This week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released the solicitation for the NIH Conferences, Administrative, and Travel Services III (NIHCATSIII) contract, a 100% small business set-aside worth up to $100 million. After the previous iteration, NIHCATSII, ended in December, NIHCATSIII is expected to be awarded by the last quarter of 2017. It’s important to learn some background and key details about this program, and the large opportunity it presents for small businesses. NIHCATSII NIHCATSII was awarded as a total...

UPDATE: As of June 2017, Earth Observation Solutions is now on the GSA Schedule! The Special Item Number currently includes 7 approved vendors.  Following recent trends of new and unique Special Item Numbers (SINs) on GSA’s IT Schedule 70 –ranging from health IT to cybersecurity services— the General Services Administration (GSA) has released a Request for Information (RFI) for a possible new SIN. GSA is looking to “address the federal government’s growing need for earth observation services which unite multiple...

Update – The awards have been announced, and EIS vendors will include the following 10 firms:  AT&T BT Federal Centurylink Core Technologies Granite Telecommunications Harris Corp. Level 3 Communications Manhattan Telecommunications (MetTel) MicroTech Verizon With the award of the GSA’s massive, $50 billion Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions (EIS) contracts due this spring, federal agencies have reportedly already begun planning their transitions from the Networx family of contracts to EIS. Considering that GSA recommended transition planning as far back as 2015, prior...

In prior articles, EZGovOpps has covered the history and advantages of Government-Wide Acquisition Contracts (GWACs) including NASA SEWP – Solutions for Enterprise-Wide Procurement – and Chief Information Officer – Solutions and Partners 3 Small Business (CIO-SP3 SB). Recently, the NIH Information Technology Acquisition and Assessment Center (NITAAC) announced new, lower contract access fees for agencies to use the GWAC, as well as a fee cap of $70,000 for any order in excess of $20 million through the CIO-CS vehicle. CIO-SP3...

Update as of 2/22/2017: DISA will be holding a pre-proposal conference on SETI on March 10, 2017 at DISA Headquarters, Fort Meade. DISA noted a larger-than-expected industry response, and have allowed for overflow seating for registrants. EZGovOpps will continue to monitor for updates.  Update as of 3/10/2017: Although DISA has already allotted 20 contracts as small-business set-asides, the agency is heavily emphasizing small-business subcontracting participation in the 10 full-and-open awards expected. DISA is expecting heavily-detailed small-business subcontracting plans for large-businesses making...

The NDAA for Fiscal Year 2017, which was discussed previously by EZGovOpps for the small business provisions it included, also holds an important provision regarding the implementation of the Joint Regional Security Stack (JRSS), a massive cybersecurity upgrade designed by the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) for what the agency hopes will one day be a unified network and security system for the entire DOD known as the Joint Information Environment (JIE).  The new provisions, however, have placed restrictions on JRSS...