House bill would make modernization CoEs law

A bill introduced in the House of Representatives would move the General Services Administration's Centers of Excellence program from strategy into law.

In a Feb. 13 statement, Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said their Modernization Centers of Excellence Program Act would formally establish the CoE program at GSA's Technology Transformation Service (TTS) to facilitate adoption of modern technology by executive agencies.

The statement called the bill "a light codification of the CoE program" that GSA began in 2017. The program fosters agency adoption of IT and leverages private-sector innovation in commercial cloud, contact centers, customer experience, data analytics and infrastructure optimization.

In September, GSA and the Defense Department started a sixth CoE around artificial intelligence to accelerate government's use of the emerging technology. Last summer, TTS Director Anil Cheriyan floated the idea of creating new core areas for robotic process automation and identity management.

The newly introduced bill would officially set responsibilities for the centers to modernize IT, improve how customers engage with an executive agency, increase cooperation between commercial and agency IT sectors and share best practices and expertise. More specifically, the CoEs would help agencies with planning and adoption of more efficient technology, including commercial cloud computing; tools supporting communication between citizens and agencies; contact centers and other related customer services; data management, analysis and reporting; and optimized infrastructure. Other responsibilities may be identified by the TTS director.