acquisition and investment strategies to ensure the ability to provide situational awareness and intelligence support to the NATO Enterprise.

BOEM Operating Fee Data Subscription Service

Dept. of the Interior

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is seeking to procure a subscription service with the necessary data to calculate operating fees on outer continental shelf (OCS) commercial renewable energy projects. The subscription service should include comprehensive access to energy market data and information for offshore wind projects and other potential renewable energy projects that are under BOEM's jurisdiction.

Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) - Topic of Interest (TOI) - Illegal, Unreported, & Unregulated Fishing (IUU-F)

Dept. of Defense

Response to questions.

USSOCOM Intelligence Support Services -- Industry Engagement

Dept. of Defense

Draft Comment Matrix posted.

Securing Our Underlying Resources in Cyber Environments (SoURCE CODE) Program

Office of the Director of National Intelligence

Response to questions.

NCSER Crowdsourcing Campaign Support

Dept. of Education

Posting of revised Statement of Work.

Fitch Ratings|Research & Data subscription service

Dept. of Agriculture

FAS requires an online subscription that provides ratings and research as well as leading analytical tools and ongoing surveillance.  The subscription shall include in-depth bank analyses using the CAMEL (capital adequacy, asset quality, management, earnings, liquidity) analysis methodology commonly accepted by financial institutions and other entities that extend credit to banks. Only one subscription, Fitch Solutions, Inc. is available that provides this information.

HUD Multi Family Real Estate Database Subscription

Dept. of Housing and Urban Development

HUD, Multifamily Housing requires a dynamic database that is adept at meeting the varied needs of multiple HUD staff engaged in multifamily underwriting and housing market analysis. HUD’s regulations and administrative procedures require HUD staff to evaluate loan and mortgage insurance applications submitted to the Department.

S & P Renewal

Dept. of Defense

The Government intends to purchase on a firm fixed-price basis and to solicit the proposed purchase order as a Sole Source to S&P Global Market Intelligence LLC. 

Clarus SEFView and SDRView Professional

Commodity Futures Trading Commission

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) intends to procure licensed access to Clarus Financial Technology’s "Clarus SEFView and Clarus SDRView Professional" on a sole source basis. In carrying out the agency’s mission, CFTC requires access to real-time, diversified financial news, information and data. Specifically, Clarus provides a single platform to obtain the following unique capabilities such as normalized and aggregated SEF and SDR data, data drilldown functions, benchmarks of DCM swaps, MM futures and bonds, linked sources of rates, credits and FX trades for SDR and full history of SEF data from inception.

Inside NASA's deliberations over ChatGPT

NASA has so far taken a relatively proactive approach to generative AI, which the agency is considering for tasks like summarization and code-writing. Staff are currently working with the OpenAI tools built into Microsoft’s Azure service to analyze use cases. NASA is also weighing generative AI capabilities from its other cloud providers — and it’s in discussions with Google Cloud on plans to test Gemini, the competitor AI tool formerly known as Bard. 

Navy looks to Army for more data analytics capability

The Pentagon “just issued a reciprocity memo that basically is like data sharing because now we're going to agree to take the [authority to operate] of a system or an application from another service and adopt it,” Jane Rathbun said during a keynote at AFCEA NoVa’s defense IT event Tuesday. “We're going to actually pilot this idea with the Army's Palantir ATO and try to get it so that we can leverage it on our side and not go through that process over again as part of our data analytics ecosystem.”

DHS warns of threats to election posed by artificial intelligence

"As the 2024 election cycle progresses, generative AI tools likely provide both domestic and foreign threat actors with enhanced opportunities for interference by aggravating emergent events, disrupting election processes, or attacking election infrastructure," the May 17 document said. Those tools, the bulletin said, can be wielded to "influence and sow discord" in upcoming U.S. elections by those who view them as "attractive" and "priority" targets.

Login.gov’s upcoming biometric pilot aims to focus on equity, usability

The goal of the upcoming pilot, which will run through the fall, is to evaluate overall user experience throughout the new workflow and to find where individuals become stuck or confused throughout the process so the “team can iteratively make improvements,” the agency spokesperson said. “Login.gov is committed to leveraging best-in-class facial matching algorithms that, based on testing in controlled environments, have been shown to offer high-levels of accuracy in reduced algorithmic bias,” they added.

We're nearing a point of no return on data privacy. Congress must act

As the world races to develop artificial intelligence models that will make it easier to extract and act on people’s sensitive information, the United States still lacks a comprehensive data privacy law. That has allowed commercial data brokers to collect vast amounts of Americans’ personal information, often without our knowledge or meaningful consent, and sell it to paying customers, including the U.S. government. 

Senate group's 'roadmap' is call to action on AI innovation

The Roadmap is the culmination of more than 50 hearings and nine Insight Forums with input from over 150 industry experts (including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, among others) focused on addressing the potential impacts of AI.

House Lawmakers Want Improper Payment Crackdown

The broad category of improper payments includes payments made by the government that should not have been disbursed at all, or were disbursed in the incorrect amount. The Government Accountability Office reckons that improper Federal government payments totaled $236 billion in fiscal year 2023. The legislation aims to lower improper payments by designating all new Federal programs making more than $100 million in payments within the first three years as being “susceptible to significant improper payments.”

With a startup's assist, the UK Government publishes new AI security guidelines

The British government published a new collection of research reports on the cyber security of AI pulling on sources from the private and public sectors. It includes a broad set of recommendations for organisations prepared by Mindgard, the report’s only startup contributor. This report, together with the new draft Code of Practice on cyber security governance, was created in response to the Chinese cyberattack on the Ministry of Defence earlier this year, and is aimed specifically at directors and business leaders in the federal and private sectors.

Slack has been using your messages to train their ML and & AI models

This revelation shed light on a practice where Slack’s systems analyse various forms of user data, including messages and content sent through the platform, as well as additional information outlined in the company’s Privacy Policy and customer agreements. What’s particularly troubling about this practice is that it operates on an opt-out basis, meaning users’ private data is automatically included in the training process unless they specifically raise a request to be excluded from the data set.

Decoding War: How Open-Source Intelligence Unveils Russian Missile Launchers' Positions

The ramifications of OSINT are twofold. On the one hand, it provides a cost-effective and efficient means for military analysts to enhance decision-making and act as a force multiplier in conflicts. It also allows non-state combatants and states with less sophisticated military infrastructures to potentially neutralize multi-million-dollar assets using publicly sourced data.

Google earns FedRAMP High authorization for more than 100 additional commercial services

In an interview with FedScoop ahead of the announcement, Leigh Palmer, vice president of technology, strategy and delivery for Google Public Sector, said this not only gives federal civilian agencies that work with highly sensitive data sets — like those in health care, law enforcement, finance and emergency response, among others — a long list of new tools to work with, but they’re also hosted in a commercial environment, which she said comes with added benefits.

Informatica CEO: Good Data Management Not Optional for AI

The big data era may have started a decade-and-a-half ago, but for many companies, it’s the current AI revolution that’s forcing them to finally get serious about data management, says Informatica CEO Amit Walia. “What is AI without good quality data?” he says.

Government introduces new law to shore up rules around consumer data

The government has introduced a new bill that would shore up the rules around consumer data. Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Andrew Bayly spoke to Corin Dann.

2024 MDA Industry Innovation Summit

The summit’s multi-mission focus poses the question “What do we need to change to work smarter, so we can support the warfighter with speed, agility, collaboration, and innovation?” To answer this question, the summit is anchored with national keynote speakers who know and understand the evolving, complex landscape of digital trends and how they impact our work, markets, and business over time. Topics include acquisition and engineering reform, implications of artificial intelligence, the art of the possible (digital transformation, frontier technologies, and acquisition forum), and leadership, industry, and service panels.

Building Solid Ground: Implementing Best Practices in GIS Analysis

Join our upcoming webinar to learn how to ensure your geolocation data is up-to-snuff and empowers, not hinders, your analysis! Geolocation analysis offers a powerful tool for understanding spatial trends and patterns. However, the accuracy and reliability of derived insights fundamentally depend on the data quality. Rarely does the required data come off the shelf and ready for analysis without additional cleansing, enriching, and standardizing.

WEBINAR: Supply Chain Resilience in The Defense Industrial Base

In this detailed session, our expert panelists explore the intricacies of the defense supply chain and associated legal requirements and share best practices for mitigating risks.

Data Opportunities and Challenges in a Post-Roe World

As we near the two-year anniversary of Dobbs, join us for a panel discussion in which experts from across the United States discuss questions including: What are the barriers to conducting abortion-related research today? What have we learned from the data so far? Where are the data gaps and how can we fill them?

Twitter  Linkedin  
The Federal Data Prospector is curated by Carpe Datum employees, and delivers fresh content about the intersection of the data and analytics industry and the Federal Government for businesses who want to start or grow their public sector practices.

View the archives.

Was this forwarded to you? Subscribe to receive the Federal Data Prospector.