The General Services Administration plans to announce within the next two weeks a second agency that will lead new centers of excellence to accelerate information technology modernization efforts across the government, Federal News Radio reported Thursday.
Kelly Olson, acting director of GSA’s Technology Transformation Service, said that GSA will start to conduct an in-house application process for employees who want to support the CoE project.
The Agriculture Department serves as the first “lighthouse” agency of the initial five CoEs.
“Something that we’ve learned at USDA and will be the same for everywhere we go, is you cannot go in somewhere and just drop technology down and move on to the next. There’s been a focus on reskilling the workforce, changing management, managing through culture and expectations,” Olson said Thursday at a breakfast event hosted by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Bethesda’s chapter.
She added that GSA seeks to incorporate some of the best practices from the department into the next host agency.
GSA selected four companies in March to provide IT support services at the USDA-hosted CoEs and released in July requests for quotes for the second phase of the effort.