New Technology Modernization Fund Awards Announced

Through a press release today, GSA announced six new public awards and one classified award via the TMF initiative, representing the seventh round of awards since the Modernizing Government Technology Act established the fund in 2017.

Over the summer, the board received 48 proposals totaling $2.3B. The selected awards will be funded incrementally, with total award amounts equaling $311M.

The TMF board prioritized projects that addressed critical IT modernization challenges, aimed to bolster cybersecurity defenses and responded to the COVID-19 crisis. According to the TMF website, “These awards are directly responsive to the president’s Executive Order on Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity, and include funding the transformation of three critical agencies in the executive branch. These projects aim to strengthen the security of data and privacy protections for 2M civilian federal employees whose data is housed in the Office of Personnel Management’s systems, the over 100M students and borrowers the Department of Education supports, and hundreds of facilities under the control of the General Services Administration.”

Earlier in the week, Federal CIO Clare Martorana testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Subcommittee, that “The $1 billion for the Technology Modernization Fund was provided in the American Rescue Plan for essential emergency relief, and is a vital part of the administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the significant cybersecurity incidents impacting federal operations.” She went on to say, “The administration is maximizing the flexibility of the TMF to modernize high-priority systems, elevate the foundational security of federal agencies, accelerate the growth of public-facing digital services, and scale cross-government collaboration and shared services. These first ARP awards represent a set of strategic awards to improve technology at scale across all of these areas.”

Listed below are the specific TMF awards:

GSA will also provide technical support to project teams and the TMF board plans to review the projects quarterly to ensure milestones are met.