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U.S. Looking to Modernise Diplomatic Tech

The United States Department of State has issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) for its multibillion-dollar “Evolve” acquisition programme to modernise American diplomatic technology. The programme’s goals include using emerging technologies, cybersecurity, data analysis, climate and health innovations and workforce accessibility.

Evolve is a crucial component of the U.S. agenda to build a State Department that is ready to operate securely in the twenty-first century. IT Management, Network and Telecommunications, Cloud and Data Centre, Application Development and Customer and End User Support are part of the scope. The total contract acquisition ceiling is expected to cost US$10 billion.

The revitalisation programme will allow the Department to acquire technology services from companies with a successful track record while advancing modern U.S. diplomatic goals. Multiple-award, Indefinite Delivery, Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts with a seven-year performance period will be used to purchase Evolve technology services.

The IT refreshment initiative promotes expanded opportunities for small and disadvantaged businesses through set-asides, small business participation goals, and the inclusion of pass/fail small business commitment requirements for all significant business offerors. In addition, existing I.T. services provided to the Department under the 8(a) programme will be exempt from the Evolve programme, ensuring that those opportunities remain available to small businesses.

Modernisation has emerged as a priority for the United States government. Previously, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) built a significant digital modernisation effort with a design-led approach, leveraging existing talent and data. GSA’s Office modernisation efforts were undertaken in response to Executive Board and Digital Council requests for a team to catalogue, evaluate, and push customer-centred changes to all GSA’s digital products.

Using a design-led approach, the agency assembles a team of experts in critical areas, including service design, policy, human capital, and engineering, as well as a collaborative mindset. While attempting to bring in more talented individuals, the agency drew from its existing talent pool and cross-trained each other by working on projects.

Moreover, cybersecurity has become one of the country’s top priorities as more activities rely on the internet. The G7 Cyber Expert Group (CEG) recently issued two reports to help financial sector entities better understand cybersecurity topics such as ransomware and third-party risk.

This document aims to help financial institutions, both public and private, with their internal ransomware mitigation efforts. The report summarises the G7’s current policy approaches, industry guidance, and best practices. Furthermore, the G7 jurisdictions’ collaboration in producing this report emphasises global efforts to promote financial sector resilience.

The CEG also released an updated version of a 2018 report titled The Fundamental Elements of Third-Party Risk Management in the Financial Sector. The G7 CEG deemed this revision necessary to keep up with the ever-changing cyber threat landscape due to financial institutions’ increasing reliance on service providers in central operational functions and the resulting vulnerabilities. The update contains explicit recommendations for tracking supply chain risks, identifying systemically important third-party providers, and identifying concentration risks.

The United States Administration has made a similar effort to strengthen the nation’s cyber defences. The Administration has developed a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy and is taking aggressive measures to enhance and maintain the nation’s cyber security. As a result, the White House recently released a fact sheet on improving national cybersecurity, which details numerous advancements in this area.

The Administration has worked closely with critical industries like transportation, finance, water, and healthcare to help stakeholders understand cyber threats to critical infrastructure and implement minimal cybersecurity requirements.

This includes the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) implementation of a slew of performance-based directives aimed at improving cybersecurity resilience in the pipeline and rail sectors and a measure of cyber requirements for the aviation industry.

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Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

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CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

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Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

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SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

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HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

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IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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