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As the world celebrates Earth Day, the call to action for environmental stewardship resonates louder than ever. At Alpha Omega, we understand the urgent need for collective efforts to address climate change and preserve our precious ecosystems. Our partnership with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), particularly with the Forest Service (FS), stands as a testament to our commitment to these vital causes.

Since 2019, Alpha Omega has been proud to support the Forest Service in various capacities, aligning our work with their environmental mission. From facilitating emergency responses to advancing research and development initiatives, our collaboration with FS underscores the importance of integrating climate science into practical, on-the-ground solutions.

Emergency response lies at the forefront of our contributions. As forest fires escalate in frequency and intensity, our support of critical systems like iNAP, OIS, and FAMAuth becomes increasingly indispensable. By ensuring that firefighters and emergency responders have access to essential applications, we play a pivotal role in safeguarding lives and landscapes during fire emergencies nationwide.

Moreover, research and development form the cornerstone of FS’s stewardship efforts. Through our work on the Research Information Tracking Systems (RITS), we empower FS scientists and environmentalists to access, search, and track mission-critical information vital for informed decision-making and effective land management strategies.

In addition to emergency response and research, our involvement extends to public outreach—a vital component of FS’s environmental mission. Through our delivery of the public facing websites for FS’s Chief Information Officer and various national forests and regions, we enable FS to engage with the public, provide access to recreational opportunities, and raise awareness about environmental initiatives. This support not only fosters public support for the agency but also amplifies awareness of FS’s crucial role in environmental conservation.

As we commemorate Earth Day, let us recognize the interconnectedness of environmental stewardship, climate science, and public lands management. Alpha Omega remains steadfast in our commitment to driving positive change, both through our collaboration with the USDA’s Forest Service and our ongoing efforts to champion sustainability and conservation. Together, let us embrace the spirit of Earth Day every day, working hand in hand to protect and preserve our planet for generations to come.

 

By: Reha Gill, Vice President of Data and Artificial Intelligence at Alpha Omega

In the digital corridors of the federal government, artificial intelligence (AI) is not just a technological advancement but a transformative force. The potential of AI to enhance efficiency and decision-making in government services is enormous. This includes predictive analytics in national security, automated processing in citizen services, and the utilization of multimodal emotion recognition (MER) to assist and secure our borders. However, as this technology becomes deeply integrated into the federal fabric, ethical and security risks are increasingly coming to the forefront. Alpha Omega continues to find ways of integrating security protocols as part of our solution delivery platform. 

While service providers and agencies alike find newer ways to integrate AI into their proposed solutions, it is necessary to engage certain barometers during the solution design process.  

The Ethical Conundrum 

AI systems, fueled by algorithms, can unconsciously introduce biases present in their training data, leading to unequal treatment of different demographic groups. In the federal context, this could mean biased decision-making in areas such as law enforcement, benefit allocation, or hiring practices. The ethical implications are significant, potentially impacting fundamental rights and freedoms. 

Moreover, the transparency of AI decision-making processes is another ethical challenge. The “black box” nature of complex algorithms can make it difficult to understand how certain decisions are reached, challenging the democratic principles of accountability and transparency. 

Security concerns with AI range from data breaches involving sensitive citizen data to the potential weaponization of AI through autonomous drones or cyber warfare. Deepfakes and AI-powered disinformation campaigns can undermine national stability, influence elections, and disrupt social cohesion. 

The risks are not limited to external threats; internally, the unauthorized use of AI, or “shadow AI,” can result in unsanctioned activities that evade the government’s stringent security protocols, leading to unintended vulnerabilities. 

Countermeasures and Solutions 

To minimize these risks, federal agencies must ensure that service providers address specific key areas within the mentioned sections. Additionally, it is crucial that the suite of services and strategies developed by their partners revolves around the ethical and secure use of AI. 

Bias Detection and Mitigation Tools: Integrating tools which help to identify and reduce bias ensuring that the models are fair and equitable into the AI development lifecycle. Examples include services like IBM Watson’s Fairness 360 or Google’s What-If Tool provide such insights. 

Explainable AI Platforms: Platforms like DARPA’s XAI project and Microsoft’s InterpretML aid in demystifying AI decisions, enhancing transparency. They offer a window into how AI models make predictions, which is crucial for maintaining public trust. 

AI Security Protocols: Ensuring that the solution design contains AI-specific cybersecurity services which offer advanced threat detection, using AI to combat AI-powered attacks. They provide real-time monitoring and response to secure sensitive government data and infrastructure. 

Data Privacy Tools: Technologies that enable privacy-preserving data analysis, such as homomorphic encryption and differential privacy, should be adopted to ensure that data can be analyzed without exposing the underlying information which is crucial for maintaining citizen privacy. 

Regulatory Compliance Platforms: To align with evolving AI regulations, compliance platforms like OneTrust and Compliance.ai can assist federal agencies in navigating the complex regulatory landscape, ensuring AI systems are up to date with legal and ethical standards. 

Cybersecurity Mesh: The AI community has a lot of literature available on this type of architectural design. This architectural approach allows for a more modular, responsive security strategy, encapsulating each device in its own protective perimeter. Picking services which orchestrate security across all touchpoints, is an essential strategy against sophisticated AI threats. 

Moving Forward with Prudence 

As AI becomes more pervasive in federal operations, the balance between leveraging its capabilities and managing its risks becomes more delicate. By incorporating ethical considerations into the design of AI systems and adopting robust security measures in their solicitations, the federal government can harness the power of AI while safeguarding the principles of democracy and the security of the nation. 

The path ahead is complex, but with conscientious efforts and the right set of tools, we can help create solutions for our federal partners and help them steer AI towards the greater good, exemplifying a model for responsible and secure AI use globally. We at Alpha Omega continue to work hard to create implementation frameworks and solution models which focus on the ethical and responsible use of AI making sure that our solutions are in compliance with regulatory requirements while providing target state results.  

Like many great American success stories, Alpha Omega’s founder, Gautam Ijoor’s entrepreneurial journey started as a young man. At the age of sixteen, he saw an opportunity to capitalize on a vacant restaurant space in his hometown in India. Turning it into a discotheque, the operation made an impressive profit until his parents caught on to his nocturnal venture. It was also the same time that Gautam identified how business could be a vehicle for good works and he began his first philanthropic project, using the money earned from the nightclub to fund the tuitions of impoverished students.

Years later, after studying engineering as an undergraduate, Gautam sold his motorbike and moved to Newark, New Jersey with $186 in his pocket. He secured a full assistantship for graduate school at New Jersey Institute of Technology and began the next chapter of study.

Combining engineering and entrepreneurship, Gautam graduated with a master’s degree in environmental engineering. He took a sabbatical in 2007 to return to India, inspired by an idea to address the lack of electricity in remote communities. Gautam took a locally sourced plant, the jatropa, and started work to create a self-sustainable and local source of alternative energy. Jatropa is grown throughout India as a fence to keep out cattle. Gautam created a biofuel system and secured $10 million in funding but fell short of meeting the next round of fundraising and had to abandon his business. However, the project and his mission to create a renewable energy source did not fail. Local engineers created an energy plant from recycled materials and together with grants from the Indian government, the facility opened a few years later. To this day, the energy plant still serves the community by providing electricity and using the jatropa plant that Gautam envisioned and harnessed.

Gautam returned to the US to attend the University of Virginia Darden School of Business where he received his MBA. That relationship and commitment to education and continuous improvement is a core value of Gautam’s, and one that he also extends to the entire organization. Alpha Omega forged a partnership with UVA as well as other technical and university programs to engage with young talent and build onramps for the government contracting community, preparing, and ensuring a future workforce.

With 22 years in government contracting, Gautam has a proven history of driving businesses to expand their presence and exceed growth and profit objectives. Prior to Alpha Omega, he served as Chief Operating Officer of C3 Systems, leading the company from $0 to $16 million per year revenue and from 1 to 110 employees in four years. As Vice President of Operations, Business Development and Capture Strategy for QSSI, Gautam steered the firm through three acquisitions and increased his division’s revenue by over 300% in eight years.

Gautam founded Alpha Omega in 2016, leveraging a lifetime of entrepreneurship, education, and passion for service to our nation. Alpha Omega has quickly gained recognition as a top supplier of Agile DevSecOps, cloud engineering, and cybersecurity solutions for federal customers. Headquartered in Vienna, Virginia, Alpha Omega’s mission to ensure our nation’s continued global leadership serves as our constant compass, shaping our daily endeavors. We are deeply immersed in the Department of Homeland Security, USDA, NOAA, and the Department of State, among others. We align our capabilities and domain expertise in foreign affairs, national security, and climate science with our understanding of each agency’s mission to deliver trusted strategic counsel and carefully tailored solutions.

From the earliest days, Alpha Omega has recognized the importance of mastering delivery processes so that we can produce transformative outcomes within the Federal market. Our commitment to service excellence and continuous process improvement is evidenced by our globally recognized Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Maturity Level-5 (ML-5) for Development and Services and ISO/IEC registrations for 20000-1:2018, 27001:2013, and 9001:2015. 

Focusing on winning work, delighting customers, and growing the business, Alpha Omega grew more than 40% year over year, and more than doubling its headcount several times. A six-time member of the national Inc. 5000 list, Alpha Omega has demonstrated significant growth year over year, which supports the local Washington, DC community and various contract locations across the country. Equally important is Alpha Omega’s focus on customer satisfaction and relationships. Our powerful staffing experts and formulas and a passion for delivering and out-performing explain Alpha Omega’s 83% recompete win rate. In addition, Alpha Omega achieved a 93.8% overall client satisfaction rate in 2022, alongside a 90.5% recompete win rate.

Alpha Omega leveraged a merger to acquire important skills and services. In 2020, we acquired the Confiance Group, a Robotic Process Automation firm in Reston, Virginia, and later established our Cybersecurity capabilities through strategic hires. Partnerships also facilitate value to our customers and increase our capabilities. With more public sector clients seeking cloud-based solutions, Alpha Omega identified a critical skills gap that needed to be addressed to attract new talent with security clearances and achieve more AWS Certification(s) to meet contract requirements. Collaborating with Amazon Public Sector as an Advanced Tier AWS Partner, Alpha Omega offers practical skills and industry-recognized credential opportunities for team members while simultaneously developing a workforce readiness program. 

Innovation takes many forms and Alpha Omega recognizes that to be innovative, we must examine our delivery and look to bring technology and services that are ideal to the client mission. Some of our most transformational methods are those we have created intellectual property (IP) in response to customer needs like Alpha Omega’s A2O,™ a trademarked automated ATO solution accelerator platform that enables customers to reduce security accreditation time by 90%. 

Under Gautam’s leadership, Alpha Omega has laid the groundwork for an increasingly mature organization and strategy for a more complex C-suite to support rapid growth and to maintain excellence in operations and customer delivery. Together with a team of leaders, Alpha Omega is poised to clear its next set of hurdles as a large, private business. Mentorship, professional development, and philanthropy remain key elements of the Alpha Omega core values and keep us tenacious in pursuit of solutions, innovation, and excellence. We are an organization that celebrates diversity and champions teams, with professional development and certifications opportunities at every level of the organization.

In 2022, Alpha Omega established an SBA Mentor Protege Partnership with WOSB Alesig Consulting. This allows Alpha Omega to provide valuable business development help including strategic planning and financial support in the form of equity investments, as well as valuable skills in navigating federal contract processes. The MPP is also part of Alpha Omega’s commitment to women-owned and minority-owned businesses. Mentorship and giving back to our community are Alpha Omega’s roots.

Asked about his mentorship and focus on professional development, Gautam said, “I have had great educational opportunities and I want to extend them outward to my team members and the future workforce. We need others to help us reach our full potential, and young people are eager to learn and hone their creativity. I have taken risks and I have made failures into opportunities to succeed. Every time I was not successful, I remember a quote by Thomas Edison, ‘I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.’ But when you do find a way that works, the 10,000 other ways only make it a much sweeter victory. I am lucky to be able to celebrate these moments with a team whose integrity and trust inspires me to give back and make a positive change in the world.”

We’re excited to see what the next chapter holds for Alpha Omega.

Digital modernization is considered a critical priority in today’s government IT systems. While progress is being made, there are still challenges that are being faced by the government to overcome this obstacle. According to a recent report by McKinsey, the US government will put more priority on digital modernization in five years’ time.

The federal government spends more than $100 billion on IT and cyber-related investments. Most of this budget, however, is spent on maintaining existing IT investments, including legacy infrastructure. Many government agencies still rely on outdated legacy systems or infrastructure.

In June 2019, the US Government Accountability Office reported that 7 out of the 10 agencies responsible for these legacy systems had plans for modernizing the systems. Of the 7, only the Departments of the Interior’s and Defense modernization plans included all the essential elements identified in best practices. The other five agencies — the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Treasury, the Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration, and Social Security Administration — do not have complete modernization plans.

The high cost of maintaining legacy systems

Government agencies face multiple obstacles to modernization since most still rely heavily on legacy systems, which cause a sizeable number of problems:

• Inability to compete – The inability of legacy systems to adapt to changes and new technologies in the age of cloud services, virtualization, and software-defined everything means it cannot meet the new demands for faster responses and solutions. It hampers the overall mission of an agency.
• High maintenance costs – Maintaining a legacy system is often more expensive than buying a new system. Legacy systems do not support new applications; therefore, modifications are needed to suit new requirements which can add additional costs.
• Data trapped in silos – A data silo is a collection of data that is held by one group and is not easily accessible to other groups even if they are in the same agency. Data silos inhibit collaborative work between departments since they create a barrier to information sharing, which can have dire consequences in high-stakes situations.
• Compromised security against newer threats – Legacy systems often do not support the latest security updates. This puts any sensitive information at risk since it will make the agency vulnerable to ever-evolving cyber threats. Decreased security is most often the biggest reason why a software upgrade is needed. A data breach or hacking can pose serious threats to agencies.

Cyber threats are a real and present danger

Cyber threats have evolved into many forms from ransomware that locks up a system until a ransom is paid, to data exfiltration malware that targets sensitive information.

Back in 2015, The Defense Contract Management Agency, which manages outside contracts for the Department of Defense, investigated a possible cyber-attack. Suspicious activities were detected on January 28, 2015, and subsequent investigation revealed that the attack attempted to gain insight into specific contracts within the Department of Defense. This type of hack happened again in 2021 when a group of sophisticated Chinese government hackers was able to compromise dozens of U.S government agencies.

Infrastructure modernization should be Priority No. 1

Government agencies should prioritize modernizing their IT infrastructure to counter the ever-evolving landscape of cyber threats.

Upgrading their IT infrastructure not only provides a strong security solution, but also increases agility, productivity, and operational efficiency. Government agencies should also keep in mind that modernization will enable them to provide better services to citizens.

These are the benefits government agencies will get when they embrace IT modernization:

• Cost savings free up the budget for other resources — Lower costs of IT maintenance means additional budget that can be used for other resources.
• Increased agility and collaboration — Communication and collaboration is improved since information can be securely shared across the entire agency.
• Leverage commercially available technology – It will be easier for government agencies to utilize off-the-shelf software and services that can help process routine low-risk activities, freeing up workers to focus on more strategic and value-adding tasks. This tech also decreases the chances of fraud and waste and provides better cybersecurity.
• Improved roles of government CIOs – As demand on their systems increases, the responsibilities of government tech leaders also increase. Government CIOs should be able to help other agency chiefs to decide, develop, and execute strategies to make better modernization choices for key applications.
• Improved efficiency and user experience — A modern IT infrastructure is designed for ease of use, which translates to a better employee experience. Eliminating unnecessary manual processes and paperwork also saves time and minimizes errors.

A solid implementation strategy combined with support from trusted service providers is crucial to any IT modernization initiative. While modernization does not happen overnight, it is important that government CIOs and IT heads recognize both the need and urgency. When agencies are equipped with the best tools to do their job, every citizen will benefit.

If you would like to explore accelerating your agency’s Modernization efforts, contact us at Alpha Omega Integration.

An Authorization to Operate (ATO) is a permit that federal agencies need to acquire before they can implement any new software system, as set forth under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA). It serves as proof that an agency passed a federally approved process to safeguard an IT system from security threats such as malware, cyberattacks, security breaches, and phishing attempts. ATO documentation is also used in security audits of agency systems to ensure that the security controls continue to be compliant, maintained, and monitored effectively and efficiently.

Obtaining an ATO can be a long and tedious undertaking, and agencies often look to new technologies and processes that can help address the challenges of ATO processing.

Challenge No. 1: Identifying Baseline Security Controls — Security testing must be moved to the start of the process, incorporating it into the requirements and system design. Agencies must identify tools and practices that they can fully integrate throughout the software development life cycle (SDLC).

Challenge Np. 2: Implementing Security Controls — Leverage automation to achieve a successful security implementation. Ensure that all updates to your system pass through a standardized security check. Create cases using different attack vectors and test them. Automation allows agencies to check engineering activities while maintaining security processes. As systems may also have third-party libraries and frameworks, agencies need controls that can monitor and identify vulnerabilities within these components as well.

Challenge No. 3: Monitoring System Security — All efforts in identifying baseline security controls and automation will be pointless without a monitoring and reporting solution in place. Without visibility into the process, it is difficult to identify opportunities to adjust and optimize the system. Metrics such as vulnerability counts, mean-time-to-detect, and mean-time-to-respond provide essential insights into the status of security implementation.

Challenge No. 4: Prolonged Timelines — An ATO can take anywhere between 6-18 months to complete. This can stifle change and make applications stale. The prolonged timeline also delays rolling out of innovations that create business value and increases system risk to an agency.

To address these challenges, government agencies must partner with service providers that can help them through the full ATO processing lifecycle. Agency decision makers should look for service providers with the following qualifications:

1. Strong history of supporting other government agencies to ensure that they are familiar with federal regulations and best practices. Consult with security professionals in other agencies to identify vendors they have experienced success with.
2. Strong reputation in providing integrations that can work within the development environment and with the integration and deployment pipelines.
3. Inclusion of compliance as a core component of reporting capabilities. Select partners that are familiar with compliance standards such as FISMA, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIG), and others.
4. Proven ways to reduce time to ATO. Identify partners with proven tools for reducing time to ATO without compromising consistency in results and continuous compliance and monitoring.

Addressing ATO Challenges with Alpha Omega (AO)

For more than 20 years, AO’S award-winning team has provided federal agencies, commercial businesses, and nonprofit organizations with agile, innovative, and collaborative technology solutions. Our federal customers include the Department of Defense, Department of Justice, Department of State, and Department of Navy, among many others.

At AO, we have been helping our clients reduce the time to ATO by combining our cybersecurity , intelligent automation, and agile competencies. As a result, our customers have benefitted through reduction of time and cost associated with ATOs; achieved consistency in results and continuous compliance and monitoring; decreased system risk to the agency; and accelerated time to achieving and maintaining ATOs.

Alpha Omega Integration built A2O™ to address the lifecycle of the ATO process from gathering and evaluating the necessary controls based on the system’s security profile, to identifying exceptions in security posture and monitor controls. Built on and in collaboration with the industry leading automation vendor UiPath, A2O™ takes a continuous automation approach to ATO by automating collection of data from manual controls executing the controls, identifying gaps, and increasing observability and transparency, through technical and operational dashboards.

For more information on A2O™ and how partnering with us can make it easier for your agency
to achieve an ATO, visit the AOI website: https://alpha-omega.aufy.net/