(1) IC Data Consortium Other Transaction extension_4_23_25_ clean.pdf

UNCLASSIFIED

Solutions Solicitation: Intelligence Community (IC) Data

Consortium (ICDC)

Agency: Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)

Office: Office of the Open Source Intelligence Executive (OSIE)

Introduction

On behalf of the OSIE (hereafter referred to as the Sponsor), prospective Respondents are hereby invited to submit solutions against the problem set for the ICDC effort. This is a solicitation that contemplates the award of Prototype Other Transaction (OT) Agreement(s). The Sponsor anticipates awarding an Other Transaction (OT) agreement to one or multiple Respondents under the authority described in 10 U.S.C. § 4022 as modified by 50 U.S.C. § 3024(n)(6).

Problems to Solve

The IC has a commercial data acquisition duplication problem and a costly commercial data replication and storage problem. The Government is seeking to award OTs to small businesses, nontraditional defense contractors, or traditional defense contractors if they propose significant involvement from a nontraditional contractor or provide a one-third cost share, with potential for follow-on sole-source sustainment contracts, to manage a commercial data consortium that unifies commercial data acquisition then enables IC users to access and interact with this commercial data in one place on unclassified systems while reducing data copying to classified computer systems. More simply, the Sponsor is seeking two broad skill sets to help solve the problems: 1) consortium data acquisition and management and 2) software creation.

Problem Background

The IC’s fragmented and decentralized acquisition model for Commercially Available

Information (CAI) has resulted in siloed acquisitions of commercial data and platform licenses, duplicative purchases where vendors are often selling the same or similar data to many IC customers, bulk data ingest and replication, and limited data sharing. Efforts to partially improve this approach have resulted in exorbitantly priced enterprise contracts for commercial platform licenses that are rarely used. In addition, the phenomenon of vendors reselling the same or similar data while implementing unique techniques to aggregate data makes it difficult for the IC to determine the differentiated value offered by each vendor. The Sponsor seeks an approach based on repeatable data management plus civil liberties and privacy best practices to help streamline access to CAI for the entire IC and make it available to mission users in a more cohesive, efficient, and cost-effective manner by avoiding duplicative purchases, preventing sunk costs from unused licenses, and reducing overall data storage and compute costs.

The Sponsor seeks a centralized approach to access CAI via three primary options—API query, platform access, and bulk data access—from commercial vendors1 by establishing a government-funded Data Consortium, which will serve as a clearinghouse for IC data requirements, a single focal point in negotiations with vendors, a compliance vehicle to ensure the IC’s use of the data complies with IC guidance and owners’ terms and conditions, and a mechanism to pool agency funds to achieve economies of scale when pursuing access to targeted commercial data sets. The

Sponsor then seeks a “zero copy” technical solution that prevents duplicative data purchases and reduces data replication and other cloud costs by keeping the data in place on the vendor’s IT to the maximum extent possible. This will be described in detail in Appendix A: Building the IC’s

Data Consortium Interface at www.icdata.gov.

Consortium Structure, Tasks, and Vision

ODNI's OSINT Executive will serve as the program manager of the ICDC with direct oversight of the contract established with the Consortium Manager and the creation of the interface. The

ICDC will be led by the Consortium Manager with support from the software creation team building the interface. The Consortium Manager will take unified commercial data requests from

Government representatives and find the best data at the best price for the Government from data vendors in the Consortium (network of data suppliers). The Consortium Manager will also be tasked with managing the number of data vendors within the Consortium, socializing the

Government’s data purchase goals, and ensuring efficient discovery and interaction with vendor-owned data and platforms within the government-hosted ICDC interface. Finally, the

Consortium Manager will handle all contractual matters with data vendors on behalf of the

Government.

Significant challenges include:

• Establishing agile acquisition processes and supporting governance to purchase CAI for any and all IC elements

• Increasing understanding of the current and evolving CAI data ecosystems

• Increasing expertise and improving processes to evaluate the data providers, data quality, and cost value of the data being provided

• Shortening acquisition speed while reducing the aggregate cost of acquiring CAI across the IC

• Building an unclassified (“lowside”) data marketplace that efficiently lets IC users research, purchase, and establish access to CAI or CAI platforms while limiting government on-premises data pooling with a “zero copy” design philosophy.

Project Goals

The Respondents(s) should have experience with the following to help meet Project Goals:

1 The ICDC is primarily focused on CAI, not Publicly Available Information (PAI) that is open, in the public domain (legal definition) and “free.” If PAI is truly enriched by a vendor and provides a tangible valued-added service for sale or subscription, this would qualify as CAI.

• Navigating the breadth of commercial data providers

• Identifying and vetting data vendors, evaluating data quality, and gathering information about data provenance

• Conducting the sensitivity analysis in accordance with Intelligence Community Policy

Memorandum (ICPM) 504-01 to determine whether the CAI meets the criteria to be considered “sensitive CAI”

• Leveraging the ODNI’s Guidance for Intelligence Community Professionals: Properly

Obtaining and Using Publicly Available Information

• Establishing and managing current and future vendor relationships

• Negotiating and managing data acquisition and ensuring compliance with terms and conditions for use

• Understanding the public sector to creatively negotiate the acquisition of the data to ensure best value at the lowest cost

• Growing and sustaining repeatable experience in data access and life cycle management to properly accommodate the needs of the IC (i.e., the detail and coverage of the data being acquired enables the IC to answer their intelligence questions)

• Building unclassified/lowside “zero copy” data marketplace of options for users to research, purchase, and establish access to relevant commercial information

• Delivering continuous software builds using Development-Security-Operations

(DevSecOps) best practices.

The Sponsor is seeking information regarding what the Government should consider in determining its approach to the acquisition of CAI to include:

1. Identify Vendors: Identify commercial data providers who can respond to the IC mission user needs.

2. Vet Vendors: Vet potential vendors and be transparent when sharing with the IC any vendor concerns.

3. Cost Assessment: Assess the cost differences among the vendors.

4. Privacy Assessment: Assess the ability of the vendors to provide relevant information about the datasets, including:

a. Personally identifiable information (PII): Provide a written assessment as to whether the CAI contains any PII and, if so, whether the CAI does or does not meet the criteria or an exception to be considered sensitive CAI under ICPM

504-01.

b. Artificial Intelligence (AI): Provide a written explanation as to whether the dataset is a product or output of AI, including the model type; provenance of the AI model; provenance of the training data; explanation of the process and frequency with which the model is tested and monitored for concept drift/performance drift; and the process used to ensure that the training data used to train the model is an accurate representation of the referenced demographic while maximizing data variety to avoid distortion.

5. Cost Value: Maximize cost efficiency across the breadth of IC commercial data acquisitions via enterprise data acquisitions and data management efficiency.

6. Acquire Data: Manage data acquisition while serving as an impartial third-party negotiator with the purchasing power of the entire IC.

7. Assess Data Quality: Validate and assess commercial data being provided by the vendors for quality; integrity; clean supply chain back to the data subject; consent to collect, where appropriate; and accuracy of representation of the target demographic in the relevant underlying information, while maximizing data variety to avoid distortion.

8. License Management: Manage commercial data access licenses and any downstream or derivative sharing conditions from negotiated terms.

9. Metrics: Provide business analytics and persistent market survey insights.

10. Vendor(s) should supply the government with the methodology of how they will:

a. Maintain sensitive CAI on behalf of the Government using safeguards in accordance with, or comparable to, all relevant controls required by the

Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS) for National Security

Systems that process personally identifiable information (PII) at a moderate or high privacy risk level and be able to explain why the corresponding Privacy

Overlay was chosen for each dataset. Source: CNSS Instruction (CNSSI)

1253, Privacy Overlays.

b. Implement some role-based and access-based controls within the unclassified platform.

See Appendix A - Building the IC’s Data Consortium Interface at www.icdata.gov.

Please read carefully as the design principles are unique and based on flexible unclassified data and program assumptions, not legacy or traditional classified program models. Prior work with the IC or Department of Defense on classified data management and IT programs may have limited bearing on the successful execution of the unclassified work described within the technical specifications. Please note that items 1-10 above primarily apply to the consortium management, data scouting, and governance portion of the ICDC. The software creation portion is a related but different skill set.

Security Requirements

The Consortium management functions may require security clearances, but the technical software work does not. For the software development work, all work will remain unclassified.

Top Secret clearances may not be sponsored: the Government may pursue other background check options to keep the Respondents focused on technical innovation and DevSecOps best practices rather than clearance administration.

Basis of Award

Complete proposals that are determined to be most beneficial to the Government with appropriate consideration given to the evaluation factors, order of importance, and selection preferences will be considered for award. Award(s) will be made to the Respondent(s) whose submission is determined to advance the best ideas or concepts, has high competence, has technical merit, and/or has importance to Sponsor programs based on the factors and preferences noted later. The Government is more concerned with obtaining superior technical capabilities than with making awards at a lower price. Therefore, the consortium operation and technical portion of proposals are more important than the price portion of the proposals.

Solicitation Phases

This is a multi-phased solicitation where the Sponsor will select some, all, or none of the

Respondents to move to subsequent Phase(s):

• Phase 1: Request for Solutions White Papers

• Phase 1A: Mockup or Visualization Submissions

• Phase 2: Oral Presentations

• Phase 3: Negotiation and Agreement Formation

In Phase 1, Respondents must submit a white paper. Once the paper reviews are complete, selected Respondents will be notified as to whether they are invited to move forward to participate in Phase 1A.

In Phase 1A, selected Respondents may be contacted to create a small mockup, small snippet of demonstration code, or visualization that briefly summarizes their solution beyond the text from their white paper.

In Phase 2, selected Respondents will be invited for oral presentations describing their solutions.

The oral presentations will be in-person at the Sponsor’s facility in the Washington Metropolitan

Area. Respondents will pitch their solutions and engage in dialogue with the selection team.

More information on the Oral Presentations event, to include format, logistics, content, and evaluation factors, will be disseminated only to those selected to participate in Phase 2. Once

Phase 2 is complete, Respondents will be notified as to whether they are invited to move forward, negotiate, and form an agreement with the Sponsor. Respondents that are not selected for negotiation will be notified of such decision.

In Phase 3, the Sponsor reserves the right to award an OT Agreement with some, one, all, or none of the Phase 3 Respondents for the prototype project(s) demonstrated (in part or in whole).

The Sponsor may also decline to negotiate with any Phase 3 Respondents or may end negotiations with a Respondent prior to agreement formation, if it is in the Sponsor’s best interest. Agreement formation is predicated on successful negotiation of acceptable terms for both parties. A Respondent’s selection for negotiation does not guarantee that an agreement will be formed. Participation in this solicitation and negotiation process is optional. At any point in this process, the Sponsor may elect to invite a previously un-selected Respondent into subsequent phases if it is in the best interest of the Sponsor.

Partnering

The Respondents must possess two broad skill sets: 1) manage and govern the Consortium and the ability to do impartial data scouting to find the best price for quality data and 2) have the technical talent to create an unclassified marketplace of options for government users to research, purchase, and facilitate access to relevant data. If a Respondent does not have sufficient technical capability in-house to build the platform but can manage the Consortium and scout data well, they can identify a partner to deliver both broad skills in one white paper. Conversely, if a

Respondent has the technical capability in-house but does not specialize in consortium management or data scouting, the Respondent should describe the division of labor and partnership model within its white paper.

If a partnership is not holistically described within the white paper, Respondents must clearly label in the white paper that they are only writing to the consortium management and data scouting piece or only the software development piece. Two separate vendors may be asked to work together if the Sponsor deems this within its best interest.

Consistent with 10 U.SC. § 4022(d)(1) as modified by 50 U.S.C. § 3024(n)(6), Prototype OT agreements will only be awarded to a Respondent meeting at least one of the following requirements:

1. Respondent or its team includes at least one nontraditional defense contractor or nonprofit research institution participating to a significant extent in the prototype project;

or

2. All Respondents or its team are small businesses or nontraditional defense contractors;

or

3. At least one-third of the total cost is funded by sources other than the Federal

Government.

Any Respondent that fails to meet at least one of these requirements will not be eligible to receive an OT agreement. For the purposes of this solicitation, Respondents will need to support their qualification under 10 U.SC. § 4022(d)(1) as modified by 50 U.S.C. § 3024(n)(6).

All proposals shall clearly indicate if the Respondent is considered a traditional or non-traditional Government contractor in accordance with the definition at 10 U.SC. § 4022(d)(1). If proposing as a traditional Government contractor, the proposal shall clearly indicate if the organization will be proposing significant involvement from a nontraditional contractor or a one-third cost share. Failure to clearly address and identify the organization’s status as a traditional or nontraditional contractor shall render the proposal unacceptable. For traditional Government contractors, failure to identify clearly the significant involvement from a nontraditional contractor or a one-third cost share shall render the proposal unacceptable.

The Sponsor anticipates forming as many OT agreements as budget will allow, which could be one or multiple. Successfully completed prototype projects performed in support of this effort may lead to agreements to further develop and scaling the prototype, both in capacity and scope, in accordance with 10 U.S.C. § 4022 as modified by 50 U.S.C. § 3024(n)(6).

White Paper Instructions

Respondents interested in submitting a white paper should follow instructions for Phase 1 and submit by May 5, 2025.

Requirements for White Papers

White papers will be evaluated against criteria below.

Submission Information

- The submission shall be provided in two distinct volumes: Technical and Price.

- The Government will only accept unclassified proposals. All documents shall be unclassified and shall be marked appropriately, including “UNCLASSIFIED.”

Format: papers shall be submitted in two (2) parts:

- PART 1- Data Consortium Management and Technical paper shall not exceed 10 pages and shall be a MS Word file or searchable PDF files with copy permission granted. A page is defined as each face of an 8½” x 11” sheet with information contained within a one-inch margin on all sides. Font type shall be Times Roman 12 point.

- PART 2: Price paper shall be in Microsoft Excel for Office or compatible format with unlimited pages.

ASSUMPTIONS: Respondents must identify and explain, in their Consortium Management and

Technical papers, any assumptions they made.

All proposals will be evaluated as either “selectable” or “non-selectable” based on proposals determined to be most advantageous to the Government.

Selectable: A selectable proposal is a proposal that has been reviewed by the Government against the technical criteria listed in Volume 1: Technical, and determined to be technically strong, aligned to overall approach and determined to be most advantageous to the Government.

Non-Selectable: A proposal is considered non-selectable when the proposal has been reviewed by the Government against the technical criteria listed in Volume 1: Technical, and determined not to meet both the approach and technical criteria that is the most advantageous to the

Government.

VOLUME 1: TECHNICAL

The term “technical” is used broadly to include both the technical details of how the consortium will be managed and governed and the technical details of the software solution proposed to access the acquired data.

The following technical criteria will be used to determine if submitted proposals are consistent with the intent of this prototype project and of interest to the Government:

1. Overall Scientific and Technical Merit - The overall scientific and/or technical merits of the proposal, including the approach for the development and/or enhancement of the proposed program, system or technology.

2. Holistic Understanding – The proposal thoroughly addresses the Sponsor’s intent and unique design principles not overfitting existing functions or platforms.

3. Flexibility – The proposal demonstrates technical and process flexibility in the design and approach.

4. Related Experience - The extent to which the vendor demonstrates relevant technology and domain knowledge, the vendor's capabilities, related experience, techniques, or unique combination of these which are integral factors for achieving the proposal objectives.

VOLUME 2: PRICE

The reasonableness of proposed pricing including any provided costs and fees shall be analyzed.

Price analysis techniques will be used as a guide to determine whether the proposed price is fair and reasonable as determined through one or more price analysis techniques. The Total

Evaluated Price shall be the sum of all technical, labor, and service parts needed get the consortium management function and/or www.icdata.gov prototype working well.

They key phrase above is “get the consortium management function and/or prototype working well.” If Respondents estimate they can deliver within six months, price it accordingly and note the assumption of time. If Respondents note other timeframes, price it accordingly and note the assumption of time.

The price proposal shall be separated from the technical proposal. Any price proposals included in the technical proposal shall not be evaluated.

No further evaluation criteria will be used in selecting proposals. To the extent possible, the

Sponsor will review proposals in the order they are received.

Respondents shall submit the proposals electronically to dni-ot-2025@iarpa.gov by 12:00pm ET on 05/05/2025. The Sponsor, at its discretion, may or may not consider submissions made after this date.

Data examples

The IC Data Consortium should focus on commercial information addressing economic security, supply chain, critical infrastructure protection, great power competition, agricultural data, industrial data, sentiment analysis, and video analytic services. Raw imagery data is not an initial focus of the Consortium model. These data types can be used by Respondents to craft responses and explain technical approaches. As the Consortium scales, more data types beyond this initial list will be added.

Intellectual Property (IP) Rights

Novel design concepts such as this require flexibility. The Sponsor prefers the use of modified open source software for solutions. The Sponsor will consider some proprietary software sub-components within the overall architecture but prefers “mixed source” (closed source and open source) to maintain some flexibility within the core or extensions. The open source software work will be managed within government-hosted version control tools but the IP and copyright stays with the Respondents and will follow the terms of the appropriate open source software license selected. Pure proprietary software component IP stays with the Respondents.

Please see “Appendix A: Building the IC’s Data Consortium Interface at www.icdata.gov” for more details.

Key Dates

Phase 1 White papers due May 5, 2025

Phase 1A Government notifies selected

Respondents

May 26, 2025

Phase 1A Respondents’ mockup, small snippet of demonstration code, or visualization due

June 9, 2025

Phase 2 Government notifies selected

Respondents for oral presentations

June 30, 2025

Phase 2 Oral presentations end July 28, 2025

Phase 3 Government notifies selected

Respondents for negotiations and agreements

August 25, 2025

Questions

Respondents may submit questions until 12PM ET, 05/02/2025, by contacting this email slug, dni-ot-2025@iarpa.gov. The OSIE team will respond promptly or ask for a phone number to communicate outside of email. Please title this email “Question from [your company name].”

On behalf of the Sponsor, thank you for your interest and participation in this effort.