Welcome to the January 2018 issue of the NITRD Leads IT quarterly newsletter of the Networking and Information Technology Research and Development Program. "The NITRD Program will be essential in helping our Nation achieve a brighter future through advances in information technology (IT). Evidence of this is seen in past Federal IT R&D, which led to technologies that help us today (e.g. the Internet, Global Positioning System, and smartphone assistants). Current Federal IT R&D is creating a world of personalized learning, personalized healthcare, and computers capable of answering any technical question... The U.S. government has a decades-long record of helping to achieve a brighter future with advanced IT through two roles: leading the world's IT advancement through aggressive funding of IT R&D, and leading the use of IT for social good, as evidenced by recent NITRD area strategic plans, which seek societal interests as well as technology advancement..." - Dr. Bryan Biegel (Director of the National Coordination Office for Networking and Information).