Cadets in the four-year program have long been able to choose from several majors, such as marine and environmental sciences (MES), operations research and computer analysis, and naval architecture and marine engineering. But it wasn’t until late last year that cadets could graduate with a certificate in geospatial intelligence (GEOINT).

On December 21, 2021, the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) announced that it had accredited the USCGA’s Certificate in Geospatial Intelligence, becoming the 20^th program to receive accreditation since USGIF began to accredit programs in 2008.

This USGIF accreditation recognizes that the USCGA GEOINT certificate program complies with the highest standards for GEOINT curriculum, faculty expertise, novel research approaches, and availability of adequate resources for state-of-the-art teaching and learning.

“We sought accreditation because we recognize it as a means for program improvement and a means for achieving program excellence,” said Lucy S. Vlietstra, Ph.D., Professor of Marine Science and GEOINT Certificate Program Chair. “It was external validation of the team’s effort to look closely at our program, learn from other accredited institutions, reinforce existing strengths, and implement improvements.”

Beyond the validation, the USCGA also sought USGIF accreditation to deliver a better education to its cadets.

“We’ve got a very tech-savvy student body. They love data, tech, graphs, and statistics,” said Dr. Richard Zuczek, Dean of the School of Science, Mathematics, and the Humanities. “Rather than just teaching them about how to use data, we thought, let’s teach them where to find it, how to gather it and analyze it. Rather than going to the store to buy a fish, let’s start fishing.”

The USCGA has offered classes in geographic information systems (GIS), remote sensing, and spatial data analysis within the MES major for years, so accrediting an actual GEOINT certificate program was the natural next step, Dr. Vlietstra said.

“We’ve watched the evolution of this program go from students learning about GIS to students learning about its applications in the broader field of GEOINT, and we wanted to make sure we were preparing students to work in a range of professional settings,” she said. “Accreditation means we’re offering a program that meets a certain standard and making it  the best it can be for our cadets.”

Now, the GEOINT certificate program spans two and half academic years—beginning in sophomore year and culminating with a capstone presentation before graduating.

The First First-Class

Ensign (ENS) Kaleigh O’Connor, from Mechanicsburg, Penn., graduated from the USCGA in May with a degree in MES, with a focus on physical oceanography and GEOINT.

ENS O’Connor, who presented a poster at the GEOINT Symposium in St. Louis last year, was among the first class of cadets to receive the GEOINT certificate. In fact, the accreditation process was taking place while she was making her way through her major.

“All of our professors were talking about it and anticipating the accreditation,” she said. “I was really excited to have my program validated.”

ENS O’Connor, whose capstone was on oil drifts, was one of 10 cadets to graduate with the GEOINT certificate in 2022. Her first assignment was to spend two months in Pensacola, Fla., doing search and rescue, migrant interdiction, and drug interdiction.

Creating Inroads

Now in her final year at the USCGA, first-class cadet Alyssa Burns, from Pearland, Texas, wasn’t familiar with USGIF until a representative from the organization spoke to her class about accreditation.

“During my remote-sensing class, they talked to us about the program and what opportunities it could unlock for us going into the Coast Guard after graduation and the civilian workforce after that,” said Burns, who is also majoring in MES with a focus on physical oceanography and GEOINT.

After graduation, cadets receive commissions as Ensigns in the U.S. Coast Guard, where they serve a minimum of five years on active duty. Entering that active duty with a certificate in GEOINT could open doors for them depending on the mission.

“When a graduate gets there, somebody’s going to notice that this person has a GEOINT focus. Maybe they’ll enter the intelligence center because of it, or they’ll work on something with a particular GEOINT focus,” Dr. Zuczek said. “It can definitely help create some inroads.”

The real benefit to the accredited GEOINT certificate program, however, will come a little later, he said.

“As they move through their career, this certificate is going to allow access, and they’re going to be able to build on it in many ways,” Dr. Zuczek said. “It’s going to start small. No one is guaranteed a job right away because of it, but I think it’s going to magnify itself pretty quickly.”

Growing a Faculty

Over the next few years, as the program evolves and other departments integrate new certificates, Dr. Zuczek expects the USCGA to start offering new majors, like GEOINT, to cadets. He also expects that recruiting experienced professors to teach it may become more difficult.

“As [the program] becomes more recognized, it could be hard for us to attract teaching talent,” he said.

The answer? Grow your own faculty, Dr. Zuczek said.

“One of the reasons we’re trying to grow cadets who have an interest and a background in GEOINT is that they can come back as teachers,” he said. “It’s hard for us to compete with industry, so we have to sort of grow our own instructors.”

Fortunately, the call to serve and honor the Coast Guard runs deep. Despite having plans to eventually enter the civilian workforce, both ENS O’Connor and Burns hope to first do their time with the Coast Guard, however long that takes.

Since graduation, ENS O’Connor has already heard from other students about the growing interest in the GEOINT certificate program.

“I think it has attracted quite a few people,” she said. “I’m happy to have been a part of the class that inspired that.”

The post The U.S. Coast Guard Academy Graduates its First Class of GEOINT-Certified Cadets appeared first on Trajectory Magazine.

Team USGIF started the year with a laser focus on planning for the GEOINT 2022 Symposium in Denver, Colorado. We channeled the momentum built from the October 2021 Symposium in St Louis directly into delivering a stellar Symposium in April, where we gathered for the first time in Aurora, Colorado. And wow! What an amazing event that was. From the interesting and educational programming to the novel training to the vibrant exhibit hall abuzz with demonstrations and building connections to the opportunities to meet and reconnect with each other during the networking events—I cannot remember a GEOINT Symposium that had better energy and content than GEOINT 2022.

In the first half of 2022, USGIF Working Groups continued to highlight the thought leadership inherent in our community. Several working groups hosted guest speakers who shared their insights, helping to build stronger bonds throughout the community and informing topics for future programming. If you haven’t yet had a chance to read the white paper published in April on Reimagining Unclassified Work and Platforms that was a collaborative effort including a cross section of members throughout the GEOINT community and several USGIF working groups, I encourage you to do so.

We also began the transition to our new member structure, which is effective as of today. We received great feedback from the community as we rolled out the membership restructure—which was based on member feedback. So thank you for engaging with us on that!

Another highlight of the year was the “Navigating the GEOINT Landscape” event hosted by USGIF in coordination with our Young Professionals Group, which happened this past Wednesday evening at our beautiful Trajectory Event Center (the “TEC”) in Herndon, Virginia. We began the evening with a panel of leaders from the community sharing their perspectives and offering fantastic advice on how to successfully navigate recruiting and hiring activities and effectively build and leverage networks, and then the participants broke out into mentoring sessions on resume writing, interviewing techniques, and effective in-person and online networking. This was our first fully in-person event at the TEC since the start of the pandemic, and we were thrilled to bring together GEOINT professionals (both young and not so young) with mentors from across our community who offered them tips and made them aware of upcoming opportunities. We often hear about “the war for talent” and based on what we saw last night…our community’s talent pipeline includes tremendously promising future teammates. I was proud to greet two former USGIF interns who are now employed as full time GEOINTers. Additionally, one rising sophomore from Xavier University drove from Cincinnati, Ohio just to attend the event, and I loved watching him “work the room” discussing possible internships, seeking advice, and making new connections in the community.

As we look ahead to the second half of 2022, I’m excited that we’re kicking off our “GEOINT Service Days” again later this month, with the GEOINT Service Day for Air Force and Space Force on Wednesday, July 27^th. We’ll hold this event in person at the TEC, and registration is open. We’ll continue that series later this fall, on October 19^th for the day dedicated to the Navy and Marine Corps which will be held at NGA in Springfield, VA, and return to NGA for the Army Day on February 23^rd next year. These events are a great opportunity for our members to connect with the Services, hear from senior leaders about where they’re headed and how they need GEOINT to get them there, and to better understand their “hard problems” and technical needs. We hope to see you there!

We’re also continuing the “Mission Focus” series we began in 2021, with a fantastic event planned for August 24^th in Falls Church, Virginia. “Mission Focus: GEOINT at the Speed of Need” will include an amazing keynote speaker (stay tuned for that announcement very soon!) and a panel of government and industry executives who will address what it takes to deliver GEOINT products and services with speed and agility to the point of need. Registration for this event will open next week…so I hope you all hit “register” for this free event as soon as the announcement hits your inbox.

Later this year, we’ll hold a two-day GEOINT Community Forum on “Operationalizing Artificial Intelligence.” That event will take place on November 29 (unclassified day) and 30^th (classified day) at NGA in Springfield, and we’re working alongside our AI/ML Working Group to assemble an allstar line up of speakers and panels. That same week, on December 1^st, we’ll hold the 2022 GeoGala honoring the 2022 Lundahl-Finnie Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Letitia A. Long at the Ritz-Carlton in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia. I am so thrilled that the Foundation selected Tish for this year’s award, as she has been such an important trailblazer, a tremendous advocate for GEOINT, and a steadfast champion of diversity and inclusion. I know this event will sell out quickly, as so many in our community will want to be there to celebrate Tish and her myriad contributions to our great nation. Tickets for the GeoGala will be available in mid-August, and sponsorships and tables are currently available.

And speaking of our great nation, I hope everyone enjoys the upcoming Independence Day holiday. I know there are many challenges we face as a nation, with many divisive and difficult issues at the forefront of the headlines every day. As complex and heartrending as these issues are, I am nevertheless thankful to live in a nation where our ability to engage in civil discourse or protest is at the heart of what we stand for. So amidst the parades, picnics, and fireworks of the day, I for one will reflect on all that is great and positive about our nation, and I hope you have the opportunity to do the same.

Featured Image (left to right): Booz Allen Hamilton Principal Patrick Biltgen and USGIF CEO Ronda Schrenk chat with Xavier University Sophomore Cole Waymeyer during the “Navigating the GEOINT Career Landscape” event on June 29. Waymeyer drove from Cincinnati for the event.

The post Looking Back, Looking Forward appeared first on Trajectory Magazine.

More recently, part of that commitment has also involved driving innovation and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) talent development locally. One way we do that is by working with partners like STEM Board and the Little Bit Foundation to send GDIT speakers into area schools to talk about the plethora of careers and the opportunities in the field, building capacity and a diverse talent pool ready and able to make an impact.

Corey Carter, a GDIT program manager based in Springfield, Va., has spent the last several months visiting classrooms—virtually and in-person—in St. Louis to talk about his work and about his atypical and inspiring career path in STEM.

“Many of the schools I visit don’t even have formal STEM programs,” he said. “These schools are under-resourced, serving underprivileged kids, and many of these kids have never seen an engineer who looks like them. When I go in and talk to the students, we start with what STEM is, how technology plays a role in their everyday lives, and how to get involved in doing STEM work.”

Corey often points to an iPhone as a relatable example of technology and how students interact with the people powering those devices. He talks with them about the people who answer Help Desks, or who code applications for the phone, or who run the network infrastructure that enables everything a person does on a device.

“Once we get students excited about technology, then we tackle the next challenge, which is helping them understand the paths they can take and what’s possible with a career in STEM.” Corey does that with “Lingo Kits,” provided by STEM Board, that give students real-world STEM tasks to complete—like building a prototype back-up camera for a Tesla.

“It’s incredible to watch the students go from ‘I can’t do that,’ to ‘OK, well if I just do this and then this…’ to ‘Oh wow, I did that’ in the span of just a couple of days,” Corey said.

Corey recalled asking one group of students: Who wants to be an engineer? He said lots of hands went up. Then, when he asked: Who knows someone who is an engineer? No hands went up.

“I had to correct them,” he said. “You know me. I’m an engineer. Now, you know an engineer.”

Corey says that’s precisely the kind of impact he wants to have. He tells the students how he started as a help desk technician, then became a system administrator, then systems engineer, then a program manager. He acknowledges that coding isn’t for everyone, and that’s OK. There’s so much more to STEM beyond software development, and if students can get exposed to STEM activities and get involved in the field now in some way, there will be more open doors for them in the future—whether that involves pursuing higher education, taking a certification course or joining the military as he did.

Corey said he recalled a gentleman who came to speak to his high school class several years ago. The man talked about decision-making and how the decisions young people make can have long-term consequences. Corey said this man’s talk had such a huge impact on him that when he was asked to visit classrooms in St. Louis for GDIT, he called the man up to ask for advice.

“He cried,” Corey said. “He appreciated me calling and telling him the impact he’d had on me. That’s what I want to do for these kids.” Corey said that while he’s the first GDIT speaker to visit St. Louis classrooms, he knows, based on the questions and feedback he’s gotten from peers, that he won’t be the last.

We know it too, Corey.

Thanks for showcasing the “art of the possible” to these students, in more ways than one.

The post Connecting with the Next Generation of STEM Leaders appeared first on Trajectory Magazine.

It’s working.

“It’s hard to explain how a facility makes such a difference. But I’m seeing it now with my own eyes,” said Sue Pollmann, west executive of the NGA, speaking at a panel discussion on the NGA’s integrated acquisition strategy at the GEOINT 2022 symposium.

Pollmann said Moonshot Labs, along with the NGA’s new campus that’s under construction in St. Louis, enable the agency to better embody its ambitions to improve agility and “speed-to-need” by fostering collaboration and relationships.

“The outcomes are really expanded and greater, because we can literally work together with the partners that are coming out of those accelerator cohorts” at Moonshot Labs, Pollman said. “That’s proving to have great results, to the point where we’re actually going to see some of those folks now graduate into full-blown contracts.”

That’s just one way the NGA is reimagining its procurement and acquisition processes. The NGA also is in the process of adding a layer of decision-making rigor by establishing Program Executive Officers (PEOs).

The PEO structure is intended to facilitate “comprehensive and consistent conversation about our acquisition programs. It positions us to be able to articulate with industry what our needs are, as well as describe our programs, our schedules, and our plans,” said Tonya Crawford, deputy chief information officer at the NGA, speaking at the symposium.

The agency hopes that translates to added efficiency and strategic continuity, as well as a natural conversation hub with industry partners. The goal is “to create clear entry points for industry to help us with the solutions that we need, and also for them to talk to us about their interests and partnering with us,” Crawford said.

That last phrase suggests that NGA craves a genuinely collaborative relationship with its external partners, a value that is also evident in the agency’s guidance regarding its requests for proposals (RFPs).

“When the draft RFP comes out, that is not locked in stone. If you’ve got a better way to do things, a better way to contract for things, a better way to solve the mission, let us know,” said Howard Pierce, chief of information, technology, and mission support for the NGA’s Office of Contract Services.

Pierce acknowledged that sharing those ideas could pose proprietary or strategic risks for the agency’s industry partners, but stressed that “unless we can get that dialogue going in those kinds of venues, we’re not going to get where we need to be.”

Another example of collaboration is the NGA’s 2021 “GEOINT CONOPS” roadmap for operations through 2035. For one, the drafting process involved community partners for the first time. Second, the roadmap acknowledges a need for large-scale community participation and cooperation moving forward, in order to achieve desired end states, such as interoperability and an integrated GEOINT operating environment.

NGA leaders hope the roadmap shows industry, academic, and international partners things they “can grab onto and see where we’re trying to go and help us get there, because we’re not going to get there by ourselves,” said Gary Dunow, associate director for enterprise at the NGA.

Beyond the specific initiatives, agency leaders hope that their partners feel—well, like partners, and not vendors.

“I think part of how we [move forward] with agility is building those relationships,” said Celia Hopkins, deputy associate director for capabilities at the NGA. “Yes, we want your ideas. I think it starts with the relationship, too.”

The post The NGA Bets on Relationships to Power its Acquisition Strategy appeared first on Trajectory Magazine.

For longtime members of the space community, the sense of momentum is palpable.

“The space economy is accelerating and diversifying,” said Kevin O’Connell, founder and CEO of Space Economy Rising and former director of the U.S. Office of Space Commerce, during a panel discussion about the business of space at the GEOINT2022 symposium. “We used to talk about remote sensing, we used to talk about communications, navigation, and those are all changing in and of their own right. But now we’re talking about things like food in space, space medicine, the application of quantum computing, and other other technologies as well. It’s a very, very exciting time.”

For all the excitement, there remain plenty of challenges that emerging space-focused companies must address. For example, U.S.-based space startups face higher regulatory and security standards than some peer companies elsewhere, which can make it challenging to compete for investment capital.

“International companies that have satellite services are at an advantage right now, because U.S. companies have more of a labyrinth to fulfill regulatory requirements,” said Lisa Rich, co-founder of investment firm Hemisphere Ventures, as well as of Redmond, Washington-based satellite operator Xplore. She spoke as part of the same panel discussion as O’Connell. “It should be easy for us to be flying. It should be easy for us to go through that process. And what we’re finding is that it’s time-consuming. It is better than it used to be, but it’s onerous.”

O’Connell agreed, challenging the American government to adopt a regulatory approach that incorporates greater recognition of market forces.

“Regulation is a competitive business these days,” said O’Connell. “[Business] seeks the most permissive environment…There are areas where we still do need controls, but we need to harmonize them with our allies. We have to realize that there are other places on earth that will quickly take on new and exciting businesses without the kind of regulatory controls we would like to keep behind.”

Space commerce remains tightly intertwined with government interests. Rich and O’Connell each spoke of an investment climate where funders often look to government contracts to validate technology developed by space startups, even if the contracts are small. And the revenue models of many among the emerging cadre of space companies involve selling to a mix of government and private customers.

Those public-private collaborations, as well as cross-border collaborations, are key to the industry’s future. Government security interests, for example, depend on a high volume of commercial satellites that can provide persistent insight. Robust partnerships will provide greater resilience, both in terms of persistence and also tasking flexibility, said Geoffroy Beaudot, head of Space and Cyber for the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs and Defense Department.

Beaudot pointed to a NATO initiative aimed at creating a virtual constellation of public and private space-based assets as an example of such collaboration.

“They will be able to aggregate all this information in order to provide the right information to the decision-maker at the right time,“ Beaudot said, calling the partnership “a key development in order to bring all this commercial technology together with governmental assets and military systems.”

The story of the new space age is being written by private-sector entrepreneurs, engineers, and investors, as well as their counterparts within government. How that ecosystem matures will play a defining role in the success of the space economy.

The post An Inflection Point for the Space Economy appeared first on Trajectory Magazine.

Nowhere is that more obvious than in the entrepreneurial community, which made the sweetest lemonade out of COVID’s sour lemons. Case in point: Over 4.3 million new business applications were filed in 2020 alone—an increase of 24% over 2019, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which says approximately 380 out of every 100,00 adults became new entrepreneurs each month during the first year of the pandemic.

This surge in start-up activity and entrepreneurship is particularly good news for the GEOINT community, which is as hungry as it’s ever been for new products, services, and solutions from commercial partners who are diverse in size, composition, and capability. It’s such good news, in fact, that entrepreneurship was the star of its own panel discussion Wednesday afternoon in the Young Professionals Hub at GEOINT 2022.

Titled “Entrepreneurship and the Unlikely COVID-Era Start-up Boom,” the 45-minute discussion featured moderator Chitra Sivanandam, chief technology officer at Reinventing Geospatial Inc., alongside three expert panelists: geospatial consultant Jessica King, founder and CEO of GeoSISU; angel investor Nicole Washington, chief transformation officer at the National Geospatial-Intelligency Agency (NGA); and entrepreneur Isaac Zaworski, president of Sectra Inc.

While businesses are used to the concept of “disruption,” what has made the pandemic so ripe for entrepreneurship, panelists suggested, is the concept of “destruction.”

“As an entrepreneur…you’re always trying to search for opportunities to disrupt—how to do things differently and attack a problem through a lens or an angle that hasn’t been done before,” Zaworski said. “Destruction is more of an opportunity that presents itself. You’re always searching for disruption, but a destructive moment is when something massive changes. Something that was status quo is no longer, and it creates opportunity.”

From remote working and at-home grocery delivery to telehealth and online learning, destructive moments were rampant during the pandemic, and entrepreneurs seized them with gusto both inside and outside the GEOINT Community.

But has the moment passed? Or can nascent entrepreneurs still make it big with a winning idea?

Opportunity continues to knock, agreed the panelists, who spent much of their discussion sharing sage wisdom to help GEOINT start-ups succeed. Washington, for example, cautioned entrepreneurs to be careful when they’re raising money; although venture capitalists are a popular source of seed money, she said, their dollars often come with strings attached that might compromise your vision. King, meanwhile, emphasized the importance of networking with fellow entrepreneurs and mentors who can expose you to new ideas and different ways of starting and running a business. Panelists also urged entrepreneurs to clearly define and articulate their value proposition and their competitive advantage—both of which will help them recruit investors, partners, and customers—and to be honest with themselves about their appetite for uncertainty and risk, which are fundamental to the entrepreneurial experience.

Also fundamental to the entrepreneurial experience should be excitement, according to Zaworski. “Entrepreneurship’s not for everyone. It is for many people. If you’re considering the path, just make sure you’re checking in with yourself every day. Make sure you are incredibly excited about what you’re doing on a daily basis. Because you’re going to put in a lot of time and a lot of effort, and you’re going to run into a lot of challenges and hurdles you’re going to have to overcome. You’re going to have to survive.”

The post Activating Entrepreneurship appeared first on Trajectory Magazine.

Space dads everywhere guffawed.

It was a funny introduction to a very serious subject—the use of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) in space to protect U.S. military supremacy on Earth.

“Strategic competitors have tested and are fielding space systems capable of harming U.S. space assets and capabilities,” reported Saltzman, who serves as Space Force deputy chief of space operations for operations, cyber, and nuclear, a position in which he’s observed everything from destructive debris-generating anti-satellite missile tests and RF interference to cyberattacks on space nodes and provocative, on-orbit anti-satellited demonstrations. “Furthermore, these competitors have developed and advanced space-based hybrid capabilities that put our joint force at risk.”

Protecting America’s space-based capabilities and defending U.S. warfighters from those of other countries is the reason the Space Force was established in 2019, according to Saltzman, who said it’s also the reason that Space Force in 2021 became the 18th member of the Intelligence Community (IC)—making it the first new member of the IC since 2006.

“We must continue to make our space-based capabilities more resilient and even more effective, and do so with a sense of urgency,” Saltzman said. “We must not let potential adversaries achieve a strategic advantage in space, or our joint force will struggle to meet military objectives closer to the surface.”

Maintaining space supremacy requires the United States to “examine our current capabilities, our future advances, potential gaps, and our greatest needs,” explained Saltzman, who said space-based commercial ISR data will play an important role in preserving America’s strategic advantage both in space and on the ground.

“We must find ways to meet our bold national security needs and expand our partnerships with the growing sector of commercial GEOINT,” he said. “The Space Force absolutely seeks faster and more effective ways of doing business to leverage the innovation and creativity of that radical-growth commercial space sector.”

Space Force will promote an “expansive, holistic” approach to space-based ISR, according to Saltzman, who said a major goal of Space Force is collaborating with its peers to improve “space-domain awareness” across the IC.

“Historically, we know that ISR from space has taken precedence…Not until very recently have we focused on ISR for space,” explained Saltzman, who said the United States must actively cultivate intelligence about space-based threats in order to prevent and pre-empt them. “To that end, to truly gain space-domain awareness we must have persistence, higher-fidelity sensors, shared data, and the tools to help our partners recognize, analyze, and assess threats…Looking down from space is so important. But with new threats, it’s going to be just as important that we start looking up.”

As it establishes its intelligence organization, Space Force is pursuing five objectives that will drive ISR capabilities and growth, Saltzman said. First, it wants to accelerate its dissemination process to enable fast and easy access to Space Force ISR analysis by decision-makers at all levels. Second, it wants to synchronize ISR operations and processes across the IC and the military services. Third, it wants to advance its ISR expertise through recruitment of top talent. Fourth, it wants to increase partnerships not only with industry, but also with academia, other government agencies, and U.S. partners and allies. Finally, it wants to build “a resilient and effective system of systems” to enable ISR operations.

Of all the ISR outcomes that Space Force will enable through the fulfillment of these and other objectives, perhaps the most impactful will be “attribution,” suggested Saltzman.

“What I mean by [attribution] is the ability to attribute to a specific actor a specific action at a specific time and place,” he said. “I’ve seen firsthand how the ability to attribute activities changes adversary behavior before the activities are even executed. In short, the ability to attribute deters adversaries, or at the very least constrains their behavior.”

The ability to prevent attacks on U.S. space assets by way of attribution can protect U.S. forces in real and significant ways. But it’s just one of many likely scenarios where Space Force can leverage ISR to add value to U.S. national security. As an active and engaged participant in the IC, Saltzman promised that Space Force will be prepared for countless others.

“Our guardians at Space Force stand ready 24/7 to protect America and its interests,” he concluded.

The post IC Makes ‘Space’ for Space Force appeared first on Trajectory Magazine.

Jo Ellen Adkins spent quarantine executing telework agreements, remote-telework agreements, and moving countless training, logistical, and communications systems from the classified, in-office, “high-side” to the declassified, digital, “low-side.” “Within a few years we were able to put more than 70% of our training on the low-side,” said the deputy director of human development at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA). “It wasn’t easy, but we did it.”

What’s notable about NGA’s changes is that it intends to keep many of them permanently in place. “We still have individuals at NGA who are teleworking,” said Adkins. “We still have childcare and are also allowing parents to stay home—that’s going to continue through September and maybe beyond. NGA is acutely aware that we are competing for all of you. What’s going to bring people in? Making sure these people-programs continue regardless of whether there’s a COVID or non-COVID environment.”

Apparently, the companies where Adkins’ fellow panelists work have similar plans. “When the pandemic hit, 20% to 30% of our workforce was able to work remotely, and many of them don’t want to come back,” said Titus Jeffries, Vice President and Division Manager at Leidos. “So we’ve been able to ask them, do you want to come back to the office full time? Do you want to do a hybrid approach? Or do you want to do 100% work-from-home. I think that flexibility has empowered a generation of the workforce to be able to adapt work to their families and lifestyle.”

That said, Jeffries cautioned his young audience against certain pitfalls to working remotely. “Twenty years ago, it was all about the hard skills—no emotional intelligence, no collaboration,” he said. “That whole script has changed. Today soft skills supersede hard skills. You have to be able to communicate in ways besides text.”

This new era of people-focused employment translates to career development, too, with companies taking deliberate strides toward guiding employees along their desired professional paths. “We’re spending more time with folks from a career journey standpoint,” said Jeffries. “Where do you want to go next? Trying to pull out what a person really wants long-term, and then helping them get there through mentorships, advocates, coaches, and training.”

That doesn’t assume sticking with one company, either. John Schieltz loves the analogy of a two-way door. “A one-way door I compare to a back-exit at the mall—you take the wrong door out, and there’s no way to get back in,” said Schieltz, executive programs lead, national security at Amazon Web Services (AWS). “But a two-way door is something you can go in and out of. Today’s careers are closer to that.”

Only the most prepared professionals stand to benefit from this cultural shift. “You’re the CEO of your career,” said Jeffries. “Don’t expect anyone else out there to drive your career. Find out what you like and what you’re good at; do the self-development.”

Schieltz offered up one particularly meaty take-away relating to interview preparation. “Identify the crown jewels of your career, itemize them, and put them in some type of model (I like the ‘CAR’ model of context/actions/results),” he said. “Save it to the cloud, and now you have this portfolio of career-success vignettes that you can bend and tailor to any question you get.”

The post Post-Pandemic Pivot appeared first on Trajectory Magazine.

A group of mapping mavens unpacked the evolution Tuesday morning at GEOINT 2022 during a panel discussion titled “What is a Map?” Led by moderator Nadine Alameh, Ph.D., CEO of the Open Geospatial Consortium, the 45-minute session featured four expert panelists who shared their infectious love for mapping and their mind-bending thoughts about its changing nature: Brig. Gen. William Glaser, head of the Synthetic Training Environment Cross Functional Team at Army Futures Command; Daniela Moody, Ph.D., vice president of artificial intelligence at commercial GEOINT provider Arturo; Ed Parsons, geospatial technologist at Google; and Lee Schwartz, Ph.D., geographer of the United States at the U.S. State Department.

“Map is such a flexible term,” Parsons said at the start of the session. “From historic times of someone writing on a cave—here’s where we’re going to go hunting—to the metaverse of today with mixed reality…map is the term that we use. But it means so many different things.”

The defining feature of maps used to be the compass: a tool with which to judge north, south, east, and west. Now, maps’ signature element is the blue dot, panelists noted. The former is about determining where you’re going; the latter is about understanding where you are.

“That blue dot…indicates the fact that the map is not something that’s passive anymore. It’s something that you interact with,” continued Parsons, who said maps used to convey information exclusively, but now are also a means of collecting it. “The map is changing its contents depending on what we’re doing, but we’re also sharing what we’re doing with the developers of that map in different ways. There’s a virtuous circle. The fact that we’re using a map application will inform other users of that map application [about] what’s going on in a particular area.”

The shift from compass to blue dot brings with it a host of interesting questions and challenges, panelists suggested. The ubiquity of maps, for example, means that mapmakers have to be more cognizant than ever of what the purpose of a given map is, as well as how it will be used and by whom.

“Cartography is as an art, not just a science,” Schwartz explained. “Maps need to be visually compelling as well as providing a lot more information. And when we talk about foundation GEOINT as important for mapping, we also need to realize that’s just one component of a map. There’s so much more above and beyond foundation GEOINT…[that we can use] to enrich the map.”

In fact, modern maps can be enriched with so many features and so much information that one might wonder: Are conventional 2D maps still relevant? The panelists answered with a resounding “yes.”

“There clearly is still a need for simplicity in an increasingly complex world,” said Parsons, who hails from the United Kingdom and said one of his favorite maps is the iconic map of London’s underground transit system, the Tube, which was created by cartographer Harry Beck in 1933. “It’s a perfect example of extracting the complexity of London’s transport network and explaining it very simply. It’s by its nature a 2D map that makes huge changes to the underlying drawing to communicate its core purpose.”

Even more important than simplicity is reliability.

“The race that we’re in as a community is no longer just producing pixels—creating more sets of data—but distilling those into the right insights. With that comes a lot of responsibility,” Moody said. “More and more entities are producing maps, are producing insights, or are producing geospatial information, so…how do we know which information can we trust?”

New mapping opportunities and challenges demand new mapping skills and competencies, panelists indicated. Tomorrow’s GEOINT experts, for example, must be trained to critically evaluate maps for quality and credibility, Parsons said, while Moody emphasized the importance of complementary disciplines like data science and remote sensing.

“We can no longer separate the ability of creating maps from the ability to do [data collection],” Moody said.

And yet, the more maps change, the more important it becomes that mapping stays the same, urged panelists, who noted the importance of preserving analog cartography and navigation skills in case of future technology failure or denial.

“We cannot forget those skills,” concluded Glaser, who promised to emphasize to warfighters—and even to his own children—the importance of the compass in a blue-dot world. “I will continue to…make sure that they understand not just where they’re at, but which way is north.”

The post Mapping Makeover appeared first on Trajectory Magazine.

Christine Abizaid was sworn in as director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in June 2021, amidst the runup to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Her tenure marks a transition for the NCTC.

“Our country’s counterterrorism priorities, while critical, are no longer the driving force of U.S. national security. That’s something we should be really proud of. It’s a credit to the success of our CT community over the last 20 years,” Director Abizaid said during a keynote address at the GEOINT 2022 symposium.

Still, she warned, one major attack could undo much of that progress. “Our CT enterprise must learn to navigate against a persistent and committed terrorist threat, even as the rest of the U.S. national security community turns its attention to other major issues, especially strategic competition. Indeed, today’s threat landscape requires that the United States be agile and capable of deterring all manner of adversary,” said Director Abizaid.

Achieving that level of agility means learning to share CT information with a range of partners that includes federal agencies, state and local authorities, and allied governments, as well as private-sector companies. Director Abizaid pointed to instances when the NCTC shared threat information with U.S. Technology companies as an example of progress, as well as a new application called “aCTknowledge” that allows users across the country to access real-time unclassified intelligence related to terrorist activities. The app rolled out first to federal and military partners, but Director Abizaid said a broader rollout to state and local partners is coming soon.

Director Abizaid described such efforts as “leaning forward to produce products for audiences that don’t live in a top-secret world.”

Expanded data-sharing also places a greater priority on data security. That’s a natural focus for NCTC, given both its CT focus and its nature as an agency meant to facilitate inter-government collaboration.

“Privacy controls and privacy concerns, they have to be built into the design of any technology that we’re delivering,” Director Abizaid said in response to an audience question at the GEOINT 2022 symposium. “We actually swim in a sea of commingled data that’s really important for us at NCTC to make sure that we are segmenting appropriately, we’re minimizing appropriately, we’re handling appropriately. It’s a laborious process, and it can be a very manual process.”

To that end, Director Abizaid said that while NCTC’s compliance regime is among the intelligence community’s most effective, it could benefit from greater efficiency. She pointed to artificial intelligence and machine learning as technologies that could help NCTC more quickly and effectively process large amounts of CT data, including geospatial intelligence.

“Our ability to understand what sits in our databases and connect the dots—that’s going to be critical. And I think AI and ML will allow us to reveal and discover trends,” Director Abizaid said.

The key, she said, is more efficiently converting that sea of data into useful insight.

“Our foundational need [is] being able to structure the data in a way that allows you to process the data in the most effective way. It sounds boring, but it’s really important that we get really clean data, so we can do all the most important things with that data…in terms of real-time operationally relevant information.”

If Director Abizaid succeeds in gaining those insights and securely sharing them with trusted partners, she will have achieved her goal for NCTC as it begins its new era.

“I want NCTC to achieve the intention behind it when it was first formed, which is to be a melting pot for the CT community—so that very naturally, very informally, the way we do business is as a collaborative community,” Abizaid said. “A key focus of mine is making sure we’ve got representation from across the [intelligence community] in a way that really makes us better than our individual agencies alone would perform.”

The post A New Era for American Counterterrorism appeared first on Trajectory Magazine.