The Buzz with ACT-IAC
The Buzz with ACT-IAC
Innovators Unite: ET&I Conference Highlights Part 1
In this episode of The Buzz, we broadcast live from the 2025 Emerging Tech and Innovation Conference, featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders like Destinie Harris from Maximus, Jeff Mercurio from OnPoint Consulting, and Ratima Katari from ICF. Destinie discusses Maximus' Total Experience Management (TXM) solution and her journey in tech, while Jeff shares insights on OnPoint’s contributions to cybersecurity and cloud infrastructure. Ratima talks about her extensive experience in federal health and her upcoming role on the ACT-IAC board. The episode highlights the synergy between government and industry, the importance of technology in solving complex challenges, and fostering connections at conferences like this.
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Intro/Outro Music: See a Brighter Day/Gloria Tells
Courtesy of Epidemic Sound
(Episodes 1-159: Intro/Outro Music: Focal Point/Young Community
Courtesy of Epidemic Sound)
Yohanna: [00:00:00] Hey there, tech enthusiasts. Welcome to the Buzz coming to you live from the 2025 Emerging Tech and Innovation Conference. Whether you joined us in person or tuning in from afar, we're excited to have you with us. We've lined up some incredible interviews and groundbreaking insights just for you, so stay tuned and let's dive into the future together.
Yohanna: I dunno if you can pick up the smooth jazz in the background. Our tech here, Philip, is really set in the mood.
Yohanna: It, it sounds as if there aren't a lot of people, uh. In the background now, only because they're all getting information. They're all in what our major, our big ballroom or they're in our breakout rooms and uh, and so it's a little bit quieter and that's why I get to talk to Destiny Harris [00:01:00] from Maximus.
Yohanna: Everybody cheer. Yay.
Destinie: Destiny, how are you feeling? Thank you so much for talking to me. Introduce yourself. Maybe tell us who you are, where you're from, and some things that you're doing over at Maximus. Thank you for having me. Uh, my name is Destiny Harris and I'm here proudly representing Maximus. Um, so my title, I'm a digital solutions analyst and I'm working under the office of the CDIO, but I'm also an ACT I act COI leadership member.
Destinie: So. Dang, we are talking about our TXM solution or our total experience solution. So when you think about T-X-M-T-X-M is not a product, it's a solution. So basically what we do is we listen to our customer's needs and their pain points, and then we provide them. It's a solution. And the really cool thing about TXM is that it's not static.
Destinie: It's always evolving and we're gonna continue adding capabilities and building onto it. Um, some more to come. [00:02:00] Thank you so much. That's great. Let's get a little bit of your background. How did you get, uh, to Maximus? Uh, so I applied to Maximus many, many moons ago. Been here for six years now and about a hundred more years ago.
Destinie: Uh, but all of my background lives around local, state and federal government. So my whole career has been around like survey. Um, and I'm passionate about people. I'm a people lytic connect, um, and, and I'm happy. Maximus is more so like family, like these people that I've worked along with over these years.
Destinie: We've done so much work. And I can say one of my personal proud moments with Maximus was just working on the frontline of COVID-19. Um, being a liaison with the White House and making sure citizens get good for vaccines or get rides and, and just get the care that they needed, but um, during one of the toughest times, feel a good spirit.
Destinie: Thank you so much for your service. That was a tough time back then in the before times. [00:03:00] Oh, what's your background in, are you, are, is your background in, in tech or are No, so I just so happen to land into the tech side of things as of recent and it's been so much fun. Um, there's so many different components to the tech industry and every day I am learning something new.
Destinie: Um, so the minute I think I've mastered something, I'm like, oh no, there's a thousand more things I need to know about. Um, but no, it's always been people facing. Um, local government, you know, playing a role in my community, uh, state level, helping people with their benefits and, you know, now federal. So I've kind of had the, the blessing to see different portions of government and I love it all.
Destinie: So I hate the fact that I have to even narrow myself down to a title because if I had a mind way, I'd be doing everything. That's just, that's just who I am. But just really happy to be here and talk with you about government. All. Thanks tech. What brought brought you to ACT IAC into this conference? I know that Maximus is one of [00:04:00] our sponsors.
Destinie: Thank you so much for that. We really appreciate, we love our sponsors and I love your table. You guys have sunglasses over there. Gonna take a couple. So let's talk about your time here at p and i. Is this your first conference? No. So this is my second conference. Um, and I'm looking forward to many more, but I, I happen to meet with Terry Shafer with ACT I Act.
Destinie: And. We connected and she heard a little bit about me. I heard a little bit about her and she said, Hey, I think you'd be a great fit. Um, serve on our COI leadership team. So it's been fun connecting with people in industry and I'm just thankful that act, I act, put all this together, you know, as like a bridge for us to come together and learn, synthesize, share, and see what we can do.
Destinie: To Propel government as a collective. You know, although we're all different entities, I think we all have synergy as it pertains to serving the constituents and increasing that user experience and customer experience. Destiny, thank you so much for your time. This has been a really [00:05:00] nice time with you.
Destinie: I've learned so much. You guys have been sitting next to me this whole time and I'm like, oh, wonder what y'all do. I'm glad, um, we're done to chit chat and clearly I'm having too much room, so see you next time. Thanks.
Destinie: It's the end of our conference. Still getting some interviews here at the table in the lobby at the Hyatt Regency. It's been fun so far, talking to really nice people. I have a very nice person now in front of me. Oh, shucks. How are you feeling, Jeff? I just want folks to know who you are. So let's have some background.
Destinie: Who you are, where you're from, and is this your first, uh, ETNI?
Jeff: Yeah, so I'm Jeff Mercurio. I'm with OnPoint Consulting. I'm, I hail from New Jersey, but I live in Reston, Virginia. Right now I'm the strategic partnership coordinator with [00:06:00] OnPoint. I've been there for about two years now. OnPoint Consulting is a cybersecurity firm.
Jeff: We do cloud infrastructure, enterprise systems, strategic communications, all that kind of stuff. Uh, who owned subsidiary of Public ca sapien, if you ever see them around too. But we are a proud sponsor of the emerging tech conference this year. So if you see that big green circle haunting you everywhere you go, that's on point.
Jeff: That's us. You might have seen our team walking around. We had a large presence with about six of us here, all walking around with those on point pins. Very, very proudly and then me last night with the backwards on point cap. But it's been really fun. I think the conference was a success regardless of all the changes and adaptations we've had to make.
Jeff: I was on the planning committee for the event, which was really fun, really good group of people. I helped put together the defending More with less cyber panel that was with Colette Preach and Caroline Thomas. So just a really good way to kind of get involved with the community, not my first conference.
Jeff: [00:07:00] Uh, like I said, I've been around here, or at least with on Point for about two years. I try to get involved on the Act, act planning committee, so some people might see my name here and there for other planning committees as well. In the future, uh, I've already been involved and told I have to, uh, get involved with ELC, so I'm excited for that.
Jeff: No, but I am excited for that. I think it'll be really fun. But yeah, I think it's been really. Interesting to be in the business development world because I have a scientific background. I used to do neuroscience research at NIHI got my masters there, did hardcore research there for years. Worked in the office of education there, and then decided to pivot, right?
Jeff: Pivot or die seems to be the, the theme of the, of the weekend. So, yeah, so it's been really interesting to see how I, I've personally grown from going to these conferences over the years. When I, fir, ELC was my very first conference ever two years ago. I was at the [00:08:00] company for about a month and I was super intimidated.
Jeff: Two years later, it's like a reunion with all of my, you know, really good friends. So that's been really cool.
Destinie: Thanks, Jeff. So I wanna go back a little bit. So you said you had a backwards hat on last night for the game night. Is that, what is that? What was going on? What, what were you all playing?
Jeff: Uh, well, I kept trying to get people to play corn hole.
Jeff: I don't think anybody heard me, but I was like, oh, should we go over and play some corn? No, no. I did not get one response. So we did not end up playing that. Um, but yeah, I pretty much use the ad every now and then for like the last night of conferences. So it's easy to find me and you can just pick me out in the crowd and know that, oh, that's Jeff over there, you know?
Jeff: But it was a good time.
Destinie: That's great. That's good to hear. I've been hearing a lot of folks saying that they like coming to act IAC events, that if it wasn't their first event, it's maybe like, you know, their third event. We do a lot of, a lot of stuff in [00:09:00] the DMV area in, in Virginia. Um, when you think about ACT IAC and the things that we've been doing, are there any things that we can do a little better?
Destinie: Like give me some notes? Hmm.
Jeff: Um, excuse me, sorry. I don't know. I mean, I have to be honest, I'm heavily impressed with the WAY ACT I Act does the everything that they do. Um, there are so many things that you guys do for us as a GovCon community that are just stellar. You know what I mean? Like bringing industry and government together in a very casual and a friendly environment is.
Jeff: Literally what initiates these relationships and what, you know, might hopefully lead to a working relationship. Um, that's my role at OnPoint as the strategic partnership coordinator, I am always looking for both industry and government potential partners. So this is like candy to me coming to these conferences.
Destinie: So I hope that you take away a lot of candy. I've seen a lot of folks [00:10:00] make a lot of connections and give each other, you know, their cards, their scanning the QR codes, or connecting on LinkedIn. So I hope that more folks take away what it is that we're trying to do and build communities, stay connected, et cetera.
Jeff: Absolutely. That's good. Yeah. I will say, this is the first conference I think that I've been to that I didn't give away one business card because everybody was just so excited to connect. We just immediately connected on LinkedIn, you know, or scan somebody's QR code or something like that. Mm-hmm. So I came with a bunch, but I, I left it the same, the same amount, but, uh, not for a bad reason.
Destinie: So, real quick, Jeff, what are some interesting things that you're doing over at OnPoint that you can share?
Jeff: Yeah, like workwise or other
Destinie: Yeah, workwise. Yeah. Workwise. Workwise.
Jeff: Um, well for one, we have a really, really great company culture. Um, outside of contracts, our team is really great. Uh, I think we're really starting to build a really good relationship amongst our team.
Jeff: [00:11:00] We kind of finally. Established our team earlier in the year and we've been working together just to figure out right, what the most efficient strategy is to work together. So that's been a really fun experience trying to figure that out Together. We are all incredibly different. If you ever come across a different person at on point, you have, just 'cause you met one of us does not mean you met all of us.
Jeff: Introduce yourself to all of us. We are all so, so, so different. It's like. It's like a TV show. It's funny. Um, but work-wise, you know, um, well also in addition to the, the culture, something I really like that we do is this like lunch and learn. Every month or so we read a book, uh, talk about it, kind of take ourselves out of the, you know, work moment for a minute to just talk about opinions and points of view and perspectives.
Jeff: And I actually convinced the crew to do pivot or Die for our next book. So. Now we all have a copy, which is great. Um, and we also do a lot of [00:12:00] donations. Every month we have a, or every month or two maybe we have an employee choose a charity of their choice to donate to something that means a lot to them.
Jeff: So that's something I really love. But besides that, you know, work-wise, we're heavily at NIH right now. Um, we'd really like to get into the health IT aspects. We're doing a lot of strategic communications there right now. Um. We're at commerce at BIS doing some cloud work and zero trusts. And, uh, we're also at, we also have some C two YSR support work, uh, with the DOD.
Jeff: So we're a little bit scattered, but in a good way. I think, uh, we try not to pinhole ourselves in any corner for any particular agency, open to all different kinds of opportunities, uh, open to all different kinds of working relationships, always trying to maintain, initiate, maintain, and. Find new relationships, really.
Jeff: But yeah, that's kind of, that's kind of a little bit about On Point.
Destinie: That's amazing. So [00:13:00] happy that you're reading, uh, pivot or Die by Gary Shapiro, one of our speakers here at, uh, our Event. I got into some of those chapters and I was like, oh, this is really good. Like, I was like, I, I thought I was gonna watch something, you know, on tv, but I was like, no, I'm, I'm gonna really get into this book.
Jeff: Did you see the dedication?
Destinie: I love that dedication. Wasn't that called? It's very nice. Yeah. And he, he mentioned a little bit about it too, like, uh, the next part where he was talking about his, like wife and stuff. Right. Right. Mm-hmm.
Jeff: So
Destinie: that's really nice of him.
Jeff: And for anybody listening who doesn't, who hadn't read the dedication, it was a, a short blurb on Gary thanking his, um, parents-in-law, mother-in-law, father-in-law for, uh, immigrating from Poland to the US to, mm-hmm.
Jeff: Start new opportunities for their family, et cetera. Making the ultimate pivot, which I just thought was a really kind way and sweet way to bring it all back to the fact that we're all humans. We're all trying to find our way. Yeah.
Destinie: Well that's a nice place to end this. Thank you so [00:14:00] much for your time, Jeff.
Jeff: Yeah, you got it. Thanks so much for having me. All right.
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Destinie: Here at ET and I, we find really fun and smart people and that's what has been really fun for me. I'm here with Ratima ka, the VP of Strategy and Growth over at Federal Health ICF. How are you feeling? I'm
Ratima: feeling great. I'm very excited to be here. Um, I joined the Emerging Technology Conference every single year.
Ratima: Um, really happy to be here again this year.
Destinie: What is it that you do for work? What is it that brings you here? Let's maybe get a little bit about your background. Yeah. Would love
Ratima: to share that, Johanna. Um, in terms of my background itself, I've been in the industry about 27 plus years now. I've done a variety of things.
Ratima: I've spent some time in the semiconductor industry. Stack like communications and more, most recently, in the last decade in the government scape, um, I have done work for the government consulting as well as I've done a tour of duty in the federal government in HHSI was a deputy CIO for one of the [00:16:00] operating divisions there during covid.
Ratima: So I like to say that have seen the good, bad and the interesting from all sides of the table. Um, in terms of my company, in my day job, uh, right now I work for a company called ICF. I lead our, uh, federal health Strategy and growth initiatives there. ICF has been in business about 50 plus years. We are a global organization with 9,000 plus people with presence in over 70 locations.
Ratima: We do serve pretty much all of the cabinet level federal agencies as well as state and local government. Uh, a very, very passionate group of great people who are very mission and domain focused. Um, and use technology as an enabler. So it's, it's just a very fabulous group of people to work with in my day job.
Ratima: So that's what I do
Destinie: see. Solicitor amazing people. Fun. Fun, fun. Tech. Tech, tech. I love it. This is great. I also want to know, when you think about ACT IAC and these kinds of conferences, what is it that maybe you wanna take away [00:17:00] from your experience when you, when you're here.
Ratima: You know, that is a topic, uh, very near and dear to my heart.
Ratima: For the folks who know me, they know that I consider myself a bridge builder. I've been very, very intimately engaged with ACT for a number of years now, and other similar organizations as well, emerging Technologies, one of those conferences as well as Health Innovation Summit that Act iact does in June.
Ratima: The data forum in fall, and then of course to top it all of the ELC nation in October. They're absolutely all of my favorite places to be. I think Act Diag does just a fabulous job of bridging and connecting the community between the government and the industry, uh, which is why I love spending time with helping plan conferences.
Ratima: I'm also very active member of the Federal Insights Exchange program, uh, the Health Community of Interest Program. Help put together a number of conferences and panels throughout the year as well. Um, and folks who, who know me, they know that Industry [00:18:00] Association is sort of my middle name in addition to my day job.
Ratima: It's, it's a whole other job, but I really enjoy doing it. Um, and with that, I also have the great honor of being part of the ACT I Act board in the coming year, um, as one of the vice chairs at large. And I'm really excited about that. Looking forward to. Um, being able to participate in a different capacity.
Destinie: Congratulations. Thank you so much for accepting. That's great. I hope you have fun with us. What are some things in the future that maybe IICF is working on that you can share? And also when you think about your position on the board, what are some things that you'd like to bring in, bring in from your personal experience?
Ratima: Uh, yeah, absolutely. So from an ICF standpoint. What we want to do is we really want to support and help the federal government in the current changing times for bringing those efficiencies, bringing those shared services in an effective way to the table. At the end of the day, we have to keep our eyes on [00:19:00] what is the mission focus, um, and then how do we bring the technology enabled solutions to bear for the mission focus problems.
Ratima: So that's where ICF is working very, very hard, very closely with all of our federal partners and hoping to continue to make a major impact. So thank you for asking that question. Um, in terms of acti also with the current changing and evolving ecosystem. I do feel that this is a great opportunity for us to kind of shake things up a little bit, challenge the status quo in how the industry and government collaboration is done.
Ratima: So maybe we have to find different ways of being more effective in our partnership and collaboration. So I look forward to contributing to some ideas and helping, uh, figure that out as our next chapter, as being part of the board. Great.
Destinie: That was amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time.
Destinie: Thank you so much, Ratima.
Ratima: Thank you so much. It was great having this conversation with you. Enjoy the conference.
Yohanna: Thank you for joining [00:20:00] us at the Emerging Tech and Innovation Conference. If you're passionate about technology and eager to explore more incredible events, make sure to visit act i a.org/upcoming-events.
Yohanna: Keep your curiosity sparked and your calendars marked. Until next time. Stay inspired and connected.