Phase II Amount
$1,874,999
Business Enterprise Systems Product INnovation (BESPIN) has a national defense-related mission need in the area of Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Specifically, a holistic and agile solution driven by innovation, that delivers a scalable end-to-end RPA, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) automation approach is needed to enable our WarfighterÂ’s to become operationally resilient and focus on higher-level tasks. In the past RPA was used by commercial organizations to streamline back-office burdens by removing monotonous tasks, therefore speeding up the supply chain and providing a more effective use of manpower. Today, our WarfighterÂ’s are facing a manpower intensive environment coupled with unprecedented workloads, and a confluence of remote challenges. Currently, the BESPIN Digital University (Digital U) education platform transforms the way 18,000 users complete technical training. Further, Digital U is challenged by an expensive siloed automation that is currently relying on a large scale of people for general knowledge and process functions. Therefore, we believe the technology development under the subject SBIR topic may eventually contribute to solving a mission need. The main goal of our involvement in this project is to provide a holistic and agile RPA+AI solution that allows robotic automation to be a strategic enabler for Digital U, by leveraging data services and end-to-end process and efficiency for our Warfighters. This innovative solution will reduce human intervention, improve task execution efficiency, and drastically decrease labor and operational costs. The mission impact of this project on the Air Force and the DoD will position BESPIN to develop and implement a series of bots designed to automate transactional, rule-based human tasks by mimicking user interactions without any intervention. These robots will implement algorithms to not only complete human repetitive tasks, but reduce errors and downtime, and increase the return on investment (ROI). ---------- Business Enterprise Systems Product Innovation (BESPIN) and the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center (AFLCMC) Cloud One Team have a national defense-related mission need in the area of Mobile Authentication using Near Field Communication (NFC) technology that is already incorporated into modern smartphones and can read a Common Access Card (CAC) for Air Force (AF) approved Cloud providers. Our Mobile Authentication Control Element with an Integrated NFC Derived Unit (Mace Windu) will enable Warfighters to securely apply multi-factor authentication to access any application, from any device, anywhere. This NFC unit supports a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and two-factor authentication (2FA) platform on mobile devices providing our Warfighters a secure and efficient way to access secure data without sacrificing productivity and/or cybersecurity. The BESPIN platform is designed to be a mobile software factory, however, is currently challenged by the ability to provide operational mobile authentication capabilities for our Warfighters as the threats and the capabilities of our adversaries increase. As smart phones, smart cards, and other smart devices continue to become pervasive in our daily lives, we see an opportunity to connect such smart devices with our Warfighter. This opportunity provides a mobile authentication control element with and integrated NFC derived unit platform for our Warfighters, giving them flexibility and interoperability, which is trusted, efficient, and user-friendly, therefore our main goal of this project. We believe the Mace Windu Platform developed under the subject SBIR topic will contribute to solving a real mission need which is essential in the current sociopolitical environment requiring our Warfighters to work largely from home and on the move due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As end users, developers, and stakeholders are separated and displaced due to events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, these enhancements and unlocking of data from the 400+ PEO BES Programs will ease geographical separation and create a more extensible and efficient way to continue building out mobile capability. Therefore, the mission impact of this project on the Air Force and the DoD will position BESPIN to develop a 2FA Mobile Authentication digital card reader using NFC technology that allows Warfighters to support Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Certificates/Personal Identity Verification (PIV) credentials for network applications, encryption, and digital signatures on a mobile device using their CAC, meeting the HSPD-12 mandate.
