NGA director discusses agency’s future with GEOINT AI during DOD IT conference

OMAHA, Nebraska - National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Director VADM Frank Whitworth participated in a fireside chat during the Department of Defense Intelligence Information System Worldwide Conference held Oct. 27-30 in Omaha, Nebraska.

The theme of this year's conference - Integrated Deterrence Through IT Superiority - allowed the director, alongside Defense Intelligence Agency Chief Information Officer Douglas O. Cossa, to discuss GEOINT artificial intelligence, the Joint Mission Management Center and NGA's relationship with the National Reconnaissance Office and Space Force.

Whitworth began by complimenting NGA on facing the challenge of China, as identified by the Secretary of Defense.

"I'm really proud of the team over the past year, the way that we've stayed ahead of some of the occurrences in the South Pacific and South China Sea, and our support of some of the great alliances that occur there, especially maritime domain awareness," Whitworth said.

Whitworth then discussed GEOINT AI and its role in warning, targeting and safety of navigation. He emphasized significant advances with NGA Maven. Maven's state-of-the-art computer vision and AI capabilities are integrated into various analytic workflows to automatically detect, identify, characterize, extract and attribute features and objects in imagery and video.

"NGA Maven is now a program of record that is being employed by real-world combat commanders," said the director. "NGA Maven has made its mark recently in the combination of a graphical user interface that is very agile."

GEOINT AI is a story of scale, explained Whitworth. It can be used to sift through a barrage of data and produce large volumes of computer vision detections.

The tradecraft discussion then turned to advances in computer vision and modeling and digital twins.
"The idea of foundational digital twins is to create a layer, a place where no matter where you are, you have foundational data of the earth that you can count on to move from point A to point B safely," said Whitworth. "Precision and accuracy on a map are not just x and y coordinates. To be really precise, it's all about the z … elevation."

The director provided metrics from NGA's Office of Geography, where analysts have, in the last year, generated 60 years of products.

"At this rate, we believe that by the end of 2025, there should be a mesh of at least 2-meter variety for the world," Whitworth added. "That's a high bar to set, but given the acceleration we're seeing right now, we like what we're seeing."

Whitworth cited the Joint Mission Management Center at NGA Washington as an example of NGA's symbiotic relationships with NRO and U.S. Space Force. At the JMMC, U. S. Space Force operators work side-by-side with NGA personnel to collect and distribute space-based intelligence. NRO is now also included in that space.
"You've got to have a place for people to sit, discuss priorities, set thresholds and then use really good technology," said the director. "And we've got some good technology that combines opportunities with requirements."

As the fireside chat drew to a close, the director circled back to NGA's role in warning and deterrence.

"I hope Americans feel better that they've got NGA on their side, looking to ensure that you're not going to have some sort of vertical escalation," he concluded. "This is the essence of deterrence."

Immediately after the director's fireside chat, NGA Chief Informatoin Officer Mark Chatelainspoke during the Chief Information Officer panel, alongside CIOs from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, DIA, CIA, NSA, Department of State and the Defense Information Systems Agency.

Chatelain discussed topics such as cyber security and the future of the IT workforce.

"From an NGA standpoint, our cyber security operations cell, or CSOC, produces frequent cyber threat alerts," Chatelain said, when asked about how the agency addresses the cyber security threat.

This information is transmitted on a daily basis across the federal government.

"We share these with the DoD and intelligence communities for situational awareness and coordinated countermeasure implementation," Chatelain said. "We have to get this information out so we, collectively as a community, can begin to respond to whatever the threat may be."

Chatelain said some of the products have highlighted scanning and exploitation of attempts against vulnerabilities within agency networks.

Later during the panel, Chatelain discussed the IT workforce's priority.

The agency's IT workforce indicates training is actually one of the most important things to them.

"It's that training, the ability for people to better themselves not only for the short-term, but actually for the long-term … either in upskilling them to be qualified for different types of positions in our organization or actually learn additional skills to better themselves," said Chatelain.

Training creates a sense of belonging within the agency, and that creates job satisfaction, he said. "It's not all about just training our existing workforce, but also we are looking to bring in new and exciting talent into our organization," he added.

Throughout the three-day conference, members of CIO-T hosted an agency booth showcasing a variety of demonstrations and information and offered opportunities for face-to-face engagements. Attendees learned more about Joint Regional Edge Node, Odyssey, the Common Operations Release Environment, the Mobile Awareness GEOINT Environment and AI Strategy and AI GEOINT Enterprise.

NGA experts also participated in daily breakout sessions that allowed attendees to engage with subject matter experts in smaller formats and specialized presentations on JREN, Odyssey and AI Strategy and the AI GEOINT Enterprise.

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