Augur Navy SBIR FY2010.2 Sol No.: Navy SBIR FY2010.2 Topic No.: N102-185 Topic Title: Augur Proposal No.: N102-185-0033 Firm: 21st Century Systems, Incorporated 6825 Pine Street, Suite 141 Omaha, Nebraska 68106 Contact: Plamen Petrov Phone: (402) 505-7885 Web Site: www.21csi.com Abstract: History is replete with "intelligence failures" that were not intelligence weaknesses at all, but an inability to "put the pieces together" in time. Quintessentially, the 9/11 attack is an example, but it is merely the one most remembered. Pieces of intelligence were collected, like so many keys in a jar; but, without the validity and contextual issues resolved, the larger situations went unrecognized. Similarly, the validation and analysis of HUMINT reports is largely a manual process, tedious and burdensome, significantly delaying actionable information getting into the hands of the right person. The Navy can't afford to continue to allow opportunities to be missed and ineffectual decisions to be made. 21st Century Systems, Inc. is pleased to propose to research and develop Augur, an intelligent HUMINT-processing capability. Augur will permit HUMINT collections to be rapidly corroborated and placed into context, creating opportunities and improving decisions through actionable intelligence. With extensive experience in researching and developing decision support technologies including within the intelligence domain, we represent the most qualified company to research and develop this end-to-end HUMINT analysis capability. And, with our high commercialization rating, we are also the company most likely to get it to the field. Benefits: Augur is a merger between the power of collaborative software, evidential reasoning, and the current state of the art in information extraction techniques. Augur technology, when mature, will be used in multiple command and control and intelligence assessment applications within the DoD. This is likely because of two powerful payoffs to the technology: first is the sharing and fusing of information amongst analysts and planners; secondly, Augur, when combined in a modern Intelligence Analyst's software tool suite, will enable a more rapid evaluation, comparison, and aggregation of HUMINT data with other analyst's/planner's collection of data, a "meeting of the INTs" so to speak. Augur provides multiple advantages. First and foremost, the Augur capability will forestall "intelligence failures" by allowing more rapid processing of the HUMINT reports placing actionable information into the proper hands sooner. Second, storing all extracted information in a datastore allows consumers to access the system without writing specialized applications. Lastly, using an open, standardized information extraction architecture means third parties can incorporate new information extraction routines, allowing Augur to be technically refreshed with ease. The transition strategy for Augur includes a comprehensive plan for transition to both operational military use and commercialization into the open market. On the military side, Augur technology will be developed to be platform independent. As such, it can be transitioned independently of our existing Webster-ACE product, as well as provide a value-added plug-in to that product. Indeed, Augur will be marketed as part of our Webster-ACE product line, as a potential plug-in to 3rd party products, and as a stand-alone tool that interacts with 3rd party applications. Our success with the Webster-ACE product shows that would be our simplest avenue for transitioning Augur technologies to the warfighter. On the commercial side, what Augur does for the intelligence analyst, it will do for the business intelligence analyst. In particular, our first avenue is to plug Augur into our Kaimi Casino Solutions tool. Similar to the Intel Analyst, who is handed a HUMINT report and has to decide what to do with it, the casino operator has a customer sit at one of their tables and they have to decide whether that player is playing legitimately or intending nefarious deeds. Augur will be a very valuable tool used by the casino to glean additional information about that player, both for fraud prevention and enhanced sales. Augur will, more that likely, prove to be one of the most innovative and successful endeavors yet pursued by 21CSI within the Navy SBIR program. That's saying a lot given that 21CSI is a Navy Success Story on a number of fronts. Return