In today’s connected world, federal agencies need real innovation to collect data and make meaningful decisions. In this Federal News Roundup, we examine how government is embracing mobile apps, crowdsourcing, and low cost development to gather data on anything from the latest opioid crisis to managing cattle on farms across the U.S. As federal IT managers continue to leverage mobile apps to stay connected, what best practices can be learned from the private sector and how do they ensure data security across the connected life-cycle? Learn this and more, in this week’s news:
FDA Launches Competition for Opioid Mobile App
The opioid crisis in the U.S. is reaching an all time high, with a significant increase in the number of overdose deaths caused by heroine and prescription drugs. Government and health officials are realizing that to battle the opioid crisis, they must tap into the public and ask for all hands on deck. FDA is launching a public competition seeking innovative mobile applications that could connect opioid users with the “carriers of the prescription drug naloxone, which can help reverse overdose,” according to the agency website. The competition will help create a crowd-sourced app that is accessible to the general population and delivers resources, medical services, and education to the user.
Read more here.
USDA App for Cattle
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s in house research agency, Agriculture Research Service (ARS) is tasked with finding solutions to the every day agriculture problems that impact Americans from farm to table. The task is vast and innovation through mobile apps is just one way that ARS keeps abreast of the latest issues in the field. In what of the hottest summers in recent times, ARS has launched a new mobile app that monitors cattle, that warns of potential heat stress, nearly a week prior to a weather event. This pre-warning, helps farmers protect cattle from the repercussions of heat exposure in animals including, susceptibility to disease, impact on growth, lack of appetite, and even death.
Read more here.
IT Modernization Bill passes
As the government changes the way it procures and adopts new technologies, there is widespread recognition that modernization of IT systems is needed within federal agencies. Recently, the house unanimously passed the IT Modernization bill, which is telling of the demand and need. “The Modernizing Government Technology Act is another piece in the puzzle we are putting together to move federal IT systems into the 21st century,” said Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., in a statement reported by Federal Times. As a part of this bill, agencies would have access to their own IT funding, which they can apply to their own upgrade and modernization projects.
Read more here.
The Intersection of Mobile and IoT
Federal IT managers are embracing the Internet of Things (IoT), to stay connected, collect information, make informed decisions and have a holistic view of their agency systems. As agency interest and use of IoT grows, the challenge will be how to collect, store, and process the data quickly and then make it accessible and actionable via smart devices agency-wide as well as with citizens at anywhere and at anytime.
To share more insight on developing secure apps and gathering measurable data in a connected world, Appian is hosting an online webinar on September 29th, 2016 at 1pm EST. Join the webinar to discover best practices and information about how to leverage low-code development platforms to design, launch, and manage assets for mobile and IoT projects in real time while ensuring data security across the connected life-cycle.
Register here.
