Public Spend Forum: immersive AR/VR datasets, advocating for SMEs, and solving public market barriers

Public Spend Forum (PSF) is a public sector procurement global community and market intelligence platform dedicated to improving public buying everywhere. GovShop is its free-to-use global government market research tool for finding and connecting with suppliers. Here’s the latest from PSF:

Free Interactive Virtual Roundtable – barriers to public marketplace entry

Barriers to entry into public procurement is an issue recognized across the globe, but perhaps no other system has demonstrated such complex and persistent barriers as U.S. Defense Acquisition, says Public Spend Forum. Recently, however, a number of new and revamped authorities have been enacted by Congress and implemented by DOD to attempt to address these persistent barriers. Have these reforms been effective? Join Samantha Clark, Special Counsel at Covington & Burling LLP, Maj. Andrew Bowne, Deputy Staff Judge Advocate for the 30th Space Wing, and William Greenwalt, Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute along with Ben McMartin and Raj Sharma of PSF to learn which barriers have persisted across decades, what recent reforms have been enacted to target them, whether the reforms are having an impact, and what the future of Defense Acquisition looks like. This is a US-hosted discussion but themes will be relevant to all – Register here for November 16, 1:00pm ‒ 3:00pm EST/5pm GMT.

Tech Showcase: BadVR expands the immersive data experience in AR/VR

In another technology showcase from PSF we hear from an analytics platform that utilizes virtual reality and machine learning to bring data into high-definition. BadVR is an immersive data visualization and analytics platform which, simply put, empowers users to literally “step inside their data” using virtual and augmented technology. Their mission, they say, is to democratize insight. This technology aims to solve the many challenges that governments, companies and individuals experience when working with and communicating insights from modern, large datasets. 2D tools have reached their functional limits, they say.

Read their complete GovShop profile here

Episode 20 of the Public Sector Heroes Podcast feat. Guy Timberlake

In episode 20 of The Public Sector Heroes Podcast, Frank McNally takes the host seat and sits down with “Go To” Guy Timberlake to discuss his career in government contracting as an advocate for small businesses and his recommendations for anyone interested in competing for government contracts.

Listen to Guy Timberlake here

And join the community focused on solving the puzzle of government contracting.

And in other news …

Indo-French defense cooperation and procurement contracts talks

UK rules tightened on payment terms in public contracts

Rome, Italy has prevented telecoms group Fastweb from signing a deal for Huawei to supply equipment for its 5G core network

Public procurement in Denmark goes green

AWS signs three-year UK government cloud deal to help SMEs win more public sector business

UK Department for Education pilots new technology with two financial management system suppliers 

New government tech services framework includes £600m lot for major transformation programmes

UK National Counter Terrorism Security Office published cyber security guidance

Europe electricity procurement contracts activity up 23% in Q3 2020

The importance of local governments in the transition to a Circular Economy

Italy defense budget rebounds despite coronavirus crisis

UK Government reliance on digital consultants has halved in the last decade, civil service chief claims

Need Training on GovShop?

Public Spend Forum has been hosting a series of GovShop training sessions over the summer. They teach users how to optimize their profiles and get the most out of GovShop. They are happy to deliver personalized training too for your company to answer any specific questions. Access the training sessions here – or request one tailored to your firm.

Ask Public Spend Forum

Contact support@publicspendforum.net if you’d like to understand more about public procurement, the effect of the pandemic, where to find suppliers for a specific category, or any other burning issue you have.

We’d also love to hear from you if you have a success story within your organisation you’d like to share.