CIT Participates in IPIC 2009 Conference

The Center for Information Technology sent representatives to this year’s Information Processing Interagency Conference (IPIC) and set up an exhibit featuring the NIH Federated Identity Service and other services hosted at the NIH Data Center. The conference was held in Orlando, Florida, from March 1 - 6, 2009.

IPIC, sponsored by the Government Information Technology Executive Council (GITEC), brings government and industry IT executives together to share and collaborate on IT innovations, challenges, and successes. IPIC is a respected annual forum for government leaders, industry, and academia to share best practices regarding Information Technology.

CIT’s participation

CIT's NIH Data Center was one of many federal data centers and IT companies participating in the exhibit hall of this year's conference. The CIT exhibit highlighted the NIH Federated Identity Service, which was awarded a prestigious GITEC 2009 Project Management Excellence Award at the conference. Visitors to the CIT booth expressed genuine interest in this project, which allows authorized individuals to use the login from their own organization to seamlessly access NIH applications, such as SharePoint sites. (For more on this service, please see the “NIH Federated Identity Service” article in this issue.)

Valerie Wampler, co-manager of the project, was at the conference to accept the award on behalf of her co-manager, Debbie Bucci, and the other members of the CIT/NIH team. The award letter noted that the “NIH Federated Identity Service exemplifies outstanding project management excellence in the award category of Enhanced Business Results from Innovation.”

Adriane Burton, the Director of the Division of Computer System Services (DCSS) within CIT, moderated a panel discussion on “Success Stories and Lessons Learned on Web 2.0 Technologies.” Valerie Wampler from CIT/DCSS and Adrian Gardner, the Chief Information Officer from the National Weather Service, presented on Federated Authentication and Web 2.0 technologies used at the NIH and the National Weather Service. Some of the challenges that were identified were: governance, authoritative sources for information, and training.

In addition to Valerie and Adriane, other CIT/DCSS attendees were Norma Stern and Chantel Walker Steward.

The conference theme

The theme for this year's conference was "Transcending Transition, Transcending Technology: A First Look at the Impact on Government Information Systems Programs and Technology as We Transition into the New Presidential Agenda" and included programs on the changing budgetary and IT landscape, Web 2.0, innovation in government, and cyber security.

Conference activities

The speakers and panel members included Kevin Plexico, from Input, on the impact of the government stimulus package; David Pogue, Personal Technologist, of the New York Times, on Web 2.0; David Evans, from Cisco, on a look at future in IT; John Gilligan, from Gilligan Group, Inc., who stressed the need to pay more attention to cyber security; and other IT executives from the private sector and government.

In addition to the government and industry exhibit booths and the excellent speaker and panel discussion programs, there were social/networking events that raised funds for the featured charity, the Brain Injury Association of America (BIAA).

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