Month: November 2020

Fairfax, VA – Highlight Technologies has been appraised at level 3 of the CMMI Institute’s Capability Maturity Model Integration for Development (CMMI-DEV). Highlight also maintains CMMI SVC level 3 for services. The company now holds seven quality certifications, including being the only company in the U.S. to hold ISO® 44001:2017 for Collaboration and ISO® 56000:2020 for Innovation.

CMMI Services is an integrated set of best practices that measures an organization’s capability to efficiently and effectively deliver quality service offerings that meet market and customer needs. At level 3, our processes are well characterized, understood, and are described in standards, procedures, tools, and methods. Highlight’s set of standard processes that are established, reviewed, and continuously improved over time.

“I’m pleased that we successfully completed our CMMI Level 3 appraisal, which reaffirms Highlight’s commitment to quality and process maturity. I appreciate the hard work of the entire appraisal team, including our dedicated employees and our partner Broadsword” said Rebecca Andino, Highlight Technologies CEO.

About CMMI® Institute

CMMI Institute is the global leader in the advancement of best practices in people, process, and technology. The Institute provides the tools and support for organizations to benchmark their capabilities and build maturity by comparing their operations to best practices and identifying performance gaps. For over 25 years, thousands of high-performing organizations in a variety of industries, including aerospace, finance, health services, software, defense, transportation, and telecommunications, have earned a CMMI maturity level rating and proved they are capable business partners and suppliers. To learn more about how CMMI can help your organization elevate performance, visit https://cmmiinstitute.com/.

About Highlight Technologies, LLC

Highlight Technologies is an award-winning woman owned, ISO® 9001, ISO 20000, ISO 27001, ISO 44001 certified, ISO 56000 certified, CMMI-DEV Level 3, and CMMI-SVC Level 3 appraised small business that provides IT development and transformation, secure IT operations, and mission support services to more than 20 U.S. federal government customers. Our customers include National Security (DHS, State, Army, Navy, DISA, the Joint Staff, DTRA, Intel), Health IT (USAID, USDA, NIH, HRSA, EPA) and Citizen Services (FCC, FDIC, FTC, GSA, HHS, SBA, Education, Labor). For more information, please visit www.highlighttech.com.

When COVID-19 put an immediate halt on 2020 in-person events held by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), our Highlight team of marketing, communications, and event planning experts immediately got to work with the NIH Division of Communication and Outreach (DCO), along with others from the Office of Extramural Research (OER), to examine alternative meeting options.

The result: the first-ever NIH Virtual Seminar on Program Funding and Grants Administration. The event, held October 27-30, provided research institutions with essential funding and grants administration guidance. About 12,000 investigators and administrators attended the four-day event, featuring 60 live and on-demand sessions.

For those who missed the virtual event or those who want to go back and take another look, registration is free and resources are available on the site until November 27.

Not If, but How?

The challenge for our team was not “if,” but “how” to turn essential live events into meaningful digital engagement opportunities to help researchers get on with their work.

Highlight, working with the NIH OER Team, began with an assessment of virtual platform solutions. The vFairs platform was chosen for its life-like conference experience and interactive tools. For example, the experience included a virtual lobby, help desk, networking lounge, and distinct session auditoriums. We viewed these as essential features to provide attendees.

Missed a presentation? No problem. Attendees were able to view recorded discussions and threads of session chats. Sessions will eventually be posted on YouTube and on the NIH site to provide NIH with even greater reach to the research community. Much of the material also provides an excellent overview of grants and funding for new employees and can be incorporated as part of the onboarding process.

Forty-five virtual booths were also available, giving attendees the opportunities to hone-in on specific funding and grant-related issues, as well as to direct specific questions to NIH’s 24 Institutes, Centers, and special program offices. Many of the booths integrated with Slack, WebEx, and Zoom to offer more finely tuned discussions. For example, when an investigator visited the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases booth, they could drill down on topics to chat about a specific disease or therapeutic.

What’s Next?

Virtual events not only provide alternatives to live events, but they can also greatly augment them with additional pre- and post-conference networking, learning, and collaboration opportunities. As Highlight and NIH experienced, today’s virtual event tools are rapidly expanding and when integrated with other solutions, you can create new and meaningful engagement activities.

 

About Highlight

Highlight is an award-winning woman owned ISO® 9001, ISO 20000. ISO 27001, ISO 44001, ISO 56002 certified, CMMI-DEV Level 3 and CMMI-SVC Level 3 appraised woman-owned small business that provides critical services to more than 20 U.S. federal government customers. Using our HI-WAY™™ best practices framework, we design and deliver solutions that integrate current systems and procedures, address all stakeholders, and seamlessly advance the mission. With over 10 years of federal contracting experience, we apply our proven transformation and evolution process to deliver quality services that balance agility, continuity, security, and compliance.