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BigBear.ai Adds ProModel Corporation to Its Toolkit; GovCon Expert Reggie Brothers Quoted
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BigBear.ai Adds ProModel Corporation to Its Toolkit; GovCon Expert Reggie Brothers Quoted

Artificial intelligence and cyber engineering company BigBear.ai has purchased predictive analytics software creator ProModel Corporation.

The Columbia, Maryland-based company said Monday that the acquisition aims to strengthen its appeal in commercial markets due to ProModel’s suite of offerings, including the AutoCAD program.

GovCon Expert Reggie Brothers, CEO of BigBear.ai, explained that ProModel’s client base will also now enjoy the benefits of the former company’s “AI-powered decision support technology.”

“ProModel’s solutions uncover new insights to improve quality and efficiency in manufacturing, distribution, and many other industries, making them a great fit for our commercial strategy,” continued GovCon Expert Brothers, who is also a two-time recipient of the Wash100 Award.

The accretive acquisition follows the company’s December 2020 ProModel Government Services buy, which allowed BigBear to bring their modeling and simulation applications to more federal customers. Now, the companies’ combined forces will expand their private sector scope and lend organizations knowledge about supply chains, market behaviors, equipment maintenance, capacity strategy and process efficiency.

All ProModel partners and staff members will join BigBear.ai’s team.

ProModel maintains a relationship with Datech Solutions, their distributor and Autodesk, a popular software provider. These organizations already help to deliver programs such as AutoCAD to over 500,000 enterprises across the globe.

Jeff Dyer, president of the commercial division at BigBear.ai, says ProModel’s ties to Datech and Autodesk in addition to their accessible software, will enable BigBear and ProModel to reach a wide swathe of customers.

Dyer also remarked the partnership will “allow us to unlock critical new insights for predictive maintenance and process optimization, helping customers achieve efficiencies and responsiveness not previously possible.”

It is predicted that through the acquisition, BigBear.ai will gain hundreds of new clients in upwards of 30 countries. This is part of a new push for private sector business now that the company is an established force in the public sector, where U.S. Department of Defense and intelligence agencies have utilized their programs for years.

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IARPA Seeks Info to Characterize Biomanufactured Materials
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IARPA Seeks Info to Characterize Biomanufactured Materials

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity asks the public for information on ways to characterize the functional, structural and synthesis pipelines of biomanufactured materials.

IARPA said Friday it believes new predictive technologies are needed for national security as the industrial role of biomanufacturing increasingly grows and presents both opportunities and challenges.

Biomanufacturing uses a living organism or its components to create a product and presents the flexibility to produce different kinds of materials. According to IARPA, the technology has the potential to replace 60 percent of traditionally derived material inputs and half of industrial chemical feedstocks relevant to U.S. defense by 2050, but also creates openings that can be used to illegally evade intellectual property laws.

The agency posted a request for information on the SAM.gov platform to gather input on databases, metrics, approaches and methods that can characterize these materials.

Interested parties may electronically submit PDF-formatted responses to IARPA through May 06.

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IPEC Reports Biden Admin’s Approach to Protecting US Intellectual Property
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IPEC Reports Biden Admin’s Approach to Protecting US Intellectual Property

The Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator has provided an overview of the Biden administration’s intellectual property enforcement strategy during fiscal year 2021 in its annual report to Congress.

IPEC detailed the policies enforced across the federal government to defend the U.S. intellectual property against adversarial threats, the White House said Friday.

Specifically, the report tackled coordinated efforts of the departments of Commerce, Defense, Agriculture, Homeland Security, State, Health and Human Services and Treasury, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative and the U.S. Copyright Office.

Among the programs highlighted in the report are the IP training initiative of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service that educates scientists on insider threats and export controls reviews and the Commercial Law Development Program of the Commerce Department that aims to help enhance protection of intellectual property rights in foreign countries.

The report also discussed the Pentagon’s Protecting Critical Technology Task Force established in 2018 to protect the defense industrial base and assess foreign investment and acquisition risks.

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Lt. Gen. Duke Richardson Assigned to Lead AF Materiel Command
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Lt. Gen. Duke Richardson Assigned to Lead AF Materiel Command

Lt. Gen. Duke Z. Richardson, military deputy at the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, has been appointed to lead Air Force Materiel Command.

Richardson will also receive a promotion to general and be assigned at Wright Patterson Air Force Base to command AFMC, the Department of Defense said Wednesday.

He oversees research, development, testing and modernization activities valued at over $60 billion yearly in his current role. The U.S. Air Force officer joined the service in 1983 to serve as an avionics technician and later on underwent officer training.

His military career includes materiel-related assignments for the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center and U.S. Special Operations Command.

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BAE Suppliers Discuss Combat Vehicle Opportunities at Virtual Event
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BAE Suppliers Discuss Combat Vehicle Opportunities at Virtual Event

Over 400 suppliers from the U.S. industrial base discussed their challenges and opportunities with regard to combat vehicle production in a virtual conference hosted by BAE Systems.

The event tackled opportunities that BAE’s combat vehicle supplier base can pursue with customers from the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, and was attended also by congressional representatives, the company said Friday.

Approximately 1,000 suppliers from 45 states compose BAE’s U.S. industrial base for combat vehicle production.

“The work being done by the folks that make up our defense industrial base is critical to our national security,” said Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.

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Patent Lawyer Kathi Vidal Confirmed USPTO Director
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Patent Lawyer Kathi Vidal Confirmed USPTO Director

Kathi Vidal, a managing partner in the Silicon Valley office of law firm Winston & Strawn, was confirmed by the Senate in a voice vote Tuesday to become director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property.

President Joe Biden nominated Vidal to head USPTO in October 2021 and the White House described her as “one of the leading intellectual property lawyers in the country.”

She is known for handling high-profile patent cases that involved complex technology, such such as semiconductors and medical devices, and spent 25 years in private practice as an IP litigator.

“I have seen our intellectual property system at its best: incentivizing research and development that leads to new technologies and improvements to existing technology,” Vidal told senators at a hearing.

“I have also seen that we can do better—that we can work together to build an intellectual property system that is more predictable, reliable and transparent.”

She worked for General Electric and Lockheed Martin as an engineer before joining the legal sector.

Vidal will replace Drew Hirshfeld, who has been performing the duties of commerce undersecretary for IP and USPTO director since 2021.

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Air Force’s Unfunded Priorities List Includes $921M for 7 More F-35s
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Air Force’s Unfunded Priorities List Includes $921M for 7 More F-35s

The U.S. Air Force submitted to Congress its unfunded priorities list worth $4.6 billion, including $921 million for seven additional F-35 fighter jets, Air Force Magazine reported Friday.

The service requested to procure 33 F-35s in its fiscal year 2023 proposed budget, down from a total of 48 aircraft units it bought in FY 2022 and down from 60 jets in FY 2021.

“The Air Force unfunded list would add just seven F-35 jets, less than half of what’s needed to match the 48 requested in each of the past three years,” said Bruce Wright, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and president of the Air & Space Forces Association.

“Indeed, in 2020 and 2021, Congress increased the Air Force request from 48 to 60 and we would urge lawmakers to do the same in 2023,” added Wright.

Other unfunded priorities in the Air Force’s list are weapons systems sustainment, EC-37B Compass Call electronic warfare aircraft and hypersonic testing with F-15s, F-16s and B-52s.

The Space Force’s FY 2023 unfunded priorities list requested $327 million in funds for classified programs, $200 million for missile warning and missile tracking systems and $112 million for weapons systems sustainment efforts.

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Solarium Commission Co-Chairs Ask Biden to Retain Cyber Authorities in 2018 Presidential Memo
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Solarium Commission Co-Chairs Ask Biden to Retain Cyber Authorities in 2018 Presidential Memo

The co-chairs of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission called on the White House to maintain the cybersecurity authorities outlined in a 2018 national security presidential memorandum, FCW reported Friday.

Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., the commission’s co-chairs, wrote a letter to President Joe Biden saying the NSPM-13 memo expanded the Department of Defense’s authority to approve defensive and offensive cyber operations.

The lawmakers said the memo helped “limit Russian cyber-enabled information operations” during the 2018 midterm elections and presidential election in 2020.

They urged the administration not to make any major changes to the memo that provides the government a more agile process to decide on offensive cyber activities that seek to protect the country’s critical infrastructure.

“Any effort to alter and possibly weaken NSPM-13 signals to our adversaries a lack of credible willingness to use offensive cyber capabilities which undermines the credibility of our deterrent,” the letter reads.

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Appeals Court Overturns Nationwide Injunction on Federal Employee Vaccine Mandate
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Appeals Court Overturns Nationwide Injunction on Federal Employee Vaccine Mandate

A federal appeals court in New Orleans on Thursday upheld the White House’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement for federal employees in a 2-1 ruling, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The decision of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed a ruling by a federal district court judge in Texas against the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate in January.

The appeals court ruled that unvaccinated employees seeking to avoid discipline should file their complaints with the Merit Systems Protection Board instead of the courts since the mandate was an employment action that the Civil Service Reform Act covers.

In mid-January, the Supreme Court blocked the U.S. government’s COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirement for large private businesses but allowed the administration to implement a vaccine mandate for over 10 million health care workers whose facilities take part in Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The White House also ordered a vaccination mandate for federal contractors but faced a legal setback in December after a district court judge in Georgia decided to prohibit the administration from implementing the requirement.

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Air Force’s AWACS Aircraft Completes First Airborne EW Data Transmission, Updates
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Air Force’s AWACS Aircraft Completes First Airborne EW Data Transmission, Updates

An E-3G Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft of the U.S. Air Force conducted in-flight data transmissions and an in-air update for the first time during a recent proof-of-concept test in Florida.

The service branch said Thursday the electronic warfare milestone helped showcase the ability of the E-3G aircraft to adapt to new threats and complete mission data reprogramming in a short period on future battlefields.

During the test, the E-3G operated by the AWACS Combined Test Force used its Internet Protocol Enabled Communications satellite communications system to transmit EW data to the 36th Electronic Warfare Squadron, which sent back analyzed and corrected data to the aircraft within an hour.

The team then used the newly received information to update its electronic support measures database using a mission computing system onboard the aircraft.

“The next step is to build on this concept within the E-3G community and work with other airborne platforms to use IPEC and existing datalinks to provide in-air updates for other platforms,” shared Lt. Col. Dameion Briggs, commander of the 605th Test and Evaluation Squadron, Detachment 1.

Based on the Boeing 707 aircraft, E-3G uses an externally mounted radar to provide airborne early warning, command and control to the Air Force.

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