Pentagon programs poised for information-sharing awards
Seven Defense Department programs are finalists for honors from industry group.
Pentagon technology programs captured more than one-third of the finalist slots for an award honoring best practices in federal agency information sharing.
Poor information sharing among government agencies has been cited by members of the 9/11 Commission as the single greatest government failure leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. In December, President Bush unveiled plans to facilitate the effective flow of terrorism-related information.
The awards program from the Fairfax, Va.-based Industry Advisory Council's Collaboration and Transformation Shared Interest Group is intended to draw attention to federal IT programs that demonstrate best practices in this area.
Three Pentagon programs -- the Standard Procurement System, the Defense Cross-Credentialing Identification System and the Bidirectional Health Information Exchange, a joint effort with the Veterans Affairs Department -- were selected as Top 20 finalists for the Excellence.Gov award.
The Army's Joint Medical Asset Repository, Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care and Radio Frequency In-Transit Visibility programs also were selected, as was the Navy's Law Enforcement Information Exchange program.
According to IAC, five winners will be announced at a Feb. 15 awards ceremony that will include a keynote speech by House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va. Government employees can register for the event at no cost.
More than 80 entries were reviewed by a panel of 23 judges representing government agencies and the private sector. The programs were selected for effectiveness, ability to improve business processes, degree of collaboration across organizations and level of incorporation of industry and government information-sharing best practices.
"Each of these programs demonstrates real progress with the use of information-sharing techniques and best practices," said Warren Ellmore, chairman of the 2006 Excellence.Gov awards committee.
The Justice Department's National Sex Offender Public Registry received a nomination, as did two Justice component agencies, the FBI's Regional Data Exchange System and the Drug Enforcement Administration's National Virtual Pointer System.
The Homeland Security and State departments each received two nominations. Homeland Security's Disaster Management e-government initiative and its Homeland Security Information Network project were nominated, along with State's Interagency Data Exchange Application and Net-Centric Diplomacy program.
The Office of Personnel Management's Enterprise Human Resources initiative received a nomination along with the Environmental Protection Agency's e-Rulemaking project.