Communities of Interest (COI)
The Communities of Interest (COIs) are the heart of the ACT-IAC collaborative forum, where government and industry are working together to develop best practices, new solutions, and innovative strategies to improve government through the application of technology. The COIs address specific areas and provide an opportunity for government and industry to work together to improve government. COIs enable awareness of community events, activities, news, and other information sharing. They also host programming that interests their members and establish projects and events that enable close collaboration.
The COIs provide a government-driven, objective, vendor-neutral ethical forum where government and industry communicate and collaborate. Participation in the COIs is open to all ACT-IAC current members.
For additional information, please contact Nancy Delanoche, Director for Communities of Interest
Click here to view COI Achievements and Deliverables.
Current ACT-IAC COIs include:
The Acquisition COI is focused on increasing engagement and facilitating the sharing of best practices between the government and industry to improve the federal acquisition process.
The Customer Experience COI strives to change the culture in government and industry to understand what is needed to be customer-centric. This includes all aspects of supporting the citizen journey, from understanding customer expectations through training and educating leaders to understand the importance of being customer-centric. This COI focuses on culture, training & professional development, innovation, agency support, and tools & practices to break down barriers to improving the overall customer experience.
The Cybersecurity COI supports ACT-IAC members in advancing government objectives by addressing critical information security and privacy challenges. We provide thought leadership to effectively address mission demands, evolving IT threats, and compliance with government policies and regulations. Bringing together experts from government, industry, and academia, the COI focuses on integrating security, privacy, and information-sharing policies from acquisition to execution. An advisory board comprised primarily of federal, FFRDC, and academic cybersecurity leaders ensures the COI delivers value to the government.
The Emerging Technology COI collaborates with Federal Chief Executive Officers (CXOs) and other government executives responsible for identifying, assessing, and deploying emerging technology and maturing it to become a major component of the IT & business strategy, as well as industry, government, academia, and the greater community to provide products, services, processes, and business models enabling innovative approaches to solving government issues and challenges. The Emerging Technology COI is currently organized into working groups and/or projects as are our objectives with cross-functional activities: Blockchain Working Group, AI Working Group, IoT Smart Infrastructure Working Group, DevSecOps Working Group, Quantum Knowledge Group, ET Accelerator.
The Health COI was created in July 2019 as a result of the ACT-IAC mission on "health." This COI will cover all aspects of the President's Management Agenda that relate to health, support strategy, policy-making and governance, support government on health-related projects, drive to improve health customer experience along with modernization initiatives, EHR adoption and implementations, medical device security and integration, precision medicine, innovation adoption and modernization, data interoperability and data transparency, and health-related legislative impacts on Federal Health Agencies. This COI will interface and collaborate with other COIs as needed to maximize member engagement and enhance what ACT-IAC can provide to government.
Current Projects Include
- Considerations for Incorporating Digital Health Technologies into Federal Health Research Studies
- Health Data Sharing
Recently Completed Projects
The IT Management and Modernization Community of Interest advises and equips government agencies with best practices and insights, focusing on strengthening IT management, and accelerating legacy IT modernization. This COI covers all aspects of IT management and modernization, to include strategy and policy making, governance, Capital Planning Investment Control (CPIC), Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act (FITARA) implementation, Technology Business Management (TBM), program and project management, and operations management.
Recently Completed Projects Include
- Expand FITARA Implementation Guidance (completed)
- TBM Benchmarking: Strengthening IT Modernization Business Cases (completed)
- IT Spending Transparency Maturity Model (completed)
- IT Modernization Best of Breed & Case Studies (completed)
- Digital Transformation Best Practices and Case Studies (completed)
- Sponsor the ACT-IAC Associates Program Project on "Civilian Agency Identity Credentialing and Access Management (ICAM) Best Practices" (completed)
For the latest news and updates, follow the COI on LinkedIn 
The Networks & Telecommunications COI provides clear, impartial feedback, and recommendations on networks and telecommunication issues identified in collaboration with the government project sponsors and advisors. The COI addresses the following topics: Network Services 2020, EIS, wireless strategies, mobility, acquisition strategies, and the future of teleworking.
Current and Planned Initiatives Include
- Operational use of non terrestrial networks
- Retirement of legacy copper (Cu) networks / TDM circuits
- Member meeting series on important networks and telecommunications topics such as SD-wan, network modernization, satellite and wireless networks, TDM retirement, zero trust, etc.
Mission
Aging infrastructure, severe weather events, rapid development and unforeseen events such as pandemics, etc., have increased the need for the Nation to ensure the continuity of its critical infrastructure. The Resilient Infrastructure Community of Interest focuses on how technology enables government, businesses, individuals, and communities to anticipate, withstand, and adaptively recover from disasters. Advancements in AI, high-performance computing, remote sensing, and virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR) are driving more informed decisions that can improve the resilience of the built environment, infrastructure, supply chains, and more.
The Resilient Infrastructure Community of Interest leverages the strength and expertise of the ACT-IAC partnership to share and communicate research and programs across the federal community related to resilience; develops tools and resources to support the federal acquisition and contractor community; and fosters collaboration and knowledge-sharing between government, industry, and academia. The RIC’s objectives are to:
- Educate the federal and contractor community on resilience science and technology
- Empower the federal and contractor community with tools and resources to build resilient organizations and systems.
- Identify, share, and explore IT delivery models that ensure resilience while enhancing customer experience.
Current Initiatives Include
The COI focus areas are:
- Cloud Resiliency- This work group explores the impact of IT are helping to ensure infrastructure resiliency, including issues of energy and water intensity, materials and waste, and operational resilience.
- High Performance Computing - This work group explores and educates on how a high-performance computing (HPC) ecosystem is a catalyst for action, enabling modeling and simulation that would otherwise be impractical, or impossible, to conduct due to complexity, time constraints, or other resource limitations.
- Project Teams – Special projects and those that cross work group areas.
The Talent COI brings industry and government executives together to promote improvements to federal human capital policy, practice, and operations. The COI fosters best practices through information exchange, identifying and evaluating emerging human capital innovations, and addressing human capital challenges through government/industry partnerships.
The COI is focused on modernizing the policies, practices, and operations that impact the Federal workforce.
As the nation’s largest employer, we believe it’s vital for federal employees to feel supported, engaged and empowered to serve the American public to their best ability. We ensure the Federal workplace is keeping pace with the modern and ever-changing needs of its employees. We do this primarily through research, policy recommendations, and community forums.
Current Objectives
- Provide a forum for human capital issues and emerging trends.
- Connect with IT and human capital communities to explore and expand the intersection of technology and the federal workforce.
- Partner with government agencies to pilot recommendations based on our research.
- Facilitate collaboration between federal employees and government contractors.