Build Trust and Verify: New funding opportunity to assess our state pilots!

Last year we issued five grants so state and local jurisdictions could use digital identity technologies to improve delivery of services.

Now, we want to evaluate how well those pilots have done: we’re issuing a new funding opportunity to quantify the benefits these solutions bring to the organization and end users, share lessons learned, and shed light on how successfully similar solutions can be adopted elsewhere, in public sector programs and services at all levels of government. With so many individuals depending on state and local government services for day-to-day activities, these entities can play a critical role in advancing digital identity for large populations. The findings, discoveries, and lessons learned from this funding opportunity will help pave the way for NIST to better inform and improve upon broader cybersecurity efforts in the future.

“NIST is the federal government’s measurement agency,” notes Trusted Identities Group (TIG) director Mike Garcia. “While our office focuses on innovation and adoption in the market, measurement is critical to understanding what solutions work and how effectively we’re spending taxpayer dollars. Ultimately, we expect that these independent assessments of pilot projects will help us—the identity community—understand the most successful technologies and approaches and improve decision making for anyone looking to invest in identity solutions.”

This latest funding opportunity will have an organization conduct an assessment of our five 2016 state pilots – led by the Florida Department of Revenue, Yubico, Ohio Department of Administrative Services, Gemalto, and ID.me. This will require interacting with each pilot team to establish baseline metrics and collect ongoing data during implementation, with different timelines for each pilot.

We anticipate that the awarded organization will release a report for each pilot and a final report summarizing and comparing the five at the end. Finally, a critical piece of the project will be sharing these reports far and wide, as we remain focused on increasing adoption of these solutions by sharing knowledge and lessons learned.

NIST anticipates funding one award for approximately $750,000 with a project length of three years. To be eligible, applicants may be any U.S.-located non-federal government entity. *However, an applicant will be ineligible if it has been involved in any of the 2016 state pilots.*

For a detailed discussion of this opportunity and the chance to ask questions, register now for our applicants’ conference webinar on March 28, 2017, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

Quick links:

The deadline to apply is: Tuesday, May 9, 2017, by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time

• Opportunity on grants.gov: https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=292373 
• Full Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO): PDF available here
• An applicant’s conference webinar will take place on March 28, 2017, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time: https://cc.readytalk.com/r/jnle1bnvbcs7&eom

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