June 13, 2025 My Notes - Engage FedGov: Advancing Federal Innovation - AI, Acquisition and Strategy
- Contracts Corner LLC
- Jun 25
- 2 min read
Panel Discussion Notes- June 13, 2025 Engage FedGov: Advancing Federal Innovation - AI, Acquisition and Strategy
Summary Recap:
NASA: 80% of business goes thru SEWP.
DHS: Small business goals decreased.
Lots of terminations for convenience.
Very few new awards are being issued right now. But we should fasten our seat belts in 2026. It is expected that things will improve in 2026.
Current contracts are just being extended.
EPA is not looking for AI right now. Very cool & great ideas, but the agencies are not there yet.
NOAA is using AI for procurement errors.
Google “DHS AI Playbook”.
New technologies also mean new business processes have to be built. That is a lot of work, and it’s a major govt hurdle.
AI needs ethics & security guardrails, tailored for specific use cases.
Dept of VA has moved into the Cloud AWS environment. Contractors have to be able to explain how their solutions fit into the agency’s system.
Be a partner with your customer when they are looking at their budgets and incrementally improve hurdles. Also look for low hanging fruit.
NIH is doing a lot of centralization & consolidation. Working hard to modernize systems. Team work is major. It’s refreshing when teaming partners get along. Mentorship programs are key. Help Desk knowledge sharing is very important. NIH has SO MANY vacancies, administrative challenges, & bottlenecks right now. They don’t have the best data currently. This impacts decision making, and slows things down DRASTICALLY.
CMS: There is extreme scrutiny on spending. As a result, CMS is moving towards retooling & refreshing existing systems, that were previously planned to sunset. Another focus is to accelerate projects that were in progress, instead of starting from scratch. CMS is allowed to use existing BPAs right now. MAS Schedules will be used after existing BPAs expire. It’s about flexibility & empathy right now.
Commerce: Some offices lost a lot of people. Others offices did not feel any effect. The mindset/morale is very low right now as some personnel are very overworked. May Cheng is 100% in the cloud. You must be FedRAMP compliant if you want to meet with May Cheng.
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