Colorado Springs, Colorado, Nov. 17, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On November 9th, 2023, The Catalyst Accelerator team hosted a highly successful on-site demonstration day at Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation (CCTI). The event attracted over 125 attendees eager to meet the 6 cohort companies and gain insight into their cutting-edge, dual-use technology solutions. In attendance were Air Force, Space Force, Navy, and other Government personnel. Additionally, industry leaders, investors, and those curious about where the U.S. is heading with AI/ML technology were in attendance as well.
The AI/ML for Space and Maritime Applications cohort was the 12th Accelerator facilitated by CCTI, and the first joint Accelerator between the Space Force and Navy. The Catalyst Accelerator team was thrilled to welcome several new sponsors into their support network to include Kratos, who was the proud sponsor of Demo Day, and Fulcrum Wealth Consulting of Raymond James, who served as the generous Cohort Sponsor for the cohort companies. The problem statement for this cohort was focused on how the United States Space Force and United States Navy might introduce commercial capabilities to innovate operational mission environments with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The cohort companies were chosen for their technology and business readiness from a pool of over 30 applicants and began their Accelerator experience on August 22nd, 2023. Capt Monica King, Government Lead for the Catalyst Accelerator, had the pleasure of working closely with the 6 cohort companies over their 3-month Accelerator journey. She explained, "Working with such brilliant innovators who are committed to advancing national security capabilities was thrilling! It widened my perspective on how the DoD can leverage industry experts to deliver what's needed to our Airmen and Guardians. Small businesses are actively developing cutting-edge technology to transform how we approach potential threats. With their aid, we can continue to achieve the impossible."
Over the course of the Accelerator, the companies were guided by the following subject matter experts: Government Sherpas and end-users, enabling them to better understand Government space needs; business experts, helping them pivot their technology and corporate posture to position themselves well in the Government market; and Commercial Sherpas (Deloitte, Kratos, Leidos, Lockheed Martin, L3Harris, and Two Six Technologies), helping them step into the Government arena with advice, consulting, and key contact introductions within the Government and Commercial sectors.
One of these subject matter experts, Dr. Luis Rodriguez, former U.S. Navy PEO IWS S&T Liaison, asserted, “The Program Executive Office Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) relies on the technical innovations of America’s small business entrepreneurs and expansion of the industry base to best support the U.S. Navy’s mission. AI/ML is an area of particular interest as the future operating environment increases in complexity. These technologies have a multitude of use cases including but not limited to improving multi-domain real-time situation awareness, improving the kill chain in multi-target scenarios, optimizing logistic operations, and accelerating acquisition. The joint U.S. Space Force and U.S. Navy Accelerator provided a unique opportunity to hasten the involvement of small business enterprises with relevant AI/ML commercial technologies into the national security ecosystem. I hope the cohort companies will be increasingly motivated to become trusted partners and help accelerate AI enabled capabilities in support of the warfighter.”
Demo Day was the culmination of the AI/ML for Space and Maritime Applications Accelerator, and the final product of the cohort’s diligence, the re-imagining of their technology, and the shifting of their business model to fit the new customer – U.S. Space Force and U.S. Navy. Their innovative capabilities have the potential to revolutionize these industries, offering enhanced competencies and efficiency. Moreover, the outstanding messages from the keynote speakers, Col Rhet Turnbull, Deputy Director, Space Systems Integration Office, and Angela Falcini, Program Manager at the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, allowed participants to gain a deeper understanding of the transformative power of AI/ML in space and maritime applications. Overall, the event provided an invaluable opportunity for attendees to network, engage with the cohort companies, and explore potential collaborations.
For more information about the Catalyst Accelerator and its AI/ML for Space and Maritime Applications cohort, please visit https://catalystaccelerator.space/cohort_page/ai-ml-for-space-and-maritime-applications/.
Cohort companies included:
Data2 (Data Squared) (Wilmington, Delaware) At Data Squared USA Inc, our mission is to revolutionize data analysis through cutting-edge technology and expertise in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLM). By unlocking valuable insights from millions of unstructured data sources through the application of knowledge graphs, we build ontologies that empower organizations to make informed decisions that go beyond traditional quantitative analysis. Our focus lies in developing efficient Machine Learning Operations (MLOps) pipelines and providing novel solutions that leverage the potential of unstructured data for impactful outcomes.
Duality Systems (Monument, Colorado) Duality Systems focuses on business optimization in four core areas supported by PhD-level expertise: Operations Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science, and Decision and Risk Analysis. Our scheduling product, Balance Scheduler, uses AI-based algorithms to produce efficiencies of scale, provide better solutions that can ingest more variables and potential outcomes near-instantly, and drive a far better user and organizational experience. It can be applied to personnel, operations, and logistics. It creates the conditions for more informed decisions, larger decision windows, and efficient long term strategic planning as well as shaping long-term risk mitigation and decision support strategies within the most complex environments.
Exosite (Minneapolis, Minnesota) Exosite provides off the shelf products and services to Industrial OEMs and other organizations that benefit from collecting data from equipment, analyzing that data, and taking action based upon the data. Exosite has worked with hundreds of customers since its founding in 2009 with a current focus on organizations providing maintenance and services to high value equipment. Exosite’s software offers a low code experience, is highly configurable, and offers flexible integrations with 3rd party systems without requiring software development expertise.
Precursor SPC (Seattle, Washington) Precursor SPC’s vision is to ensure continuous global superiority in space operations through accurate and timely information advantage, distribution, and execution. Precursor is developing a first-of-a-kind AI/ML Space Weather Nowcasting and Forecasting platform, the only solution available today that provides real-time high resolution 4D representation of the actual Space environment and delivers on-demand actionable Space Weather information for military, civilian and commercial operations. Precursor’s Nowcasting refers to forecasting current and near-future events based on real-time rather than historical data or physics-based models. Precursor’s Nowcasting is based on a high-fidelity representation of the actual Space environment and is the foundation for Forecasting. Precursor’s real-time Space Weather Nowcasting and Forecasting delivers unmatched capabilities for public safety and national security Use Cases.
R-DEX Systems, Inc. (Woodstock, Georgia) R-DEX Systems, Inc. develops and deploys cutting edge Artificial Intelligence (AI), robotics, and advanced sensor solutions for mission critical systems. Our vision is to bring AI out of experimental settings and into operational environments. As a leading innovator of advanced AI systems for the Department of Defense, R-DEX has built efficient AI and machine learning operational pipelines and services to support the development and deployment of trusted and generalizable AI technologies. This has resulted in a portfolio of AI products that span multiple sensor modalities for a wide range of applications in Aided/Automatic Target Recognition (Ai/ATR), Electronic Warfare (EW), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), radar, wireless communications, and autonomous systems.
RS21 (Albuquerque, New Mexico) RS21 is a data science company that uses AI, data engineering, design, and software development to create AI/ML solutions for NNSA, DHS, and DOD. Our team brings deep expertise in predictive model development, risk and threat modeling, natural language processing, and data governance and standards. RS21 has built a proven AI-powered tool that performs fault detection and prediction to safeguard critical equipment and the important functions they perform.
About Catalyst Accelerator
The Air Force Research Laboratory Space Vehicles Directorate and United States Space Force’s Catalyst Accelerator is a NewSpace-focused defense and national security industry accelerator, headquartered on the Catalyst Campus for Technology and Innovation (CCTI, a Colorado 501(c)3) in Colorado Springs, Colorado. CCTI is a collaborative ecosystem where industry, small business, entrepreneurs, startups, government, academia, and investors intersect with Colorado’s aerospace and defense industry to create community, spark innovation, and stimulate business growth.
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