GOVERNMENT BUSINESS
Octo | September 09, 2021
Octo, the premier pure-play IT modernization provider for the Federal Government, announced today it has partnered with Dataiku, a platform democratizing access to data and enabling enterprises to build their own path to AI in a human-centric way. The partnership enables Octo to further its commitment to collaborating with customers to provide mission critical solutions in defense, intelligence, health, finance, and law enforcement federal markets.
Dataiku is a back-to-back leader in Gartner's "Magic Quadrant for Data Science and Machine-Learning Platforms." Their Data Science Studio (DSS) is a singular, end-to-end platform that enables mission owners, business analysts, data scientists, and data engineers to work collaboratively in developing and deploying machine and deep learning models. Dataiku was developed for skill-agnostic users who can interact with the software via high-code, low-code, or no-code interfaces. The general purpose platform for data science allows members of a data team to work together across all stages of any data project, including data access, data exploration, data preparation, model development, model deployment, and model monitoring.
Cindy Walker, Vice President of Octo’s Data Science Center of Excellence said, “It’s all about improving outcomes, and to do that, we need to collaborate with our teams and our customers. Partnering with Dataiku allows us to even better deliver innovations and proven approaches to managing and using data and information to enhance the mission.”
Rob Albritton, Senior Director of Octo’s AI Center of Excellence said, “In a field that is historically siloed, Dataiku democratizes data science across teams and various user personas while maintaining security. This is especially important as we work toward making tactical data accessible to soldiers, first responders, and teams in other sectors that depend on the ability of our data scientists to collaborate and find viable solutions.”
Octo CEO Mehul Sanghani stated, “Octo’s culture of collaboration promotes partnerships like we have established with Dataiku. We are exceedingly pleased to be able to offer our customers alternatives in data science solutions to address their unique, complex challenges.”
About Octo
Octo is a technology firm dedicated to solving the Federal Government’s most complex challenges, enabling agencies to jump the technology curve. We don’t just modernize. We create lasting change through best practices that help agencies implement and integrate at-scale next-generation technology and innovation. With a mission and service first mentality, we provide Agile, DevSecOps, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity, Blockchain, Cloud, Open Source, and Data Science solutions, collaborating to solve customers’ pressing problems. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, Octo delivers proven technology vital to the intelligence community and health care, defense, national security, and civilian agencies that directly impact our nation.
About Dataiku
Dataiku is the world’s leading AI and machine learning platform, supporting agility in organizations’ data efforts via collaborative, elastic, and responsible AI, all at enterprise scale. At its core, Dataiku believes that in order to stay relevant in today’s changing world, companies need to harness Enterprise AI as a widespread organizational asset instead of siloing it into a specific team or role.
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IMB Partners | July 30, 2020
IMB Partners made a growth equity investment in Ashburn Consulting LLC ("Ashburn"), a leading Northern Virginia-based information technology consulting firm that specializes in providing network engineering and cybersecurity solutions to federal, state and local governments and commercial clients. The investment commences a long-term partnership between IMB and Ashburn. Ashburn, founded in 2002, provides superior, vendor agnostic engineering and IT architecture solutions and is highly experienced in infrastructure design, development, implementation, and on-going support. The company's capabilities address the full lifecycle of network and security engineering support needs, which results in Ashburn becoming an embedded, long-term partner for its clients.
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GOVERNMENT BUSINESS
Kraken Robotics Inc. | October 25, 2021
Kraken Robotics Inc. , Canada’s Ocean Company™, is pleased to announce that it has signed a Robotics as a Service (RaaS) contract with the Canadian government for testing of Kraken’s ultra-high resolution survey equipment with the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). This $0.5 million contract is funded under the Canadian government’s Innovative Solutions Canada program, and the testing department for this service offering is the RCN’s Fleet Diving Unit Atlantic (FDU-A) based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The RCN has a mandate to develop and maintain an advanced sonar imaging and data storage capability for all three coasts, and to deploy this capability to national and international areas of interest. Under the contract, Kraken will deploy its KATFISH™ towed SAS sonar system and will integrate a Kraken Light Weight SAS (LW-SAS) onboard a Hydroid REMUS 100 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) owned by FDU-A. This contract will be completed by March 31, 2022.
Augmenting the RCN’s Current Capabilities
This contract will provide the RCN FDU-A access to cutting edge technology and high-resolution seabed data. FDU-A uses a number of different seabed imaging sonar solutions for their various mission requirements, including Towed Sonars Systems (typically deployed from a Kingston-class MCDV vessel, with a crew of 40 persons), and Light Weight Sonar Systems (typically deployed from REMUS-class AUVs). Kraken’s RaaS service can augment FDU-A’s existing capabilities, by providing them with significantly better data, at a much lower cost, and leveraging continuously improving capabilities.
The contract involves testing the Kraken RaaS capability in two configurations:
Towed KATFISH™ Synthetic Aperture Sonar (SAS) system, deployed on a Surface Vessel of Opportunity (the R/V Ocean Seeker). This could also be tested onboard an RCN Asset (such as the Kingston-class MCDV). One purpose of the test is to show that in combination with RaaS, vessels of opportunity can also be used at a lower cost and higher availability to augment the RCN's capabilities.
Untethered Light Weight SAS system, deployed on an RCN Underwater Vessel of Opportunity (REMUS 100 AUV), and tested with the KATFISH™ system above. A purpose of this test is to show that RaaS can be quickly added to existing RCN assets, to augment their capabilities.
Benefits to the Navies
Kraken believes its RaaS offering could provide significant benefits to other navies around the world. With Kraken RaaS, navies can access cutting edge technology “as needed”, without concern for equipment obsolescence, life cycle costs, or operator skill fade. As it relates specifically to the RCN, Kraken RaaS offers many advantages:
Both RCN operating bases, MARLANT (Maritime Forces Atlantic) and MARPAC (Maritime Forces Pacific) are mandated to maintain Q-routes (safe passage lanes along the coasts and into designated harbors, of Canadian waters) on an annual basis. These surveys take a significant amount of time with current RCN technology due to image quality and speed of current towed bodies. Kraken’s technology would greatly enhance the image quality and reduce the time of the surveys significantly due to the advance in state-of-the-art technology.
Kraken’s technology can be deployed to assist the RCN in mapping areas of interest ahead of regular exercises and operations, with the image quality required to enable change detection and optimize revisit rates. This has the potential to provide the RCN with a competitive edge for detecting bottom objects in complex seabeds.
Kraken’s technology and service application can augment route survey activities while simultaneously supporting near shore hydrographic mapping and charting requirements on an annual basis with high-definition resolution, freeing up valuable Navy assets for other mission critical functions
CEO Comments
Commenting on this contract, Karl Kenny, Kraken President and CEO noted, “Kraken is excited to be able to offer RaaS to the RCN as an “Early Adopter” to augment existing RCN Route Survey with a Service offering based on the latest SAS technology available. Kraken seeks to offer our Robotics as a Service globally, in particular to other NATO allies, and this contract for the RCN’s evaluation will serve as an excellent reference. The RCN’s objective comparison of the data from our RaaS offering against legacy sonar data will provide demonstrative evidence of the superior image resolution and accuracy of Kraken survey data.”
ABOUT KRAKEN ROBOTICS INC.
Kraken Robotics Inc. (TSX.V:PNG) (OTCQB: KRKNF) is a marine technology company dedicated to the production and sale of software-centric sensors, subsea batteries and thrusters, and underwater robotic systems. The company is headquartered in Newfoundland with offices in Canada, U.S., Germany, Denmark, and Brazil. In July 2021, Kraken acquired PanGeo Subsea, a leading services company specializing in high-resolution 3D acoustic imaging solutions for the sub-seabed. PanGeo with offices in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Kraken. Kraken is ranked as a Top 100 marine technology company by Marine Technology Reporter.
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