Quick Hits for Sept. 25

***What can blockchain do for government? Quite a lot, blockchain vendors are hoping. A new report from the IBM Center for the Business of Government offers takeaways from a series of roundtable meetings hosted by the Congressional Blockchain Caucus. Policymakers and stakeholders are looking to distributed ledger solutions in digital identity, payments and supply chain verification.

***The Department of Veterans Affairs selected VertX Enterprise Solutions for a $7 million contract to support the design, development, testing and delivery of APIs. The Sept. 21 award is one more step on a path to opening VA data to developers to build applications that range across agency services, from health care to benefits to education and job training.

***Vendors have a few extra days to bid for the Defense Department's $10 billion single-source cloud contract. A new amendment updating the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure request for proposals gives vendors until Oct. 12, but proposals landing on the final day must be submitted on DVD and delivered in person by noon. Emailed proposals still have a deadline of Oct. 10 at 5 p.m.

***Should we welcome our new robot overlords? Tune in on Tuesday, when the IT Subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee releases its report "Rise of the Machines, Artificial Intelligence and its Growing Impact on U.S. Policy," offering lessons from recent congressional oversight of artificial intelligence, and watch FCW for coverage of policy recommendations.

***The Office of the Director of National Intelligence's Cyber Threat Intelligence Integration Center is contributing to the election cybersecurity conversation with a lexicon that provides a common language when discussing cyber threats. Cyber Threats to Elections Lexicon draws on CTIIC's experience in increasing interagency awareness and information sharing during previous cyber event, including those to elections.