It’s no secret that the federal  government is in dire need of an IT facelift, but the question is how can they address  this need both effectively and swiftly. We sat down with Jeff Kramer, Senior Director of Government Solutions for Reed Tech to elaborate on how the government should be tackling the growing issue of federal government IT modernization.

Jeff shared with us some of his takeaways from a recent IT Modernization Summit where both the legislative and technical aspects of the necessary IT shift were discussed.  The consensus seems to be that government agencies are moving away from hardware and towards cloud computing or SaaS solutions, mainly due to the rapid pace of technological innovation and hardware solutions quickly becoming obsolete.

With IT modernization comes the issue of cybersecurity explained Jeff, especially with an increasing number of government employees opting to use their own (often times more advanced) devices in the workplace. Because of this concern, some agencies are turning to machine learning and/or data analytics to quickly resolve and sometimes even predict threats.

Jeff goes on to explain that IT modernization is not just about improving the technology itself. “There’s a human aspect to it as well and there needs to be a huge paradigm shift. We’re all consumers and users of the technology, so we really need to look at it. The service model for workers and consumers of the technology needs to be looked at differently.”

Listen to the podcast to learn more about Jeff’s recommendations for approaching IT modernization programs, the hurdles these agencies are currently facing and how they should approach this massive feat.