CYBERSECURITY
Accrete | November 18, 2022
Accrete has secured a five-year multi-million dollar Production Operational Technology (OT) software licensing contract from the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) for Argus™, Accrete's highly configurable, dual-use open-source threat detection AI software solution, worth tens of millions of dollars. The exact contract value and deal terms cannot be disclosed per government guidelines.
Argus continuously analyzes the open-source web to predict anomalous and nefarious behavior hidden in plain sight. Argus performs work that would otherwise require thousands of intelligence analysts at an estimated cost of hundreds of millions of dollars a year in areas critical to national security such as supply chain risk management, vulnerability research, intellectual property theft, social media intelligence, insider threat detection, and anti-money laundering. Argus reads, understands, and learns from an exploding universe of dynamic, unstructured data, including news, blogs, think tank publications, strategy papers, social media chatter, financial filings, microprocessor manuals, and binaries in multiple languages. The AI software automatically extracts, normalizes, and maps relationships between entities, models influence, and surfaces behavioral anomalies indicative of potentially illicit activity that are too complex for humans to identify.
"We are at the dawn of an entirely new type of conflict, driven by rapid advances in artificial intelligence. Whereas nuclear proliferation threatened entire populations, AI proliferation individualizes warfare by manipulating targeted groups through digital means. Using AI, bad actors can propagate disinformation to exploit ignorance and weaken civil society causing billions of dollars of damage to the U.S. economy, As a prime defense contractor licensing configurable dual-use AI software directly to the DoD, Accrete is in a unique position to scale its business with the Defense, Intelligence, and Special Operations communities, as well as other government and enterprise customers, and bolster national security as well as intelligence competitiveness in previously unimaginable ways."
-Prashant Bhuyan, Founder, CEO, and Chairman of Accrete, Inc.
In 2020, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), which former Defense Secretary Ashton Carter established in collaboration with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt to strengthen U.S. national security by accelerating DoD adoption of commercial technology, awarded Accrete with an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) Prototype contract after Accrete outperformed 65 other companies in a competitive review. The DoD accepted the Argus prototype within 15 months, and Accrete worked closely with the DIU and the DoD to transition the OTA Prototype contract into a first-of-its-kind multi-year Production OT AI software licensing deal.
William Wall, who leads Accrete’s federal sales subsidiary, Accrete AI Government, and formerly served as a U.S. Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel and with the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), said, "We are extremely excited to announce this award, especially as this is the first production OTA that our DoD customer has ever awarded. There are very few start-up technology companies that successfully navigate the extremely challenging OTA process through prototype acceptance and transition into a multi-year production OT software licensing agreement. Our success is a testament to the efficacy, scalability, and configurability of our AI technology and, more importantly, to our employees' relentless focus on providing solutions that are tightly aligned with end-user requirements. As we continue to scale, Accrete looks forward to providing its growing customer base with powerful dual-use AI solutions that not only drive efficiency through the automation of analytical work but also produce mission-critical insights beyond human capacity.”
Zachary Smith, Accrete AI Government’s Program Manager and retired special agent who spent most of his 23-year Air Force career focused on countering human, technical, and cyber-based threats, observed, "Based on Argus' blazing speed and scale, in seconds, analysts will be able to research and visualize complex relationships that would have taken at least a month of steady research and annotation. Within the framework of the DoD's acquisition risk review process, Argus will enable supply chain risk analysis to be more efficient and effective while delivering enhanced value at a lower cost per insight."
Accrete's continuously learning AI technology enables the templatization of analytical workflows. Templates such as Argus for Threat Detection learn from sparse data and are configurable for use cases including supply chain influence, social media intelligence, reverse engineering, and logistics disruption for both government and commercial customers. In addition to helping the DoD predict bad actors that may be intentionally obscuring identities to influence the supply chain, Argus has also been enabling the U.S. Air Force to reverse engineer binaries from microprocessor manuals to detect vulnerabilities in firmware.
Accrete’s dual-use AI solutions have also been proven in industry, including media and entertainment companies automating talent scouting to predict emerging talent from social chatter; insurance brokers automating lead generation to find the shortest path to the hottest lead; private equity and venture firms automating pitch deck review through smart table extraction; and automobile dealerships automating the writing of marketing content.
About Accrete:
Accrete's mission is to create AI so powerful that it amplifies human reasoning and enables government entities and commercial enterprises to grow in previously unimaginable ways. Accrete, founded in 2017, delivers configurable dual-use AI solutions that automate complex analytical work for both government and enterprise customers with a focus on defense, intelligence, and cybersecurity. Accrete has 128 employees globally and is headquartered in Lower Manhattan with offices in Alexandria, Va. and Wellesley, Mass.
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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY
SuccessKPI | December 12, 2022
SuccessKPI, Inc., a cloud-native contact center customer experience insight and action platform provider, today announced that they have achieved FedRAMP authorization at a moderate impact level through the Joint Authorization Board (JAB). FedRAMP (Federal Risk Authorization Management Program) is a United States federal government program providing a standardized methodology for security assessment, authorization, and monitoring of cloud products and services. The JAB provides authorization for certified cloud platforms for use by government agencies.
"SuccessKPI is an essential part of our cloud-based Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) analytics offerings. Their suite of AI and ML powered solutions help us collaborate with our partners to drive operational efficiencies and improve the citizen experience."
-Andy Beamon, Senior Vice President, Total Experience Technologies, Maximus.
Maximus is a leader in government customer engagement center practices, offering omni-channel technologies and professional consulting services to improve the customer experience through automation and operational performance. Maximus moves people forward and enables successful mission outcomes.
As agency missions continue to require increased levels of service for citizens, faster decision making, and decisive action on the front lines, the SuccessKPI platform brings a full suite of tools to meet these challenges.
The SuccessKPI platform combines a business intelligence layer, data lake architecture, speech and text analytics, quality management, and automation tools specially designed for large customer engagement centers.
"We are delighted to continue to expand our partnership with Maximus to support government digital transformation, FedRAMP authorization serves as further validation of our joint commitment to our Federal customers."
-David Rennyson, President and CEO of SuccessKPI.
About SuccessKPI:
SuccessKPI is a revolutionary on-demand experience analytics software provider enabling organizations to utilize artificial intelligence and automation to improve business outcomes and transform customer experiences. SuccessKPI's insight and action platform removes the obstacles that agents, managers, and executives encounter in delivering exceptional customer service. We are trusted by some of the world's largest government, BPO, financial, healthcare, and technology contact centers in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.
About Maximus:
As a leading strategic partner to governments across the globe, Maximus helps improve the delivery of public services amid complex technology, health, economic, environmental, and social challenges. With a deep understanding of program service delivery, acute insights that achieve operational excellence, and an extensive awareness of the needs of the people being served, our employees advance the critical missions of our partners. Maximus delivers innovative business process management, impactful consulting services, and technology solutions that provide improved outcomes for the public and higher levels of productivity and efficiency of government-sponsored programs.
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EMERGING TECHNOLOGY,GOVERNMENT BUSINESS,CYBERSECURITY
Carahsoft | January 05, 2023
Carahsoft Technology Corp., the government's trusted IT solutions provider, is now an AWS Federal Distributor for Dell Technologies Data Protection solutions in the AWS Marketplace, an organized digital catalog that customers can use to buy, find, manage, and deploy third-party data, software, and services to build solutions and run businesses on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Customers in the U.S. public sector have easy access, flexible pricing terms, streamlined billing, rapid deployment, and license management thanks to AWS Marketplace. The list consists of Dell data protection options such as Dell APEX Backup Services, Dell PowerProtect Data Manager, and Dell PowerProtect Cyber Recovery.
Carahsoft is a Dell Federal Distributor, AWS Marketplace Partner, and AWS Federal Distributor for Data Protection solutions such as:
Dell APEX Backup Services
Dell PowerProtect Data Manager
Dell PowerProtect Cyber Recovery
Carahsoft, as a Dell Federal Distributor, collaborates with a variety of AWS Distributors, Dell-certified resellers, and managed service providers to create a comprehensive cloud solution that includes professional, migration, and support services, as well as AWS products and services.
Carahsoft's technology portfolio provides the means to buy a vast array of cloud-based solutions that securely facilitate cloud-based modernization. Carahsoft and its resellers continue to be committed to enabling government clients with the extensive capabilities of Dell's solutions. With Dell Data Protection Solutions and Amazon Web Services (AWS), U.S. federal customers now have an extra option to support government procurement.
About Carahsoft
Carahsoft is the most trusted provider of government IT solutions, combining technological knowledge with a comprehensive grasp of the government procurement process, which assists public sector enterprises in selecting and implementing the most cost-effective solution. Carahsoft is the largest government partner, operating as the government's master aggregator for many of its best-of-breed suppliers and delivering value for a vast ecosystem of system integrators, IT manufacturers, resellers, and consultancy partners.
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