TechWonk Blog Subsection
TechWonk Blog
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From raising the debt limit and funding the federal government to passing a defense authorization bill, the U.S. Congress has a packed agenda to accomplish before the end of 2021. Among these priorities, lawmakers should also seize a historic opportunity to finish work on the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), a bipartisan bill that passed the U.S. Senate earlier this year. This bill is essential [...]
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November 12 marks six months since the Biden Administration issued the sweeping Executive Order on Improving the Nation鈥檚 Cybersecurity (EO), setting a milestone in the advancement of a coherent federal strategy to optimize cyber risk management. With the Executive Order鈥檚 release, the Biden Administration put down a marker to elevate the importance of cybersecurity. The EO directed all agencies to [...]
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In the early months of the Biden Administration, the federal government contracting world has received significant attention. While it is generally well-known that the government uses private sector contracts for innovative products and services, federal contracts are now being used as the catalyst to drive important policy changes in areas including racial equity, climate change, and most recently, [...]
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A current increase in global demand for semiconductors or 鈥榗hips鈥� is outpacing both supply and manufacturing capacity, resulting in several sectors - from autos to healthcare to energy to consumer products and devices - facing a shortage in this foundational hardware. The increased demand for chips is the result of both increased demand for devices that enable our work- and learn-from-home environment [...]
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On January 20, the Biden-Harris Administration will assume control of a tumultuous policy landscape. The ongoing SolarWinds breach and the ongoing cyber threats in the wake of the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol pose significant challenges and painstakingly demonstrate the importance of a streamlined and strategic approach to federal information security. The Biden-Harris Administration has the [...]
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If one thing is clear from the past four years, it鈥檚 that U.S. federal government operations have been anything but 鈥渂usiness as usual.鈥� Recently, several White House Executive Orders have unilaterally shifted major requirements for federal agencies and their contractors. One of the most troubling measures is Executive Order (EO) 13950: Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping, which applies to all federal [...]
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This week, NAFTA negotiators will meet once again to renegotiate the 23-year-old, critically important trade agreement between the United States and two of its largest trading partners, Mexico and Canada. We share many of the Trump administration鈥檚 goals of modernizing this agreement, which was negotiated long before the incredible changes that the internet and digital technologies have brought to [...]
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The start of the 115th Congress and new administration not only marked an era of profound political change, but it also presented a unique and timely opportunity to modernize outdated policies. Lawmakers acted on many issues critical to the tech industry by enacting substantial reforms to bring both the U.S. federal tax code and the U.S. government procurement process into the 21st century. The Tax [...]