Michael Berkholtz, a senior manager for technology lifecycle services at the General Services Administration’s Federal Acquisition Service, said GSA started the emerging technology radar program 18 months ago to help identify which technologies it needs to prepare for in the next three to five years, Federal News Network reported Thursday.
“This idea of a radar is something, I think, a couple of industries use. You can find consulting groups that use it as well as large commercial firms. We think of it in terms of technology and technology maturity, how do we define our own business space?” Berkholtz told FNN in an interview.
Through the program, the GSA official noted that the agency is assessing emerging technologies based on four criteria, including tech platforms that are getting into a government or private sector lab, the business value of a particular technology and how companies are experimenting with a specific technology.
Berkholtz said GSA, for instance, is looking at the efforts of national laboratories and those that are coming out of the Defense Innovation Unit.
He added that the agency is seeing a lot of interest in virtual reality, which is included in the emerging tech radar.