Government Contracting 101 for Small & Mid-Sized Businesses

The session is designed as a practical field guide to how government procurement actually works, including micro-purchases, P-cards, RFQs/RFPs, procurement portals, vendor onboarding, proposal evaluation, competitive intelligence through public records, relationship-building strategies, and how AI is beginning to reshape modern GovCon workflows.

Michael Noffsinger specializes in the intersection of artificial intelligence and government contracting, helping organizations turn complex procurement systems into competitive advantage. He is the founder of BidData and currently serves as Vice President at LotusPetalAI, where he helps lead strategy and market growth for AI-driven proposal and procurement intelligence platforms focused on reducing proposal workload by up to 70% while increasing proposal output by as much as 3x.

Having previously worked for the City of Santa Clara, San Jose State University, and the County of Santa Clara, his background spans public-sector procurement, contracts, investigations, sourcing, compliance, and AI strategy. Michael works extensively with agentic AI systems across go-to-market strategy, proposal generation, procurement intelligence, and AI-assisted research workflows. He holds a Master’s degree in Economics and brings a systems-oriented perspective to government purchasing, incentives, and competitive strategy.

Michael believes the next generation of market leaders will not simply have better technology, but a deeper understanding of how that technology is evaluated, purchased, and operationalized inside complex organizations.