Frustration builds up when things go wrong in the world of government acquisition and that feeling is true on both sides: the customer and contractor alike.

Adam Rentschler and his partners started Valid Eval in 2011 to help agencies make better evaluations at scale. All throughout this episode, the latter two words of that sentence come up frequently in the conversation between Rentschler and our Ross Wilkers.

Rentschler’s vision is for the acquisition ecosystem to have more humanity in it and the use of data to help lead that effort.

Those concepts may seem contradictory on the surface, but Rentschler brings them together throughout the discussion.

Many of the ingredients for creating more connective tissues between business, government and society are already in place even with so much commentary and conversation around what may be lacking on that front.

NobleReach Foundation launched in 2022 to be at the forefront of making more of those links happen. In this episode, NobleReach’s chief executive Arun Gupta describes how the nonprofit looks to do just that by taking others with them along the way.

Entrepreneurs out there who want to be part of solving big problems are both a core constituency of NobleReach and agencies that want greater access into that part of the innovation ecosystem, as Gupta explains to our Ross Wilkers.

Gupta co-authored the book “Venture Meets Mission” alongside his colleagues Gerard George and Thomas Fewer to lay out a roadmap and guiding principles for better alignment.

Next to satellite imagery, drones have been the major technological focal point for the war in Ukraine and U.S. Army leaders have been looking to learn quickly from how the systems are being used there.

Sam Skove, who covers the Army and Marine Corps for our partner publication Defense One, has seen much of this action first-hand from visits to bases in the U.S. where the drones are tested and in Eastern Europe where they are fielded.

In this episode, Sam takes our Ross Wilkers through his reporting on how the Army's desire to bring more small drones into its fold does not necessarily match up with the U.S.' industrial capacity to make them in large quantities.

The reasons for that disconnect are myriad as Sam explains, as are some of the solutions he has heard from informed observers on how to bridge that gap.

Wartime need for drones would outstrip US production. There’s a way to fix that

Army puts new unit loaded with cutting-edge tech to the test

US shouldn't learn the wrong lessons about Ukraine’s drones, expert says

What Estonian drone companies are learning from Ukraine

Across the Army, units lean into drone experimentation

Army brass opposes drone branch

FPVs, tethered drones could become formal Army programs in 2025

Dennis Kelly's public sector career journey began in the Navy and has continued as a senior executive for multiple contractors, which he led through periods of growth to be acquired by larger companies.

Now as CEO of Tyto Athene, Kelly brings that experience of building and scaling multiple businesses in a dynamic market.

In this episode, Kelly describes his approach for doing that in a conversation with WT's Editor Nick Wakeman and lays out Tyto Athene's path for growth.

Kelly also provides candid reflections on his journey from Navy veteran to federal tech CEO and shows his passion for supporting critical national security missions.

Tyto Athene hires Kelly as chief executive

BlueHalo to combine with Eqlipse Technologies

CIS Secure Computing acquires intelligence community IT firm

The drivers behind KBR's 'largest to date' & 'most transformational' acquisition

PAE closes A-T Solutions acquisition

Raft's first six years of being in business are a lot like what many startups encounter, in that much of the growth has been bootstrapped and in very select corners of the market landscape it works in.

Now Raft is in a place where Shubhi Mishra, who started the software engineering company in 2018, believes there is much more greenfield in front of it. That led her to start looking for an investor in the company.

In this episode, Mishra tells our Ross Wilkers all about how she went against the advice of many other founders that told her to not go down that path and why she chose Washington Harbour Partners to back this phase of Raft's strategy.

Also on their agenda: the so-called "digital battlefield" concept and a significant paradigm shift Mishra wants to see in the prime-subcontractor relationship in the interest of advancing innovation.

Much of the world shut down on July 19 after cybersecurity company CrowdStrike distributed a faulty software update that essentially rendered 8.5 million Microsoft Windows computers useless.

David DiMolfetta, who covers cybersecurity at our partner publication NextGovFCW, led the bulk of GovExec's coverage of the aftermath even though the outage was not technically a cyber situation. But all that happened does bring up questions about network vulnerabilities and resilience.

In this episode, David tells our Ross Wilkers all about how federal agencies are working to recover and learn from an event that was truly historic in scale.

Blue screens of death were everywhere on July 19 and the entire situation was weird. As David explains, the scale of the outage is leading agencies to re-examine how they approach cyber and keeping tech assets healthy.

Summer-only sessions helped blunt CrowdStrike outage impact on US schools

Crowdstrike IT outage linked to update using new threat detection system

How the CrowdStrike outage carved out new opportunities for hackers

Biden briefed on CrowdStrike IT outage as multiple federal systems impacted

Generative artificial intelligence is only the newest example of how federal agencies have different comfort levels with adopting new technologies and in this instance, intelligence agencies appear to be bolder in charting their path forward.

Frank Konkel, editor-in-chief for GovExec's publications including us, wrote a deep dive article earlier this month that includes his conversations with some intelligence community leaders on where their agencies are at in Gen AI.

In this episode, Frank tells our Ross Wilkers all about what they told him and what else he found in putting together that story to explore what IC agencies are up to in Gen AI and their grander visions for the technology.

As you will hear from Frank, they want to go fast and also be thoughtful about mitigating some of the risks in doing so.

The US intelligence community is embracing generative AI

The CIA is taking a ‘crawl, walk, run’ approach to GenAI

2023 was just the start of generative AI’s rise, government and industry leaders say

Proceed with caution: Industry advises a careful approach to generative AI

3 in 4 Americans Worry AI Will Take Their Jobs

CIA Awards Secret Multibillion-Dollar Cloud Contract

Pentagon awards $9B cloud contract to Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle

Just about every conversation about technology across the federal landscape seems to begin and end with generative artificial intelligence, a tool that spurs fears and hopes all at the same time.

Edward Graham has a front-row seat to many of those conversations in his role at our sibling publication Nextgov/FCW, where he reports on national security technologies and policies.

For this episode, Edward tells our Ross Wilkers all about the current state of play for where the Defense and Homeland Security Departments are at on their generative AI journeys.

Guardrails and pilots are more than just buzzwords for generative AI. As you will hear from Edward, they are the key words to hone in on for understanding where generative AI is today and the direction it is going in.

DOD’s generative AI task force will help set guardrails for broader use

DHS generative AI pilot embraces hiccups of emerging tech

AI can enhance border security but won’t close workforce gap, lawmakers say

DHS hires initial cohort of 10 to join its AI Corps

VA is already using AI to identify and assist veterans in crisis, officials say