Staying Four Steps Ahead: Understanding and Predicting the Behaviour of Adversaries

UPDATES

September 30, 2019

Attachment 5 has been added. The document contains questions and answers related to the Call for Proposals.

September 24, 2019

Attachment 4 has been added. The document contains questions and answers related to the Call for Proposals.

September 12, 2019

Attachment 3 has been added. The document contains questions and answers related to the Call for Proposals.

August 26, 2019

Updates were made to the form “Attachment 1 – Electronic Proposal Submission Form”. Bidders are to use the “Attachment 1 – Electronic Proposal Submission Form_Rev_01” document for proposal submission.

--------------------------------------------------------

INTRODUCTION

This Challenge notice is issued under the Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) Program Call for Proposals (CFP) Call 003 (W7714-196962).

Please refer to the main solicitation documents which contain the process for submitting a proposal.

--------------------------------------------------------

HOW TO APPLY

Step 1: 

Read the Challenge notice in its entirety.

Step 2: 

Read the Call for Proposals (CFP) and any associated attachments.

Step 3: 

Download and complete Attachment 1 – Electronic Proposal Submission Form, found below. If you have technical difficulties downloading the form, please see Attachment 2 – Important Information below.

Step 4:

Follow the submission instructions listed in Part 2 – Bidder Instructions of the CFP. Please allow sufficient time to register and submit the completed form before the Challenge tender notice closing date.

Requests to open an epost Connect Conversation are to be sent to DND.IDEaS-IDEeS.MDN@forces.gc.ca with the bid solicitation number at least five business days prior to the closing date of the Challenge tender notice. Follow the instructions that will be provided by email and submit your Electronic Proposal Submission Form by using the opened epost Connect Conversation.

Important: To avoid last minute technical difficulties, that could delay your submission, ensure that Part 2 – Bidder Instructions and Part 3 – Proposal Preparation Instructions are followed carefully. Late submissions will not be accepted.

--------------------------------------------------------

MAXIMUM FUNDING AND PERFORMANCE PERIOD

Multiple contracts could result from this Challenge.

The individual maximum contract funding available under Competitive Projects - Component 1a is up to $200,000 CAD (excluding applicable taxes) for a maximum performance period of up to 6 months.

This disclosure is made in good faith and does not commit Canada to contract for the total approximate funding.

--------------------------------------------------------

CHALLENGE DETAILS

Challenge Statement

The Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces (DND/CAF) are looking for innovative solutions to support Activity-Based Intelligence in order to assist analysts to understand and predict the behaviour and movement of entities in real time.

Background and Context

Activity-Based Intelligence (ABI) is a methodological framework for analyzing data sources. It is used to discover correlations, resolve unknown-unknowns, develop knowledge, drive data collection and make inferences based on having access to large data sets and large sets of observations originating from different but complementary data sources. Given the volume of data available, analysts can spend excessive time searching for data. In order to keep a step ahead of one’s adversaries, speed and accuracy are vitally important. New data driven automated tools, techniques and approaches are needed to supplement (not supplant) the work of Analysts by supporting their ability to filter data, automatically detect patterns, and test hypotheses.

There are several steps in the process. Before data can be aggregated, managed and exploited, it has to extract the geospatial and temporal information. All actions take place at a time and location in physical space. Algorithms are needed to extract spatiotemporal information from data sources when it is available and to rapidly and accurately infer missing information. The next step involves data fusion. Multiple and simultaneous sources of data are often needed to describe the activities of entities across time and space. Data must be integrated in order to establish context and support advanced spatiotemporal analysis. The goal is to build models of potential outcomes, anticipate what may happen and why in order to support decisions, such as when to forestall an anticipated event or action of an adversary.

Desired Outcomes

Develop and apply new and innovative tools, techniques and approaches to support real or nearly real-time ABI. Innovators must choose a problem that is deemed relevant to defence and security for which archival and real-time data sets can be accessed, aggregated, managed and exploited by the innovator.

The overall objective of the Challenge is to detect activities of interest, discover new activities of interest and to anticipate events or actions, by minimally aggregating geospatial and time information.

The desired outcomes of the challenge include, but are not limited, to the following:

• Ability to derive timely, predictive insights from the data set with respect to the problem;
• Ability to detect patterns and infer activities of interest;
• Means of rapidly pulling existing geospatial and date/time stamped data from all sources when it is available as part of the meta-data, and rapidly inferring data that is missing;
• Ways of simplifying the task of filtering massive amounts of data from multiple sources;
• Ability to combine and aggregate a minimum of three (3) different data sources and formats;
• Ability to identify and incorporate at least three (3) additional variables of interest for analysis;

Supplementary Information

Innovators must identify a real-world problem of interest that is relevant to defence and security for which large datasets can be readily accessed. No further information will be provided to applicants by DND/CAF.

.Innovators are asked to submit solution proposals involving data that will maximize their ability to demonstrate their capabilities.

The following are limited examples of problem areas that innovators might choose to focus on:

• Sovereignty concerns such as illegal fishing, smuggling, migrant ships, Arctic incursions;
• Traffic accident prediction;
• Natural disasters;
• Predictors of political instability and political violence, etc.

--------------------------------------------------------

ENQUIRIES

All Challenge-related enquiries must be submitted in writing to:

TPSGC.PAIDEES-APIDEAS.PWGSC@tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca

Enquiries must be submitted no later than 10 calendar days before the Challenge notice closing date. Enquiries received after that time may not be answered.

For more information about the IDEaS program, Bidders can visit the IDEaS website.