Bill Marion, managing director at Accenture Federal Services, acted as the moderator for an expert panel discussion during Potomac Officers Club’s 2021 Navy Forum on May 12th, 2021.
The following panelists discussed driving data and platform success, featuring Bradley Goodrich, Jane Rathbun and Capt. Matt Farr of the U.S. Navy and George Batsakis of 1901 Group.
If you missed the 2021 Navy Forum, you can still access the OnDemand footage by visiting Potomac Officers Club’s Event Archive.
James Geurts, acting undersecretary of Navy and 2020 Wash100 Award recipient, delivered an opening keynote address. As acting undersecretary, he serves as deputy and principal assistant to the secretary of the Navy, as well as the COO and CMO for the service branch. Geurts discussed the Navy’s most pressing issues related to digital transformation and technology acquisition processes.
Following Geurts’ keynote address, the Forum moved onto the expert panel. The discussion opened with Capt. Matt Farr, executive director of the Office of Naval Research Global (ONR Global), who discussed how ONR Global utilizes grant programs and open access online portals that allow diverse research proposals to be evaluated, tested and rolled out rapidly.
Farr also explained that ONR Global looks to build and maintain its international partnerships with foreign researchers and organizations. He stated that this international collaboration is critical for the Navy’s information technology development because it allows the Navy to acquire valuable foreign technology and understand foreign technological capabilities compared to current Navy assets.
In his comments, Bradley Goodrich, deputy director of NavalX, discussed how the Navy’s goals need to be placed in the context of adversarial technological advances. He argued that the Navy needs to evaluate how it invests in upscaling and rescaling its 500,000 workforces while delivering rapid adoption of high-impact agility enhancing models ready for wide service implementation.
Jane Rathbun, deputy assistant secretary of the Navy, talked about the digital prerequisite for the modernization of the services’ digital infrastructure and updating IT to 21st-century standards. She also stressed how IT should be treated as a strategic asset by the Department of the Navy because organized and protected data equals power in the modern technological landscape.
George Batsakis, chief strategy officer at the 1901 Group, discussed how the Navy needs to have an integrated cloud IT system that is secure and scalable. Batsakis also touched upon the importance of scaling the Navy workforce, an issue that he envisions as the most fundamental and pressing gap in creating the success desired in next-generation digital domain systems.
If you missed the 2021 Navy Forum, you can still access the OnDemand footage by visiting Potomac Officers Club’s Event Archive.
Mark your calendar for June 16th, when the Potomac Officers Club will host its 2021 CMMC Forum. Don’t wait to save your spot for this must-watch forum. Visit PotomacOfficersClub.com to register for the 2021 CMMC Forum on June 16th.
CMMC Accreditation Body Chairman Karlton Johnson will serve as the keynote speaker for the Forum to provide his overview and vision of the CMMC Rollout as well as the top priorities for the board and how industry feedback will help to improve the vision behind how the organization develops for the first 100 days.