San Antonio, Texas —The United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) yesterday announced the 2017 recipients of its annual Awards Program. Award winners were recognized on the main stage at USGIF’s GEOINT 2017 Symposium, taking place June 4-7, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center.
The USGIF Awards Program annually recognizes the exceptional work of the geospatial intelligence tradecraft’s brightest minds and organizations that are pushing the community forward. Award winners are nominated by their colleagues and selected by the USGIF Awards Subcommittee.
“Unwavering commitment to service, inspired innovation, academic rigor, and discipline are just some of the words that define the exceptional accomplishments of this year’s awardees,” said Kevin Jackson, USGIF Awards Subcommittee Chair. “Their accomplishments will have lasting effects on our nation and the world.”
The 2017 USGIF Award winners are:
Academic Achievement Award:
DIRSIG Development Team, Rochester Institute of Technology
The Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing Image Generation (DIRSIG) tool has been under continuous development at Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) for more than 30 years. Numerous government agencies and contractors use this end-to-end simulation tool for system engineering research including sensor performance modeling for phenomenological studies. It is also used as a test bed for exploitation algorithm development and evaluation. Recently, the DIRSIG development team made tremendous advances with DIRSIG5, which will enable large-scale simulation of a wide variety of remote sensing systems with dramatically reduced simulation timelines.
Community Support Achievement Award:
Dyah Goodman and Michael B. Mosteller, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA)
Goodman and Mosteller are recognized for championing small businesses at NGA. Utilizing RFIs and hosting more than 400 attendees at NGA’s EMERALD Industry Day, the duo sought small business partners to provide more innovative and affordable systems engineering and technical assistance support to the agency. At $849 million, EMERALD is NGA’s largest small business set-aside ever. As a result, NGA retained expertise provided by the large business partners while allowing small business talent to be integrated into the agency like never before.
Government Achievement Award:
NGB-J2 DAART Development Team, National Guard Bureau
The Domestic Operations Awareness and Assessment Response Tool (DAART) is a web-based, enterprise level GEOINT capability designed, developed, and operationalized by the National Guard Bureau Joint Intelligence Directorate in partnership with the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command. DAART brings GEOINT to the operational community through a whole of government approach. The tool provides imagery, video, geospatial information, C2, and more to teams at the federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal levels. It offers collaboration within the interagency incident awareness and assessment community supporting National Guard civil missions within the U.S. DAART brings GEOINT to first responders and decision-makers at all levels of government.
Industry Achievement Award:
SpyMeSat Team, Orbit Logic
The SpyMeSat team at Orbit Logic developed, deployed, and continues to enhance and maintain the SpyMeSat mobile app, which is available for free download via the Apple and Google Play stores. SpyMeSat is also available for download by authorized government users via NGA’s GEOINT App Store. This groundbreaking mobile app has to date been downloaded 82,000 times. It is the first mobile app to provide notifications and dynamic display of overhead imaging satellites, including details on system capabilities. Additionally, it’s the first mobile app to provide on-demand commercial satellite archive imagery downloads, and the first to support the tasking of commercial remote sensing satellites.
Military Achievement Award:
Canadian Armed Forces
In December 2016, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) deployed the Unclassified Remote-sensing Situational Awareness (URSA) system to the Middle Eastern AOR under Operation FOUNDATION. The innovative addition of a near real-time ship detection capability allows the system to support CAF and coalition maritime operations by sharing with the region’s combined maritime forces and U.S. Central Command. The result is an enhanced maritime common operating picture in previously dark areas of interest, improved situational awareness for deployed commanders, and cross-cueing of space, air, and seaborne assets. URSA is a force multiplier highlighting the effective operational use of space-based maritime domain awareness.
Learn more about the USGIF Awards Program and past award recipients.
About USGIF
USGIF is a nonprofit educational foundation dedicated to promoting the geospatial intelligence tradecraft and developing a stronger GEOINT Community with government, industry, academia, professional organizations, and individuals who develop and apply geospatial intelligence to address national security challenges. USGIF achieves its mission via its strategic pillars: Build the Community | Advance the Tradecraft | Accelerate Innovation.
For more information, please visit www.USGIF.org and follow USGIF on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
