This week in our roundup of federal government IT news, we look at the ways in which IT is facilitating cooperation and collaboration between agencies and with citizens.  The theme of collaboration and cooperation is also shaping how DHS is looking to solve its on-going cyber skills shortage.

NASA’s CIO Looks to the Cloud

While NASA employees are usually looking way beyond our atmosphere in their pursuit of knowledge about the universe, NASA CIO, Renee Wynn, is setting her sites firmly on the cloud.  Motivated in large part by the need to enhance collaboration across one of the largest and geographically decentralized agencies, Wynn is looking to leverage the cloud to improve collaboration.  You can read more about Wynn’s vision for NASA here…

Census and GSA Want to Build a “More Awesome Federal Government”

Last week federal IT leaders, including 18F’s Hillary Hartley and the Census Bureau’s Avi Bender, got together to talk about the digital government revolution.  Both leaders “have big goals for how data can lead to better citizen engagement and mission success” and encouraged other federal IT leaders to join them in finding ways to “derive incredible insights, both about the present and the future of our country” using not only the data they have on hand within their agency, but sharing data sets with other agencies and with the public to derive more knowledge.  Interested in learning more about open data and digital government?  You can read the full story here…

Federal Cyber Security Leaders

Despite the often tense relationship between federal government officials and the tech industry, Obama Administration officials were highly visible at last month’s RSA conference.  While there was a lot of discussion around encryption and data privacy, the real topic of conversation for most feds was how to engage and retain top cyber security talent to fill the skills and employment gap federal agencies are facing.  The lack of cyber security talent is requiring both some creativity and closer working relations with the private sector according to Benjamin Scribner, program director of National Cybersecurity Professionalization and Workforce Development at the Department of Homeland Security.  You can read ore about the cyber skills shortage and plans to fix it here…