Directorate of Information Management garners award for improving methods, reducing costs

Fort Belvoir's Directorate of Information Management was recently rewarded for its hard work and dedication when Lt. Col. Anthony Evans and Army Knowledge Online each received DoD Chief Information Officer awards.

Evans received a first place individual award, while AKO and Defense Knowledge Online were given a third place team award.

AKO provides users with a centralized location for file management, information sharing and a directory of everyone in the military. It also allows users to consolidate resources and spending to one specific location.

Both winners were selected from nominations received from across the world.

According to a DoD news release, teams and individuals are awarded for outstanding performance in improving information delivery, management capability and process delivery, while reducing costs, saving resources and enhancing DoD's net-centric capacity across multiple mission areas.

Awards are given based on outstanding achievement in at least one of seven key areas: acquisition; architecture and interoperability; information assurance; management and standards; applications (technology or process); capital planning and investment; information management and information technology work force; and data management and data sharing.

The Assistant Secretary of Defense for Net-works and Information Integration and Department of Defense Chief Information Officer John Grimes announced the awards at a September 30 ceremony at the Pentagon.

"DKO is becoming the primary entry point for most DoD components to share the same infrastructure, security mechanisms, presentation layer and access date," Grimes said in the award's citation. "The team's superb efforts have resulted in AKO and DKO becoming the premier site that provides tools enabling DoD organizations to communicate and collaborate securely and effectively."
According to an AKO release, there are 2.1 million users registered on the AKO portal, which hosts DKO. On any day, 350,000 people login it use the services offered by the secure site.

Four billion messages went through the portal last year alone and on any given day, 80 percent of the Army's email goes through the AKO.

AKO and DKO received their award for improving information delivery and saving DoD millions of dollars by providing a site with the capability to become standard throughout all DoD agencies.