Long Provides Blueprint for NGA Modernization #geoint2011

Letitia Long, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, provided a four-point plan for making her vision a reality. Last year at the GEOINT conference she emphasized that she wanted to put the power of geospatial intelligence in the hands of more users. This year she updated the GEOINT Symposium audience with the progress that the agency has made. The four elements of the plan are:

CONTENT - The goal is to expose 100% of the content within the agency and make it discoverable. Any source material,  commercial and NRO imagery; foundation data, whether it is spatial or aspatial in nature ... Whatever is in the analyst's shoebox and especially finished product she wants posted on NGA website.

OPEN IT ENVIRONMENT - Long wants an environment that is two way where users can contribute to the CONTENT environment as well.

CUSTOMER SERVICE - Long emphasized that it is all about the user experience.  "We are a full service organizations; we understand the user's footprint and can anticipate the needs of our customers; we need an open IT environment to expose all that content," she said. "We will always be embedded with our mission partner; but increasingly our mission partners are GIS-savvy. We encourage it. For users needing assisted service they can enter into a chat with an analyst that helps the mobile force in certain challenges, what Long calls proactive assisted service.

ANALYTICS DEPTH - Long emphasized that when content is easily accessible and the user is being served, then the NGA can get to the deeper analytics. Long said that over 100 applications for mobile use were being developed and she demonstrated an iPad app developed by NGA to help disaster response team.

National Reconnaissance Office Wants to Push More Imagery to Warfighter #geoint2011

Bruce Carlson,  director of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), is a serious manager on a mission to drive down costs and push intelligence to the warfighter.  The NRO is celebrating its 50th year as an agency, a strange anniversary since the agency only became to be known publicly just a few years ago. The NRO is one of the U.S.'s most secretive agencies and deploys the nation's spy satellites.

The agency has launched six satellites in seven months, a feat unmatched before in the agency's history and intends launching four more soon. But Carlson said at the outset of his presentation how important he feels his responsibility to use taxpayer money wisely. In an era of increasing budget cuts, the NRO is watching its dollars. The NRO, despite its size, was one of the largest donors to the last budget cut said Carlson. He explained that he attributes the efficiencies to the way his agency manufacturers satellites. "Though we cut a great deal of money (in the latest round of U.S. budget cuts), we didn't have to sacrifice any of our core capabilities," said Carlson.

But the theme of this year's GEOINT is "integrated intelligence" and Carlson wanted to make sure that he is doing his part to put information in the hands of more people. Carlson said that he has several integrated intelligence programs in development and that these "joint collaboration cells" have been certified by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Carlson believes that his agency can move the delivery of intelligence far from the point of acquisition all the way to the warfighter. He said that 95% of the geointelligence produced produce for NGA is classified at the "secret" level. That is, the bulk of information collected is not hard to deliver; and yet only 5% of soldiers have direct access to these data and Carlson wants to change this situation.

One solution is moving to a cloud environment but there are challenges. "The biggest impediment to moving to cloud is the legacy equipment that was built in a stovepipe; they were designed that way; but over time, when you go to many different systems, you've created a mound of people and systems that are hard to maintain…but I think it's doable," said Carlson.

In summary, Carlson said that the gap between the technological advantage that the U.S. has with other nations is huge. "What I am worried about is other countries going  after us and ... people exploiting this as one  of our Achilles heels," he said.