Category Archives: Event News

Event News on GovEvents Blog includes editorials and media directly pertaining to Government & Military Event News.

Strengthening Cyber Resilience With Collaboration

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Today's organizations know that stopping 100% of cyber-attacks is not a realistic goal. Rather, the focus has shifted to cyber resilience, "the ability to anticipate, withstand, recover from, and adapt to adverse conditions, stresses, attacks, or compromises on systems that use or are enabled by cyber resources."

A critical pillar in becoming resilient is communication and collaboration. The Cyber EO focused on improving the nation's cybersecurity and highlighted the need to improve collaboration with threat intelligence sharing between public and private organizations as well as the creation of cross-government cyber boards. In recent months, key strides have been made in facilitating information sharing around cyber best practices, resource availability, as well as process and policy. Continue reading →

Virtual Court is Here to Stay

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Like many industries, the pandemic forced the court system to rethink how they deliver services and carry out everyday business. Courts had been slow to adopt technology with e-filing and e-notarization being the biggest digital changes over the last several decades. Hearings were still in person with remote testimony a rarity. This meant that lawyers might have to travel hundreds of miles for a 15-minute hearing. Even in the face of this inefficiency, there was no big push to change. Then came COVID.

More Than a Pandemic Fix

Zoom-based hearings became commonplace to facilitate cases while keeping all participants safe. But as the pandemic restrictions on in-person extended, courts nationwide started seeing huge benefits to the online process.

Virtual hearings increased participation by defendants. In Arizona, between 2019 and 2020, a Pew study found that there was an 8% drop in default judgments - judgments where the plaintiff wins simply because the defendant failed to appear. Attendance among jurors also increased. Texas saw a big spike in juror attendance after the transition to an online system. Continue reading →

IoT in Government: How Government is Using Digital Twins

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Digital twins are virtual, 3D representations of buildings, neighborhoods, or products built with real-world data collected from internet-of-things (IoT) devices like sensors, video cameras, and other enterprise data applications. These twins allow researchers, planners, and policymakers to experiment with changes to the object or environment to see if the desired results of that change are achieved. Applications include infrastructure improvement, sustainability planning, emergency response preparedness, and research and development. IoT in government is being driven by the results digital twins can achieve. One report showed that cities can expect to save $280 billion by 2030 with the deployment and use of digital twins. Continue reading →

The Expanding Use of Virtual Reality in the Military

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Virtual Reality (VR) has strong roots in the military. Long used for training and simulations, the military has helped develop VR technology and continues to innovate in how it can be used. VR continues to be invaluable to tactical, mission training but is also being used in other training areas. For example, the Virtual Welder Trainer program simulates multiple welding processes, blending real world and computer-generated images into a VR environment to allow welders to train without having to use real world resources. Just as flight simulators save money in terms of aircraft use, other virtual reality in military training applications provide similar cost savings in terms of equipment and travel.

Designing and Maintaining Military Equipment

VR is being utilized in all aspects of equipment management. In the design phase, VR can help engineers test designs in combat environments. It can also help determine if a piece of equipment designed for one scenario might work in another and what changes would have to be made to ensure products can operate in a desert environment as well as in cold and rainy climates. Continue reading →

Ensuring Equity in Disaster Response

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Equity is highlighted in priority two of the President's Management Agenda (PMA), Delivering Excellent, Equitable, and Secure Federal Services and Customer Experience, and is a theme throughout all PMA priorities. Disaster response is possibly the most critical place to ensure equity. While a disaster does level the playing field in some ways-no matter how much money you have it won't stop a tornado from hitting your house-the recovery from disasters is not as fairly distributed.

A 2021 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that disaster response is "uneven" across the country. The research found that small towns, rural and tribal areas, and underserved and disadvantaged communities have a hard time accessing federal disaster recovery assistance programs. Those that did access funds had difficulty achieving a full recovery with structures still damaged years later. A key to solving this gap? Data. Continue reading →