GovDataDownload was proud to be a media sponsor of the recent Federal Mobile Computing Summit that took place in Washington, DC. DJ Kachman, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and Tom Sasala, U.S. Army Information Technology Agency, served as Government Co-Chairs of the event. The agenda included five panels, a Mobile Technology Tiger Team briefing on Mobile App Vetting Criteria, the MITRE- Advanced Technology Academic Research Center (ATARC) Mobile Collaboration Symposium and the ATARC Mobile Technology Showcase.
The event kicked off with a visionary panel of experts from the General Services Administration (GSA), Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the U.S. Army about the state of mobility in 2015. Moderator Jason Miller, Executive Editor, Federal News Radio, emphasized that “each agency is in a different state” and probed panelists about what their agencies are seeing and implementing with regard to mobile technologies. Jon Johnson, Program Manager, Enterprise Mobility Programs, GSA shared that, at his agency, the “mobility nut has yet to be cracked but we are making progress.” He elaborated that some agencies have a great grasp of what they have and where they’re going with regard to mobile, as well as robust mobility budgets, while other agencies still need to find that budget to fund mobile initiatives. Rick Holgate, CIO, ATF noted that, because ATF is a smaller agency, they’re able to be more advanced with regard to mobile. Challenges cited by all panelists included mobile device security, with the majority reporting use of mobile device management (MDM) technology to secure devices, as well as, in the case of ATF, biometric security in the form of touch ID since employees and contractors use iPhones equipped with that capability. But overall, the sentiment was positive with clear signs that agencies are embracing mobile technology to enable employees to work from anywhere and provide information to the public in a format that’s accessible across mobile devices.
MDM was a topic that warranted its own panel featuring panelists from NIST, DHS and DISA. They shared where each of their agencies were with regard to MDM, again highlighting the different priorities and stages of adoption across various agencies. Tom McCarty, Director, Identity, Credential and Access Management, DHS, shared that DHS is in the midst of a cross-departmental initiative to evaluate device management, and security solutions. He also mentioned that DHS is exploring near field communication (NFC) credentials. Greg Youst, Chief Mobility Engineer, DISA, said that DISA is currently running a pilot with iOS devices using soft certificates that place a digital certificate on a device via a registry or file system in the native keystore. Once operational, this initiative would allow the DoD to move away from common access card readers for mobile devices. In addition to this pilot, DISA is developing an over-the-air public key infrastructure (PKI) provisioning process, which Youst said will demonstrate the use of over-the-air certificates to iOS devices.
The event concluded with a panel exploring the future of application program interfaces (APIs) and the Internet of Things (IoT) moderated by Patrick Tucker, Editor, Defense One and panelists Gray Brooks, Senior API strategist,18F (GSA’s new Digital Services Agency) and Sokwoo Rhee, Associate Director, Cyber-Physical Systems, NIST. 18F is leading the government’s development efforts with an API-first approach to building effective, user-centric digital services focused on the interaction between government and the people and businesses it serves. Brooks predicted that with today’s emphasis on agencies making web services available to the public and other agencies, in five years we’ll be seeing the intranet equivalent to this approach within agencies to foster employee productivity, innovation and collaboration.
The event certainly echoed the trends we’re seeing across the government, education and healthcare sectors; namely that agencies are embracing mobile technologies to deliver higher productivity for employees, enable citizens to access information from anywhere and on any device, and improve access to care and resources regardless of geographical location. While mobile technologies enable these advances, they also present challenges for agencies charged with maintaining data and system security. GovDataDownload looks forward to chronicling the ongoing success of agencies implementing novel solutions to these challenges and paving the way for other organizations looking to capitalize on the convenience and innovation mobile technologies offer.
