The Defense Department’s chief information officer is making a departmentwide call for nominations for its annual DOD CIO Awards program. Now in its 24th year, the DOD CIO Awards program recognizes top talent, to include both teams and individuals, within the DOD information technology community. 

DOD CIO Awards Program Manager Sam Kassem said the CIO would like to have as many nominees as possible to consider for awards this year. 

“Within the DOD, the IT workforce does fantastic work, but they are also exceptionally busy,” Kassem said. “The department can’t recognize the best performers unless their names are nominated by their leadership. We ask for nominations to allow plenty of time for leaders to build award packages to get their top talent the recognition they have worked hard all year to earn.” 

The annual awards program recognizes individuals or teams for exceptional achievements in delivering capabilities and management practices that advance the department’s strategic mission and objectives. 

Capabilities and functional areas covered by the program include: cybersecurity; information enterprise; command, control and communications; and other. The “other” criteria encompasses new areas such as the user experience, international engagements and network optimization. 

The CIO expects to release the 2024 nominating guidance and instructions in early July. The DOD CIO is focused on rewarding, recognizing, identifying, resolving and optimizing the user’s interaction with productivity tools. Eligibility for the DOD CIO awards includes those supporting the military departments and services; combatant commands and joint staff; principal staff assistants; and defense agencies and field activities. 

“The performance period for consideration is June 2023 through July 2024”, Kassem said. Awards package submissions must be turned in by Aug. 6, and winners will be announced in November. The awards ceremony is scheduled for Dec. 3 at the Pentagon. 

Agencies interested in submitting nominees for the 2024 CIO Awards program can find information and submission instructions at the program’s SharePoint site. Visitors to the site will need a common access card and must request permission to view content. New this year, is the ability to allow online submissions through SharePoint as well as emailing the nominations. 

Finalized submission packages can be submitted via the DOD CIO Awards Program SharePoint site, and questions can be addressed to the CIO Awards Program Office at osd.mc-alex.dod-cio.mbx.dod-cio-awards@mail.mil. 

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