DASA seeks ideas for open data sharing solutions

The Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA) is seeking innovative ideas for open data sharing solutions in Defence.

Vast amounts of data sets are generated from multiple sources across Defence. Defence needs to share the information it generates with the wider Defence community for the collation, analysis and future management of data. The ability for operators to extract such information could save Defence time and money, and could even save lives.

Through Delivery and open data sharing solution, Defence is looking for solutions that will:

• Deliver a working prototype to resolve data sharing challenges
• Work with some or all Ministry of Defence (MOD) legacy systems
• Meet Defence security requirements
• Be evergreen and cyber resilient
• Be delivered as a service rather than a system
• Enable interoperability through open architectures, standards and open data/document formats
• Be easily accessed by multiple users through a common user interface simultaneously
• Have potential for MOD accreditation

Successful users will be granted access to datasets from platform provided by three different countries.

Interpreting data sets into meaningful information

A Type 45 Destroyer, for instance, over the course of a day can produce up to 10 million lines of data. The proliferation of data within the military poses a significant challenge for operators, but also presents an opportunity for interpreting differing data sets into meaningful information upon which to make informed and timely decisions.

Sharing the information is vital for Defence, if they are to analyse and predict the effects of different environments or scenarios on the condition of military assets and equipment; and predict when such equipment is in need of repair or replacement. The ability for operators to extract such information could save Defence time and money, and could even save lives.

To keep pace with the proliferation of data, Defence needs to continually increase an individual’s ability to analyse and utilise such data and share information with other nations, other government departments, across the services and with supply base. The challenge for Defence is to share this information quickly and effectively whilst maintaining the appropriate levels of security.

Potential to analyse and share data

The ‘Delivery and open data sharing solution’ Innovation Focus Area (IFA) seeks ideas that have the potential to analyse and share quickly structured and unstructured multi-source data, whilst maintaining its security classification. Innovative ideas are being accepted for the next Open Call for Innovation deadline on the 9th July.

This funding stream, providing up to £100k through a new IFA for Defence, was launched on Tuesday 4 June 2019.

The funding comes as a direct result of listening to the stakeholders in industry and academia at a DASA led ‘Hackathon’. Attendees at the event called for more funding to be available and greater sharing of available data to develop services to address Defence’s current challenge of open data sharing.

Last October, DASA brought together the best from academia, industry and government in the defence and security arena through the Real-World Incident Response Hackathon and the Defence Logistics Hackathon.