ARLINGTON, Va. — GovExec, the industry-leading sales and marketing intelligence company for government leaders and contractors, announced the winners of the 2026 GITEC Emerging Technology Awards. Created by ATARC, the awards celebrate innovation and excellence in government IT through the work of visionary leaders, groundbreaking projects, and transformative technologies that are driving meaningful change across the public sector.

"These awards represent the very best of what's possible in federal government — bold ideas, relentless execution, and a genuine commitment to serving the public,” said Tim Hartman, CEO of GovExec. “From AI-powered cybersecurity to modernizing how we hire and acquire, this year's winners are proof that innovation is alive and well across every corner of government. We're proud to celebrate them and inspired by what they've accomplished."

The category winners for 2026 are:

Innovation in Acquisition

Darrick Early of the General Services Administration's Assisted Acquisition Service won the Innovation in Acquisition Award for his leadership in centralizing federal procurement under Executive Order 14240. In just six months, Early's team transferred $1.5 billion in contracts from OPM, SBA, and HUD to GSA, cutting procurement lead times by 35–40% and delivering $7.7 million in documented savings. Central to the team's success was a custom automated procurement routing tool that processed 293 packages in FY25 and saved an estimated 586 labor hours — a scalable model now being adopted for future agency onboarding.

AI and Data Analytics

CDR Jonathan White of the U.S. Coast Guard earned the AI and Data Analytics award for leading the deployment of the Surveyor Integrated Data Environment, replacing a 16-year-old legacy business intelligence system with a modern, interconnected data platform. White's team of 20 data scientists and engineers delivered 22 data feeds and 28 advanced analytic products on time, driving enterprise-wide adoption across 12 data domains. The project's success secured an additional $5 million investment from Force Design 2028 leadership to expand data operations in support of Coastal Sentinel deployment.

Excellence in Cybersecurity

Rezaur Rahman, Chief Information Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, received the Excellence in Cybersecurity award for building a sophisticated multi-agent AI security platform entirely in-house and with no dedicated budget. The platform deploys 30 specialized parallel agents — including threat hunters, forensics analysts, and incident responders — capable of analyzing more than 15,000 events in 15 minutes and completing full environment audits in two hours. Rahman's work pioneered several architectural approaches, including model context protocol servers and graph-based memory, that have since been adopted more broadly across the AI and cybersecurity industry.

Digital Transformation

Ankur Saini, Chief Product and Technology Officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation, was recognized with the Digital Transformation award for delivering Motus, the USDOT Registration System — a long-sought unified platform for the nation's trucking industry. Motus consolidates registration and compliance activities into a single, secure interface, ending decades of fragmented systems and technical debt while incorporating identity proofing and business verification through partnerships with industry-leaders IDEMIA and Thomson Reuters. The platform's "collect once, use many" approach to data validation has significantly improved operational efficiency and data quality across the motor carrier ecosystem.

Workforce Development

Mark Gorak, Principal Director for Resources & Analysis in the Department of War's Office of the Chief Information Officer, earned the Workforce Development award for piloting a skills-based hiring program aimed at closing a shortage of roughly 7,700 vacant civilian cyber positions. Rather than relying on resumes and credentials alone, the seven-week pilot places candidates directly into a cyber range to demonstrate their real-world capabilities — with early results showing the approach can reduce time-to-hire from over 100 days to fewer than 60. Built in partnership with OPM, Civilian Personnel Policy, and DCPAS, the program represents a meaningful step toward modernizing how the federal government identifies and recruits top cybersecurity talent.

Working Group Excellence

The Agentic AI Working Group, led by DOT’s Anil Chaudhry, GSA’s Ryan Dolan, KJ Lian from Amazon Web Services, and Mike Adams from Carahsoft, won this year’s Working Group Excellence Award. With more than 50 participants, the group produced 11 well-developed whitepapers and reports with recommendations focused on one of the most important and fast-moving areas in government today — artificial intelligence.

GITEC also distributed three individual awards whose impact went beyond any single program or initiative.

• Landon Shaw, Hostmaster/Postmaster, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, won the Excellence in Community Leadership Award for bringing a thoughtful and grounded perspective to conversations around emerging technology, especially when it comes to AI.
• Rudolf Rojas, Information Technology Management/Systems Analysis, U.S. Department of Agriculture, won the Outstanding Data Stewardship Award for his work supporting a wide range of systems and platforms across USDA, helping manage complex environments that support multiple agencies and mission areas.
• Dave Raley, Chief Digital Business Officer, Operation StormBreaker, U.S. Marine Corps, won the Accelerated Mission Delivery Award. Through his leadership, efforts like Operation StormBreaker have introduced secure, cloud-native solutions and streamlined software delivery, significantly reducing the time it takes to move from idea to implementation.

The awards were announced at GITEC 2026, held by ATARC in Charlottesville, Virginia. As emerging technologies redefine what’s possible across government, GITEC 2026 convened senior federal leaders, industry innovators, and academic experts to explore the path forward for secure, data-driven, and AI-enabled government operations. Over two and a half days of collaboration, attendees examined how cybersecurity, zero trust, artificial intelligence, generative AI, and digital modernization are converging to advance mission outcomes and strengthen public trust.

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