FY24 Internet of Things National Training and Technical Assistance Program

Transcript also available as PDF.

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, “FY 2024 Internet of Things National Training and Technical Assistance Program,” hosted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. At this time, it's my pleasure to introduce David Lewis, Senior Policy Advisor, with BJA to begin the presentation. David?

DAVID P. LEWIS: Great. Thank you, Daryl. First of all, let me welcome you for being on today's webinar. We're going to share a lot of information about the Internet of Things in our particular program. As Daryl mentioned, my name is David Lewis. I'm a Senior Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance. After serving 20 years here but coming from local law enforcement, so understanding the issues when it comes to the need for training and technical assistance.

Before I get I started, I just want to give you a brief overview of the Office of Justice Programs, where the Bureau of Justice Assistance is located. The Office of Justice Programs is one of the three funding entities of the U.S. Department of Justice. And under the Office of Justice Program, specifically, we have six entities: the Bureau of Justice Assistance, who is hosting today's webinar; the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which is our data collection group; the National Institute of Justice, which is our group that deals with research; the Office for Victims of Crime, dealing with crime-victim information; OJJDP, which is our juvenile justice group: and the SMART Office that deals with sex offender management.

We have a very specific mission here at the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and it's to provide that leadership in both, not just grant funding, but also policy procedures and working with communities and how we deal with nonprofits to share the information that's necessary in the field.

I would also like to welcome you today on behalf of our Director, Karhlton Moore, who came to BJA from the state of Ohio, where he served at a state administrative agency. He is well-versed in all the information that's out there and what needs hearing from you from the field that's necessary. That's why we're supporting all the projects that you see today. That we have out there that we broke down, we have the Policy Office, the Programs Office, Operations, and Public Safety Officer Benefits. This just gives you an overview of the breakdown within BJA.

Now, we have, very specifically, five major strategic focus areas that are out there. And one is dealing with public safety. The other one is the reduction of recidivism and dealing with prevention issues. The integration of evidence-based, research-driven strategies is one of the ones we're dealing with here. And increasing program effectiveness, like really renewing the emphasis on how we're evaluating what's happening in the field. And, finally, ensuring organizational excellence through outstanding work that's out there. So we're highlighting some of the things that we expect to come out of this particular project. We also are very clear that our job is to fund, educate, equip, and partner with agencies in the field.

This is pretty much a summary of our topics that we will be covering on today's webinar, and we'll go over each one of those in the upcoming slides.

Now, before I get started here, it's very clear I gave you the preliminary of what BJA does. But the one point that's very important to make is BJA is a facilitator, and our customers are state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement and criminal justice and public safety agencies. So that's extremely important to know.

Now, the Internet of Things, for a lot of times, it's really misunderstood what's out there and who's responsible for it. There are so many things that can be used now to gather data to use for investigations and help deal with violent crimes and solve crimes that we need to know a little bit about what it is. Now, what we're looking at in this particular program is to provide training and education to law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, fusion centers, and other public safety and criminal justice entities. And what we're really looking out there is for the understanding of the technology and what's going on and how it can be used to solve crimes and to facilitate prosecutions. This project furthers the Department of Justice's mission to uphold the rule of law and keep our community safe and protect the people's civil rights.

Now, we are looking, under this particular program, very specifically to take on a hybrid approach in educating and training law enforcement, public safety, and criminal justice entities out there. And that is a mix between an online and in-person training. We're also looking to provide high-quality, and it's got to be cost-effective, and it has to be able—and the reason we need this hybrid model is we really need it to reach geographic areas that may be very difficult for agencies to get training, and also to make it easy for officers to get this training, and it might be on demand, online, and, in some cases, in-person.

Now, we are going to provide training specifically to state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement. But that doesn't preclude us from making training available to federal officers also and helping with their investigations. The one thing it's too is it's not limited just to law enforcement. We know that law enforcement is the first step, but it's also important that we include our prosecutors, probation/parole judges, and other criminal justice and public safety agencies.

Now, the funding that we have available for this particular program is actually a carve-out, what we call, from the Economic, High-Technology, White Collar, and Internet Crime Prevention National TTA Program, or ECrime. And we have an estimated $1.76 million available for this particular program. What we're looking to do is award up to four programs for $440,000 each. Now, they have to follow the guidelines for allowable items. This will be an 18-month project, and they will be created as cooperative agreements. And cooperative agreements mean that BJA has some oversight on how things are done, information to be shared, and approvals for training and technical assistance for the field.

Now, what are our allowable costs? Now, there's not too many things that are restricted under this, but under allowed is what's needed to develop and present these trainings across the United States, nationwide, whatever's needed for education training or deliverables.

The other thing is when you put in for some of these things, they have to be reasonable. And this is actually what is reflected in the cost and part of the budget, where you put in the actual numbers and then you put in the narrative. So that's very important. And the one thing has to be out there, they have to see approval by BJA. So everything that's done, if it's a webinar, the PowerPoint has to be approved, the subject matter has to be approved. If it's an in-person, we're looking at not an in-person class where it's a small number of people. We look for a large number to attend at that location. Also, we'd be very interested in making it not just available for a particular agency but for people in that particular region.

Some of our unallowable costs. We don't allow any vehicles of any kind to be purchased under this, no foreign travel or excessive travel, and any costs that's out there have to be approved. And there are certain things that we don't allow, for example, cellphones for the project, the wireless service for laptops. But that doesn't preclude from having or buying a laptop under the project. Items, they have to be, as I mentioned, have to be approved. For any in-person trainings or maybe some kind of mass meeting that you might put on, you're not permitted to use any funding for food or refreshments for any gatherings. And, of course, no land acquisitions or construction projects under this particular funding.

Now, this particular program comes as a direction from our congressional allocation, and they were very clear on who's eligible for this particular funding avenue. And these are limited to private institutions of higher learning and public and state-controlled institutions of higher learning. So that is the only ones that are actually available or allowed to apply. But when we're looking for some of the criteria, just being a private institution or a public and state-controlled institution of higher learning, we are actually looking for institutions that already have some record or have some previous work in training law enforcement in these particular areas or have interactions with intel analysts, fusion centers, and other criminal justice and public safety entities. Some of the deliverables that we're looking for in this particular program, as I mentioned before, in looking at that hybrid model of online and classroom-style trainings. The program also has to have the ability to collect and maintain data on IoT devices and capabilities. And also that you need to be able to share that information as directed by BJA.

So. we're also looking at the development of instructional deliverables and aides for attendees that may take this training and go out and train individuals in their particular communities. We also have a requirement that they have the trainings that are made available, webinars, trainings, in-person, however they are, that they have to make that available on our Law Enforcement Cyber Resource Center, which is hosted by the Chiefs of Police in conjunction with the Police Executive Research Forum, or PERF, and the National White Collar Crime Center, or NW3C. We're also looking at for some technical assistance where we may get some request for, specifically, assistance in a particular case that we might be able to help very specific agencies.

Now, there is a two-phase application process. The one that we have is you have to go through Grants.gov, and the deadline for that, as listed in the solicitation, is May 15th at 8:59 p.m. The second step is a deadline of May 22nd, 2024, at 8:59 p.m., and that's through the JustGrants system. Now, you have to complete step one before you can do step two. You can't do step two if you haven't completed step one.

Now, just to give you some information on the required documents that are needed for your application process. And, one, you have to have an Abstract and, two, is a Narrative. And in that narrative, there are some very specific things that have to be included on that. And that's the Description of the Issue, Program Design and Implementation, Capabilities and Competencies, and Plan for Collecting Data. I will advise you right now that, a lot of times, people have a very good handle on one and two, but the Capabilities and Competencies is very important. So we have to really take a look at what's the ability to do this, and when you name people in there, what their actual functions are. So that's extremely, extremely important. And then also people have a tendency to forget to add this, how they're going to collect this data and have it submitted to BJA.

In the budget, it's a Budget Web Form. It's very important that you add all the correct numbers in there, and they're explained in the narratives. And also that the funding lines add up and are in the appropriate categories. It works against an application if the numbers aren't added up correctly in the budget summary.

Now, this is just a list of some additional documents. I'm not going to go through them all, but you could take a look at them right here. And some of them, they have to be put as part of the application process. I will tell you right now, if you look at three up from the bottom, the resumes for key personnel, it's one of the things that a lot of times are overlooked. And I think it's very important that that's added in there. And, also, working with others, organizations, that you have a Memorandum of Understanding.

Now, the application review process is very simple. The very first thing is when your application is submitted, remember, you have to have it submitted based on those guidelines and those dates. We will look whether or not it's a eligible applicant, and then all the documents that are required have been submitted. Then we'll conduct a peer review. The peer review is conducted by three subject matter experts from the field. It's not actually done by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, but actually from individuals that have some expertise in the field. They'll give us their recommendations and we'll take a look at those recommendations that come back to BJA. We'll evaluate those numbers and where the application's finished in the final report. We'll review the budgets and make sure that they have all allowable costs. And then we'll work through the approval process through BJA going from the director and also to the assistant attorney general at the Office of Justice Programs. Then there will be a notification to the applicants. And then should you be a successful applicant, you'll get a final budget approval.

Now, these are one of the things I just want to share with you coming from the field prior to coming to the Office of Justice Programs and then the U.S. Department of Justice. I know now that I'm on this side, why I may have not gotten some applications approved. So these are just some key points that I wanted to share with you. The very first one is read the entire solicitation. Don't piecemeal it and say, "Okay, I can answer this, I can answer that." Read the entire solicitation. Everything that's in there is in there for a reason and it will be evaluated in the peer review process. Now, we also ask that you look and make sure, before you get started and do all this work, that you do meet that eligibility. Now, your budget numbers need to be correct, as I said, for the project period and that your totals are correct. We ask you that you clearly articulate the elements of the program in the allowed space requirements. If it says you have X number of pages, which there's a limitation, the peer reviewers will stop reading at that page limit and they will not go any further. So you will not get credit for it. Be very cognizant of the deadlines and follow the directions that are given to you in the solicitation. We ask you to—there's contact information. If you have any questions on the solicitation whatsoever, we ask that you don't assume anything but reach out. That's our job. Our job is to work with you to answer your questions. Look at that you have all the required documents before submission. And please don't wait until the last minute to submit, because if there's a technical problem, you may not be able to submit within that timeframe allowed.

Now, I just want to go over some of available resources that you have for you as an applicant, and I just want to go through these. Right now, it's posted on the BJA website. This is the actual solicitation page on the left, FY24 Internet of Things National Training and Technical Assistance Program. This gives you a brief summary of it. And if you look at the yellow bar there, that allows you to download the actual solicitation. And then where that red circle is there, this gives you a summary, this gives you a brief summary of this particular program, and that's what's listed on the right-hand side there. So this is very helpful for you when you're starting out to see whether or not you want to apply for this particular funding.

Now, as I said, there are two elements to this. There's the Grants.gov side of this, which is phase one, and then there's the JustGrants part, which is actually phase two. And what we have you do is there are certain things that you have to have in there and these are the contact and support numbers, email addresses for both of those things to help you through the application process. We also have on the OJP website, a resource guide that helps go through step-by-step and all the elements that are there. That's there for your reference.

Remember, again, I just wanted to reaffirm about the dual deadlines. The first one being May 15th, and that should be 2024 for both of those. Sorry on that. And it's 8:59 is where the deadline times is as opposed to what used to be under the 11:59. So it's May 15th, 2024, for the Grants.gov one at 8:59 p,m. and May 22nd, 2024, at 8:59 for the JustGrants deadline.

These are a few items that we have here that our resources should go on. One is our Funding Resource Center. Two, the second one is very important. If you ever apply, whatever funding you do and you're coming in for OJP funding, that you come in, that you have a copy of the DOJ Grants Financial Guide on your desktop. This is a vital, vital document. So the other thing that you have are online training and you have the resource guide.

These are public-facing, open source, information that's out there. You'll see that we're on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. We have all that information out there.
And you can subscribe to learn more information about grants that are available to kind of bring it to your attention. So it's extremely important. And you can also contact [email protected] for additional information. Here's an 800 toll-free number.

Again, I'll close this with final thoughts. We're looking at, one, can't stress this enough, read the entire solicitation, ask questions, remember the dual deadlines, apply early, and definitely double-check the guidelines, required attachments, letters of support or memorandum of understandings, and any problems entering the application, contact the appropriate technical assistance provider. Again, these are just our quick reference ones that we have out there. And, now, I'll open it up to any questions. I'll turn it back over to you, Daryl.

DARYL FOX: All right. Thank you so much, David. Just a reminder to everybody. The PowerPoint transcript and slides for today, recording actually, will be posted to the BJA website. So if you need to reference anything that was discussed, you'll be able to do that. If you have a question, enter in that Q&A and we will go through that. So, David, the first one is, "What is the expectation on the scope of IoT device to be targeted? Is the focus on a certain family of IoT devices or more of a generic scope that is covering most, if not all IoT devices?"

DAVID P. LEWIS: Yeah, there's no limitation. We're always looking for addressing whatever is out there, current trends. So we're not looking at anything very specific. That's up for the applicant to describe which path they want to take down and look for iin this particular solicitation. I know it's a very wide open scope, but they can choose to pick one very specific or they can choose to be more general. That's up to the applicant. We have no very specific expectations on what we're looking for under this IoT solicitation.

DARYL FOX: Great. Thanks for that. We'll just wait some more, as more questions come in. "What's the page limit on the proposal?" That wasn't really specified in the RFP.

DAVID P. LEWIS: I'll have to double-check, but it's usually 10 pages for the narrative. And the timelines and some of the other resumes don't count against that, but it's 10 pages for the narrative.

DARYL FOX: "Will BJA assign KPIs or will they be responsible for the development of KPIs to measure success?"

DAVID P. LEWIS: We do have some performance elements that you'll have to follow guidelines with and we have a program that you go into, but right now, it's very general. But the successful applicants will be given where they need to report the performance information stuff.

DARYL FOX: While we're waiting for some more to come into queue, I'll put, actually, David, I'll take the PowerPoint back. This is the OJP Response Center. So if you have any questions about the programmatic requirements of the solicitation, please contact them here at [email protected]. They'll be able to assist you. We actually work in consultation with David and BJA on answering those. Nothing else in the queue at this time. We do have some significant amount of time on today's webinar, so we'll just hang tight. And please if you think of something, send it in.

Well, I think you were very comprehensive, David, and had everything that you needed in the presentation. So we could still hang on for a little bit. And then just also noting the two-step process that David mentioned on Grants.gov and JustGrants. Two separate entities. And you must meet the first step one deadline of May 15th, 2024, 8:59 p.m. Eastern to even move on to that second step. So very important, as David mentioned.

Then, David, "If it's a successful sort of grant, what are the chances for a continuation funding? Is that an option?"

DAVID P. LEWIS: Yes. So we have written in the solicitation if you look under future funding, it does talk about BJA, should funds be available, about the potential for additional funding in the following years.

DARYL FOX: Okay, David. I think that's all the questions in the queue at this time. Oh, one more coming in.

DAVID P. LEWIS: Okay.

DARYL FOX: "Does the proposal need explicit participation by state, local, or other related agencies?"

DAVID P. LEWIS: No. It doesn't have to have partnerships with any particular state, local, tribal, or territorial law enforcement or public safety agencies. Just that the training and technical assistance is made available to them.

DARYL FOX: And that same person that asked that previous question. "I just wanted to review the deadlines again." I'll go back to that slide.

DAVID P. LEWIS: The deadlines are, yeah, May 15th for Grants.gov and May 22nd for—Grants.gov is May 15th and JustGrants is May 22nd.

DARYL FOX: And then the question is, "Do they have to register for both?"

DAVID P. LEWIS: It's not a registration. It's actually a process. So you go in based on the grant application in Grants.gov. And then after you get approval in Grants.gov, it'll take you to, and that's where you actually submit the application in JustGrants. So it's not a registration. It's a process.

DARYL FOX: And there's a little more detail on both entities here that you can reference. And the JustGrants site actually has a robust database of training materials that you can reference as you're going through that system, because that's where you're going to actually submit the actual application. And very helpful short videos on certain processes, so they're not hour, two-hour-long trainings. They're very specific to sections you will be within that system. So very helpful with the process.

DAVID P. LEWIS: Yeah. And that process, in the Grants.gov part, that's just—Grants.gov is—that you're initiating, that you're going to submit an application, you can always complete the Grants.gov part. And then if you decide not to go any further, you don't have to go to the JustGrants part. But you have to get the Grants.gov completed before you can submit your full application in JustGrants.

MAN: Okay. Got it.

DARYL FOX: And, David, this may be a more Response Center kind of question, but I'll put it out there for the general interest of this. "Is the priority training approach to be more hands-on versus industry-style lectures versus more academic-theoretic versus workshops? Is there—or a combination of those based on audience?"

DAVID P. LEWIS: Since it's law enforcement and it's kind of an education training approach, it's going to be—this is what it is. These are what particular Internet of Things items that are—this is how they are being used, possibly to commit crimes, or how they are gathering data. And the other section of that would be, "How can you use that particular item?" I'll use, for example, we had a Fitbit case. It was actually in Pennsylvania. And they were able to get a prosecution and get a conviction from the husband based on the information that was on that Fitbit. We've also had electronic appliances, cases where it was brought on. Now, that we have in the homes, you have a refrigerator, a stove, and all those, keeping that data, that sometimes captures certain information. And law enforcement needs to know, first of all, is this capturing some level of data, but also how do they access that data and how it may or may not assist with their investigation and possibly the prosecution.

DARYL FOX: Great. Thanks. Okay. I think at this time then, we will go ahead and conclude the webinar. And, as mentioned, please be on the lookout for these deliverables to be posted to the BJA website so you can reference those. So on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and our panelist, David Lewis, we want to thank you for joining today's webinar. This will end today's presentation.will end today's presentation.