Accenture Nabs Potential $290M TSA Contract for Recruitment and Hiring Services
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has awarded Accenture [ACN] a potential $290 million contract to provide recruitment and hiring support for the agency, which has about 60,000 employees. The contract has a six-month base period, four one-year options, and one six-month option. The incumbent was Lockheed Martin [LMT], who worked on the agency’s larger HRAccess contract.TSA says it hires between 8,000 and 10,000 employees annually nationwide.
L-3 Nabs Follow-On Orders from CATSA for High-Speed EDS
L-3 Communications [LLL] says the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) has awarded the company two follow-on orders to supply 10 more high-speed eXaminer XLB dual-energy explosives detection systems (EDS) for checked baggage screening. The value of the orders wasn’t disclosed. The eXaminer XLB is capable of scanning more than 1,2000 bags per hour. “These follow-on awards demonstrate our long-standing commitment to CATSA in providing the highest-performance solutions available to meet evolving security requirements,” says Tom Ripp, president of L-3 Security & Detection Systems. Analogic [ALOG] is a subcontractor to L-3 for the XLB.
DHS S&T Awards $42M to Four University Centers of Excellence
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate has awarded $42 million to four university centers of excellence over five years for various homeland security research, analysis and development in support of department components. The awardees and amounts are: The Center for Awareness and Localization of Explosives-Related Threats at Northeastern Univ., $12 million; The Center for Borders, Trade and Immigration Research at the Univ. of Houston, $10 million; the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute at the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, $10 million; and the Coastal Resilience Center at the Univ. of North Carolina Chapel Hill
TSA Extending AT-2, ETD Contracts until New Contracts Awarded
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) plans to award six-month contract extensions to three companies for ongoing services they are providing under contracts for Advanced Technology-2 (AT-2) X-Ray systems and Explosive Trace Detection (ETD) systems. The potential value of the extensions wasn’t disclosed. For the AT-2 extensions, TSA plans to modify indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity (ID/IQ) contracts with OSI Systems’ [OSIS] Rapiscan Systems division and Smiths Detection “to ensure a continuation of warranty services, engineering services, and to prevent a gap in personnel vetting until other contracts are awarded,” the agency says in the FedBizOpps.gov. For the ETD ID/IQ contact extensions, the awards are to Smiths Detection and Implant Sciences Corp. [IMSC] for the same reasons as the AT-2 awards.
NIST Awards New Pilot Projects for Trusted Identities
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded more than $15 million in new grants to six organizations to foster more secure online access to government and healthcare services as part of the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC). The awardees will pilot different online credentials to allow users to prove their identity across multiple systems, such as state services and consumer websites. The awardees and their projects are: ID.me, Inc., $3.8 million to work with Austin, Texas, to develop a city-level blueprint for increased trust among participants in the sharing economy, and with Maine to implement a federated ID model to increase citizen access to benefits; Florida Dept. of Revenue, Child Support Program, $3.6 million to increase the number of online services available to customers, provide a single login identity, and improve security by offering customers device registration options; Ohio Dept. of Administrative Services, $3 million to implement a range of identity-related capabilities, including multi-factor authentication do strengthen identity proofing for three state-provided services; Yubico, Inc., $2.3 million for the Universal 2nd Factor Authentication for Government Services project on enabling secure online access to educational resources for students in Wisconsin and to state services for residents of Colorado; Gemalto, Inc., $2 million for the “Interoperable, Trusted Ecosystems for Digital Driver Licenses and ID Cards for Mobile Devices for U.S. Jurisdictions project to offer a digital driver’s license via a mobile application in Colorado, Idaho, Maryland and Washington, D.C.; and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, $1 million for a single federated identity login to simplify patient transition from the medical center, which is an acute-care setting, to post-acute care settings by offering patients and healthcare providers easier access to information. The NSTIC program has awarded 24 pilot grants since 2012. The program seeks to improve the security and ease of online identities for individuals and organizations.
DHS S&T Awards $1M to 13 Firms for Cyber Security R&D
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology (S&T) branch has awarded $1.3 million to 13 small businesses for the development of new cyber security technology. Each business received about $100,000 in preliminary funding through S&T’s Small Business Innovation Research program. The research topics and awardees are: Applicability of Blockchain Technology to Identify Management and Privacy Protection, with the goal of centralizing and validating new entries added into an existing data field to support identify verification (Digital Bazaar, Inc., Respect Network Corp., Narf Industries LLC, and Celerity Government Solutions, LLC); Remote Identity Proofing Alternatives to Knowledge-Based Authentication and Verification, with the objective being to design and demonstrate the feasibility of high-assurance alternatives to knowledge-based verification techniques, such as the ability to recall a password for online identification (CardSmart Technologies, Pomian & Corella, LLC, and PreID Inc.); Malware Prediction for Situational Awareness Understanding and Preemptive Cyber Defense, with the goal being to develop capability to predict and prevent malware (BlueRISC, Inc., GrammaTech, Inc., Red Balloon Security, and ZeroPoint Dynamics, LLC); and Real-Time Assessment of Resilience and Preparedness, with the goal being to develop a low-cost, flexible application that can analyze a community’s resilience on a near real-time basis and present this information in visual and data formats on mobile and fixed platforms (Datanova Scientific LLC and InferLink Corp.).
CBP Awards ManTech $24M for Sensor Data Aggregation Support
ManTech International [MANT] has received a potential three-year, $24 million contract from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to develop a joint service-oriented architecture prototype integrating operational data for real-time situational to bolster border security. The contract is expected to be completed by March 10, 2019. The award has a base-year and two one-year options. “ManTech is pleased to continue its long-standing relationship with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection through exploration and demonstration of new and innovative solutions for intelligence-driven approaches to securing the border and areas of operation,” says Daniel Keefe, president and chief operating officer of ManTech’s Mission Solutions & Services Group.
Coast Guard Awards Huntington Ingalls Long-Lead Contract for NSC 9
The Coast Guard has awarded Huntington Ingalls Industries [HII] an $88.2 million contract to purchase long-lead materials for construction of the ninth National Security Cutter, one ship beyond the service’s program of record. The Coast Guard had planned to acquire eight NSCs but Congress in FY ’16 added funding for the ninth vessel. In their respective markups of the FY ’17 Homeland Security budget, Senate appropriators added initial funds for a 10th NSC while House appropriators didn’t. A Coast Guard spokesman tells HSR that the construction contract for NSC 9 is expected to be awarded before the end of 2016. He said a delivery date for the 418-foot Legend-class vessel will be identified at that time. The long-lead contract means HII can acquire steel plating, propulsion systems, marine turbine/diesel engines, air search radar, ship integrated control systems, switchboards and generators. HII has delivered five NSCs and the sixth, the Munro, is slated for acceptance sea trials and delivery in December. The seventh ship, the Kimball, is scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter, and the keel for the eighth, the Midgett, is scheduled to be laid later this year.