On April 12, 2016, the United States celebrated Equal Pay Day, a day that symbolizes how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year (www.pay-equity.org). Although closing the gender pay gap has made progress over the past few decades since the Equal Pay Act (EPA) was passed in 1963, the United States has still works to achieve gender-wage equality. Not only is equal pay a step forward for women, but studies show it would also be beneficial to the United States’ gross domestic product (GDP) and the economy as a whole.

In a recent report published by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI), findings show that greater gender parity in the workplace—in terms of pay, hours worked, and access to full-times jobs—the greater the benefit the country’s overall economy (www.govexec.com). The findings in the report strongly recommend that both government and businesses take a more proactive stance in effectuating gender equality. Currently, economists are concerned that as America’s population ages and retires, there will not be enough young workers to take their place, which would have a harmful effect on the economy, as there would be fewer people to provide goods and services, to work and earn wages, as well as lower levels of productivity. Each of these factors would likely culminate in a slowing of GDP growth (www.govexec.com).

In spite of economists’ worries, the GDP will not suffer if employers aim to bridge the pay gap by making more room for women and paying them the same wages as men in the workforce. At present, women work fewer hours, mostly in lower-paying sectors, and have a lower labor force participation rate than men. However, if employers increase women’s labor force participation and assist them with entering and staying in more lucrative and highly-productive jobs, it will be easier to maintain current levels of economic activity and production even as the aging population retires, which will ultimately prevent economic deceleration in the United States.

Although the infographic below was published in 2012, the information is still relevant to the issue of pay disparity in 2016:

The McKinsey report provides number estimates on how the current gender pay gap could be closed. According to the report, if by the year 2025 women are paid equally as men, work the same number of hours as men, and are represented equally in every sector, an additional $4.3 trillion could be added to the United States GDP. This number is 20 percent greater than in a business-as-usual scenario, which does not account for closing the gender pay gap. Since this number is a high estimate given that women’s paid labor would have to precisely echo that of a man’s paid labor, McKinsey researchers also created a more plausible scenario in which each U.S. state matches the level of pay with other states currently making the greatest progress toward gender-wage equality. In this situation, an additional $2.1 trillion could be added to the GDP by 2025.

While Equal Pay Day was established by the National Committee on Pay Equity (NCPE) in 1996 as a public awareness event, women, men and the economy may rather want to make this a celebration of the past the moment gender-wage equality becomes a fact of existence in the United States.

Whether it be a tornado, tsunami, earthquake, monsoon, hurricane, flood, or any other natural phenomena, no one person can be fully prepared for the aftermath of such disasters. Even with around-the-clock efforts from dedicated responders, disaster victims most always outnumber the help that is available to them, fostering a sense of unfair importance for which victims are priority versus those who can hold out just a little longer. Luckily, One Concern, Inc.—a startup that earned a coveted spot on GovTech100, the top 100 companies focused on government customers—aims to be one of the first to utilize artificial intelligence to save lives through analytical disaster assessment and calculated damage estimates.

The idea of One Concern was born from CEO and co-founder, Ahmad Wani, whose hometown of Kashmir, India is located in a region that is especially prone to earthquakes and floods. In 2005, Kashmir was hit by an earthquake that took the lives of 70,000 people—one of two disasters that inspired Wani to pursue his graduate level studies in earthquake engineering research at Stanford University. On another occasion in 2014, a large flood engulfed the state of Kashmir while Wani was visiting his parents—a disaster that left eighty percent of Kashmir underwater in a few short minutes. According to Wani, people had to resort to camping out on their rooftops for up to a week without food and clean water while waiting for uncertain rescue by ad hoc response teams.

The infographic below demonstrates the detrimental impact that various natural disasters have on communities in which they occur:

Although Wani is cognizant that his experiences occurred in a developing country, people in both developing and developed countries experience the same difficulty and chaos in the event of a natural disaster. Wani is trying to us his experiences to solve the problem of post-disaster reconnaissance and rescue through artificial intelligence with the intent of saving lives and strengthening communities. Indeed, by using their core product and web platform, “Seismic Concern,” the company is able to alert those located in jurisdictions affected by an earthquake by displaying a color-coded map of the likely structural damage as well as alerting emergency operation centers, which allows them to allocate their limited resources to rescue and recovery. Seismic Concern not only fosters response prioritization, but also recovery operations such as material staging and shelter management by compiling an Initial Damage Estimate (IDE), which is critical for emergency operation centers to request financial assistance from state and federal level institutions.

Furthermore, One Concern is using state-of-the-art machine learning algorithms, stochastic modeling, training modules, as well as geophysical and seismological research to enable emergency operation centers to train based on actual earthquake simulations before an actual earthquake strikes. According to One Concern, this can aid in personnel readiness and planning development, thus making a community more proactive and resilient.

For now, One Concern is relatively unknown to cities and countries that may be interested in adopting the revolutionary technology in which it specializes. Fortunately, Wani’s company is in the business of being ready and able to respond to anything at any time—an industry that spans the globe. By empowering rescuers and first responders with such valuable resources in times of crisis, they will be equipped with the resources necessary to save lives.

Living in the information age and the world of technology provides employees with 24-hour access to work-related material and information, which is often convenient when working outside of the office, working after office hours, or working from home entirely. Though this convenience can help business staff to be available and responsive at any time, telework may be bad for business. Indeed, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) suggests that employees who access work content on their personal computers, smartphones, and tablet devices may make companies more vulnerable to hackers and breaches in network security because attackers are more able to steal confidential information from a network by first hacking devices used for telework as opposed to technologies accessed from inside the organization.

For several business organizations, their employees, contractors, business partners, vendors, and other users may find it more convenient and more preferable to work from home for a plethora of reasons. With this in mind, NIST is currently drafting new security related recommendations for both businesses and employees, which include suggestions to create separate and external networks for personal devices. Furthermore, NIST suggests organizations that already have agreements with employees and third parties requiring client devices to be secure generally fail to account for potential use of unsecured, malware-infected, and/or otherwise compromised devices may already be connected to confidential company-related material (NIST).

One draft of a March 2016 publication by NIST made a rather pragmatic suggestion to “plan their remote access security on the assumption that the networks between the telework client device and the organization cannot be trusted” (United States Department of Commerce). Businesses and organizations are urged to heed these suggestions because having a secure network is just as imperative as it is for employees to be productive as they engage in telework.

The infographic below highlights the growing trend and benefits of teleworking among various companies around the globe. While employee productivity may be higher and even preferred for individuals who engage in telework, NIST evidence suggests that companies have thus far been reluctant to insure critical network security as a necessary precaution for those who perform telework.

While the agency is collecting public comment on its drafts until April 15 2016, it currently recommends that employees practice network safety by creating unique security access codes and passwords for personal devices, setting automatic locks when devices are idle, and disabling Bluetooth and Near Field Communication features except when necessary in order to protect their organization’s network security and overall bottom-line (www.nextgov.com).

Women-owned businesses can now count another victory as the federal government has reached its goal of awarding five percent of the money spent on contractors to businesses owned by women. The government defines a women-owned businesses as those that are at least 51 percent controlled by women. In 1994, the federal government set a goal of awarding five percent of the money it spent on contractors to businesses owned by women (www.nytimes.com). Twenty-two years later, the federal government has for the first time finally met its goal.

According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), small businesses earned nearly 29 percent or $90.7 billion of the government’s contracting dollars during the 2015 fiscal year, which ended on September 30th, 2015. Out of that $90.7 billion earned by small businesses, women-owned businesses captured nearly $18 billion of those dollars. The government set this goal as companies owned by women tend to be younger and smaller than other businesses. Although women-owned businesses may be young and fewer in number, analysis by the department of commerce shows that women-owned business are indeed 21 percent less likely to be awarded government contracts than small businesses that are not women-owned.

The infographic below explains the growth and importance of women-owned businesses in America:

This goal was achieved mostly as a result of rules that were implemented by the government five years ago in 2011, which mandated that agencies set aside specific contracts allowing bids from only women-owned businesses as well as rules making them eligible for no-bid contracts—ultimately permitting women-owned businesses to not only gain experience, but to also provide them with the past performance necessary to win other competitive projects. Another reason why the government was able to meet its goal can be attributed to the Small Business Administration, which increased its outreach efforts over the past several years to teach women entrepreneurs about federal procurement opportunities—guiding them through the often complex process of preparing bids. Maria Contreras-Sweet, the 24th Administrator of the Small Business Administration, also made the recent achievement a top priority.

While five percent may seem like a small number, it is a significant achievement for women in the federal marketplace who have long been underrepresented. With this milestone, Washington has shown all Americans that if the government is determined enough, it can produce positive and impactful outcomes.

For the general public, identity theft, online security, and credit card fraud are an ever increasing concern in the technology age in which we live. But what about the federal government? Most people may think the government is impenetrable to cyber threats, hackers, and security breaches, but this is far from true. In fact, hackers are now probing the deepest layers of every federal government agency according to the Department of Homeland Security. The good news is that the cyber intruders are from the Department of Homeland Security. That’s right, DHS is conducting exercises to test vulnerabilities in federal computer systems that contain sensitive data, which are also prime targets for legitimately malicious hackers.

The strategy is part of the greater Cybersecurity National Action Plan (CNAP), a plan proposed by President Obama that takes near-term actions and puts in place a long-term strategy to increase cybersecurity awareness and protections, protect privacy, maintain public safety as well as economic and national security and empower Americans to have more control of their digital security (www.whitehouse.gov).

When we think about how much of our personal information is stored online (e-mail, bank information, online stores, bill payment information, etc.), it’s important to remember that going paperless gives experienced hackers more ease of access to our digitized information especially when operating on unprotected networks or repeatedly using weak or multiple identical passwords. The infographic below explains how hackers think and what little regard they can have when it comes to stealing digital information.

After the 2015 breach of information from the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) system wherein the information of 21.5 million United States national security professionals and their families’ information was exposed, the Department of Homeland Security devised a civilian agency cybersecurity strategy as a part of the Cybersecurity National Action Plan. The agency’s utilization of the abovementioned authorized hacking comes as federal government agencies are taking stock of information technology tools and databases that would ultimately send the government into disarray if these tools and databases become compromised (www.nextgov.com).

Although this is not President Obama’s first endeavor to protect the United States against cybercrime, the plan does symbolize Obama’s last effort to ensure progress in an ongoing effort to strengthen the nation’s online security. Since 2010, $73 billion has been spent to protect the nation against organized cybercrime, but the President’s most recent plan will request an additional $19 billion in funding to support cybersecurity activities, which include a commission on enhancing national cybersecurity, public service campaigns, and funds for replacing antiquated, unsecure government information technology.

Just ten years ago, the idea of spending billions on the nations’ digital safety would have been unthinkable, but in 2016 and beyond, the concept of creating multibillion-dollar information technology systems and security is all too real. According to nextgov.com, designing new and more secure systems is an imperative as the latest high-profile hack of a Justice Department computer system leaked the contact information of 9,000 Department of Homeland Security personnel as well as 20,000 Federal Bureau of Investigation employees. With that being said, there is still much work to be done as adversaries of the United States are quickly learning that it may be easier to attack the nations’ cyber networks in both the public and private sector than it is to attack tangible areas.

As the President stated on Tuesday, 9 February 2016, “More and more, keeping America safe is not just a matter of more tanks, more aircraft carriers; not just a matter of bolstering our security on the ground. “It also requires us to bolster our security online” (www.nextgov.com). Obama’s plan allows the Federal Government to acquire new information now and lays forward the conditions necessary for long-term progression in the government’s approach to protecting the cybersecurity of the Federal Government, the private sector, and in personal lives (Fact Sheet: Cybersecurity National Action Plan). Thus, President Obama’s cybersecurity plan is designed not only to protect the government and individual citizens, but to also protect the companies that store vast amounts of sensitive data belonging to the general American public.