Weekly GEOINT Community News

CTC Wins NGA AI Research Contract

Concurrent Technologies Corp. (CTC) won a $498,000 contract from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) to research artificial intelligence-based automation technologies under the agency’s Boosting Innovative GEOINT (BIG) program. CTC will advance the knowledge of virtual assistants by evolving them from a singular user-centric orientation to a viewpoint of the user within an interdependent network of humans and cognitive machines. According to the press release, the goal is to enable task automation and management to be cloud-wide, as well as to augment and scale human analysts’ cognition. CTC plans to partner with Penn State’s College of Information Sciences and Technology in addition to the university’s Artificial Intelligence Research Laboratory.

Vricon Data Can Now be Accessed Through Esri

Vricon announced it has signed a reseller agreement with Esri to enable users of Esri software to purchase Vricon data directly through Esri. According to the agreement, Esri will be able to sell Vricon’s 3D products and digital elevation models to its large community of ArcGIS users.

Esri & Harris Sign Enterprise Agreement

Esri signed an enterprise agreement for Harris Corp. to become an Esri Platinum Tier partner. The agreement gives the Harris Space and Intelligence Systems business access to all Esri software and Esri Partner Network benefits. The collaboration will help programs across multiple security domains meet the expected surge of commercial imagery from small sats, unmanned aerial systems, and open sources.

Altamira Awarded IC Contract

Altamira Technologies Corporation was awarded an $18 million contract to provide classified full lifecycle engineering, development, and sustainment of mission critical systems supporting the Intelligence Community. Work performed under this five-year contract, awarded in the first quarter of this year, will expand Altamira’s Chantilly, Va.-based portfolio and its reach into new mission areas.

Airbus Expands Agricultural Services

Airbus has broadened the range of sensors used in its agricultural services, Farmstar and Fodder Production Index, with the addition of Sentinel-2A and Sentinel-3A satellite data from the European Copernicus program. According to the press release, this will improve the level of availability and enhance the quality of both services for farmers. Farmstar is a precision agriculture service based on remote sensing that provides key recommendations to more than 18,000 farmers in France for sustainable crop growing. Fodder Production enables agricultural insurers to monitor grass growth throughout France.

Peer Intel

Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) The Honorable James Clapper will join Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs as a non-resident senior fellow, reports The Hill. Clapper served as DNI from 2010 through the end of President Obama’s administration in January.

Photo Credit: Vricon