Featured Article
2025 Innovation Award Winners
We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2025 ACT-IAC Innovation Awards. Two categories of awards are presented this year, the Innovation Champion Awards and the Innovation Impact Awards. The Champion Award, ACT-IAC’s highest innovation award, recognizes a revolutionary and game-changing innovation. The Impact Award recognizes an innovation that has made a substantial impact on government missions or operations through the use of technology.
This year’s nominations included innovations that use artificial intelligence and intelligent automation; enabled cybersecurity and IT modernization; and/or delivered impact in management and functional areas to include health care, acquisition, biometrics, talent development, quantum, geospatial analysis, and citizen services. Nominations were submitted by federal, state, and local government agencies and private companies.
The award winners are:
Innovation Champion Awards:
- AQNav: AI and Quantum-powered Magnetic Anomaly-Based Navigation (MagNav), SandboxAQ
- TSA's Touchless Identity Solution (TIS), Transportation Security Administration & ASRC Federal
- Augmented Reality (AR) Incident Commander/Artificial Intelligence (AI) Mentor game, A P Ventures, LLC
Innovation Impact Awards:
- Online Passport Renewal (OPR) system, State Department, Peraton & ManTech
- Multiscale Machine-Learned Modeling Infrastructure (MuMMI) in the Cloud, Accenture
- FEMA Data Exchange Pilot (FEMADex), REI Systems
- The Federal Grant Systems Hub, Department of Health and Human Services & Guidehouse
- Global Entry Portals, Customs and Border Protection & Leidos
All award winners will be recognized at ACT-IAC’s Emerging Technology and Innovation Conference on May 4-6 in Cambridge, MD. The Innovation Champion Award winners will also discuss their innovations as a part of a panel at the conference hosted by Terry Gerton, former NAPA President/CEO and new host of the Federal Drive on Federal News Network.
Publication Date:Delivering Results that Matter to the Public: Leadership Actions for the New Administration
As the new administration prepares to take the reins of government, it’s important that they focus attention on the levers of good government that enable agencies to deliver results that matter to the public. Their President’s Management Agenda (PMA) will provide essential guidance to agencies and their private sector partners to continue to improve how government operates to deliver the results that the public needs and expects. We encourage the new administration to make a commitment to publishing a new PMA in the early stages of their administration. Between now and Inauguration Day, we will be releasing a series of specific recommendations for the new team to consider as they step into their new roles and accelerate the development of their PMA.
Publication Date:Welcome to this month’s Innovation Newsletter.
This issue features two original articles:
- “Back to the Future: Leveraging experienced alumni to impact leadership development in your organization.” An on-going series on Innovation Leadership by Geoff Abbott, former Coast Guard Innovation Council chairman and best-selling author.
- “Federal Employees and Contractors: Are You in Solution Sales? The importance of listening, understanding, communicating, and persuading to provide effective solutions.” An on-going series on Business Model Innovation by Avi Bender.
ACT-IAC Innovation Projects
The ACT-IAC Institute for Innovation provides a place for government and industry innovators to come together to address high-priority challenges and develop game-changing ideas. Learn More
ACT-IAC's National Use Case & Solutions Library (NUCSL)
NUCSL is a public-private knowledge sharing initiative created to provide an easy, searchable database that captures successful implementations of emerging technologies which support the advancement of government. Learn More
2024 Innovation Awards
Earlier this year, winners of the 2024 Innovation Awards were announced: Innovation Champion Award and Innovation Impact Award. The Innovation Champion Award, ACT-IAC’s highest innovation award, recognizes significant and game-changing innovation. While the Innovation Impact Award recognizes innovation that has a substantial impact within government technology. Nominations were submitted by federal, state, and local government agencies, private companies, FFRDC and national labs. Learn More.
Publication Date:- “Back to the Future: Leveraging experienced alumni to impact leadership development in your organization.” An on-going series on Innovation Leadership by Geoff Abbott, former Coast Guard Innovation Council chairman and best-selling author.