GSA's wish list for leading edge tech
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The General Services Administration has created a list of developing technologies that could be incorporated into GSA's Alliant I and Alliant II government-wide acquisition contracts.
The General Services Administration has created a list of developing technologies that could be incorporated into GSA's Alliant I and Alliant II government-wide acquisition contracts.
In research to find out how much experience vendors have with new technologies, GSA issued a request for information and posted a survey to gauge vendor experience with the following 18 leading edge technologies (LETs):
- Autonomic computing: a self-managing computing model that controls the functioning of computer applications and systems without input from the user.
- Big data: any voluminous amount of structured, semi-structured and unstructured data that has the potential to be mined for information.
- Pervasive computing: the growing trend toward embedding microprocessors in everyday objects so they can communicate information.
- 3D printing design and implementation: also known as rapid prototyping, stereolighography, architectural modeling or additive manufacturing.
- Agile software development: software development technique that uses real-time decision-making processes based on actual events and information.
- Application streaming /virtualization: an on-demand software delivery model that takes advantage of the fact that most applications require only a fraction of their total program code to run.
- Artificial intelligence: the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.
- Augmented reality: the ability to overlay information on a live video or image feed of the world.
- Bidirectional health information exchange: a health information sharing project that allows for two-way sharing of data.
- Biometrics (including speech recognition and biometric access control systems): the science and technology of measuring and statistically analyzing biological data.
- Extended cybersecurity: the body of technologies, processes and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access.
- Internet of Things: the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or human-to-computer interaction.
- IT virtualization: the process of creating logical computing resources from available physical resources.
- Mobile virtual enterprise: a network architecture that provides a unified process for wired, wireless and remote access for users on both company-owned and employee-owned devices.
- Predictive analytics: the branch of data mining concerned with the prediction of future probabilities and trends.
- Robotics: the conception, design, manufacture, and operation of robots.
- Semi-structured data management and/or synthesis: management of information with metadata or associated information that makes it more amenable to processing than raw data.
- Smart Building technologies, design and implementation: buildings equipped with special wiring to enable occupants to remotely control or program an array of automated electronic devices.
GSA said the list was the result of several months of agency and industry research and more could be added. It also noted that GSA is not looking too far over the horizon, but rather at relatively stable innovative tech.
"LETs do not imply the newest, untested, or the highly riskiest technologies," the RFI states. "Those types of IT developments, which we are not specifically addressing in this RFI, are typically referred as bleeding edge technologies.”
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