RFI-ACT-SACT-17-17_EA_Hackathon.pdf

HQ Supreme Allied Commander Transformation

RFI-ACT-SACT-17-17

Headquarters Supreme Allied Commander Transformation

Norfolk Virginia

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

This document contains a Request for Information (RFI) Call for Industry and Academia contribution on Cyberspace, Data Analytics, and Internet of Things at the Enterprise Architecture (EA) Hackathon that will take place in London on 27-31 March 2017.

Suppliers wishing to respond to this RFI should read this document carefully and follow the guidance for responding.

General Information

Request For Information No. RFI-ACT-SACT-17-17

Project Title Call for Industry and Academia contribution on Cyberspace, Data Analytics, and Internet of Things at the Enterprise Architecture (EA) Hackathon that will take place in London on 27- 31 March 2017.

Contracting Office Address NATO, HQ Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT) Purchasing & Contracting Suite 100 7857 Blandy Rd, Norfolk, VA, 23511-2490

Contracting Points of Contact

1. Ms Tonya Bonilla e-mail : tonya.bonilla@act.nato.int Tel : +1 757 747 3575

2. Ms Catherine Giglio e-mail : catherine.giglio@act.nato.int Tel :+1 757 747 3856

Technical Points of Contact 1. Krzysztof Skurzak, EA Hackathon Coordinator e-mail : krzysztof.skurzak@act.nato.int Tel : +1 757 747 3206

1 - INTRODUCTION

1.1 Summary. HQ Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (HQ SACT) is issuing this Request for Information (RFI) announcement to invite industry/academia to the 2nd EA Hackathon. The aim of the NATO Enterprise Architecture (EA) Hackathon is to create the environment for experts and novices who are involved, or interested, in businesses innovation and transformation to competitively work on the pressing problems identified within the NATO Enterprise that are difficult to solve by traditional means.

The 2nd EA Hackathon will build on an already proven business model to stimulate transformation and innovation within NATO. The following three themes were selected for the 2nd edition of the EA Hackathon:

Cyberspace as the 5th military domain

Data analytics applications for Verification and Validation processes

Internet of Things (IoT) applications for Command and Control

The 2nd NATO EA Hackathon will take place in London on 27-31 Mar 2017. The formal invitation and further details are available at ACT website - http://www.act.nato.int/ea-hackathon

1.2 Disclaimer. This request for information does not constitutes a commitment to issue a future request for proposal (RFP). The purpose of this RFI is to involve industry/academia in the 2nd EA Hackathon. HQ SACT has not made a commitment to procure any of the items described herein, and release of this RFI shall not be construed as such a commitment, nor as authorization to incur cost for which reimbursement will be required or sought. Further, respondents are advised that HQ SACT will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in responding to this RFI. The costs for responding to this RFI shall be borne solely by the responding party. Not responding to this RFI does not preclude participation in any subsequent RFP if issued in the future.

RFI respondents who would like to contribute must be willing to comply with the EA Hackathon process, rules and regulation as described within 2017 EA Hackathon Handbook available at http://www.act.nato.int/images/stories/events/2017/ea-hackathon/20170203-ea-hackathon-hb.pdf

2 – GENERAL BACKGROUND: ACT Framework for Collaborative Interaction

(FFCI)

2.1 ACT has implemented a Framework for Collaborative Interaction (FFCI) to increase opportunities for industry and academia to contribute to ACT capability development efforts through collaborative work. Such collaboration enables HQ SACT, and NATO as a whole, to benefit from industry/academia models, advice, capabilities and experience in the course of this work. In addition to the benefits ACT gains from such projects, this collaborative effort will provide http://www.act.nato.int/ea-hackathon http://www.act.nato.int/ea-hackathon http://www.act.nato.int/images/stories/events/2017/ea-hackathon/20170203-ea-hackathon-hb.pdf industry/academia with an improved understanding of NATO’s capability requirements, and the associated issues and development challenges to be addressed by ACT. Potential collaborative projects are on specific topics that are of mutual interest to both parties but shall be restricted to collaborations in non-procurement areas. Several mechanisms have already been developed to support the initiation of collaborative projects between industry/academia and ACT ranging from informal information exchanges, workshops, studies or more extensive collaboration on research and experimentation.

2.2 Depending on the level and type of interaction needed for a collaborative project, a specific agreement may be needed between parties. The FFCI agreement for any specific project, if required by either party for the project to proceed, will range from “Non-disclosure Agreements” (NDA) for projects involving exchange of specific information to more extensive “Declaration of Mutual Collaboration” (DOMC) to address intellectual property and other issues. For the topics listed below, it is not envisaged that the level of contribution will be such that RFI respondents will wish to sign a NDA before entering into any significant collaborative work.

2.3 More extensive information on the ACT FFCI initiative can be found on the ACT web site being developed to support FFCI projects at http://www.act.nato.int/ffci.

3 - DESCRIPTION OF THE PROJECT

3.1 Background.

In order to manage the enterprise change the North Atlantic Council (NAC) issued the C3 Alliance Strategy1 with a call to “establish Enterprise Architecture discipline”.

This new discipline is further guided by Enterprise Architecture (EA) Policy2, which explicitly sets EA primary objective to “… translate NATO’s vision and strategy into effective change of the current business and IT environments …”

Enterprise Architecture practice within NATO is already well established and the number of architectural products and use cases constantly increases. Nevertheless, the delivery of the ultimate effect – Enterprise Change – is often delayed due to organizational inertia.

ACT, driven by its transformational mission, have developed the concept of the EA Hackathon as a means to enable rapid transformation and innovation that could instantly re-shape the NATO Enterprise. The concept is to directly address current business needs by applying an industry proven format, engaging with groups made up of both of experts and novices “parachuted” into high intensity work environment for a time limited period to focus on specific challenges.

The following three specific challenges were defined for the 2nd EA Hackathon:

1 Alliance Consultation, Command and Control (C3) Strategy, C-M(2014)0016 2 Alliance C3 Policy, C-M(2015)0041-REV1, APPENDIX 9 http://www.act.nato.int/ffci

Modelling Challenge - The participants of modelling challenges will be tasked to develop a set of architectural patterns representing innovative aspects of the Cyberspace Domain by applying ideas from state-of-the art technologies and business practices. The developed patterns should apply service oriented architecture principles, work in the federated environment, and identify interoperability points along with standardization opportunities.

Coding Challenge - The participants of coding challenge will be tasked to apply modern Data Analytics to discover “hidden gems” within the provided datasets from multiple, different interoperability testing events in which NATO-related Command and Control systems participate every year. The goal is to come up with appealing visualizations of findings, and explain how those could be used to transform business.

Joint Challenge - The participants of Joint Challenge will be tasked to develop experimental solutions in the domain of the Internet of Things (IoT) that can be used to solve operational problems. Solutions can be either architectural models or working software/hardware prototypes.

A more detailed description of the challenges, including example of products, can be found in the 2017 EA Hackathon Handbook published at http://www.act.nato.int/images/stories/events/2017/ea-hackathon/20170203-ea-hackathon-hb.pdf

3.3 Intent/Objectives.

The intent of this RFI is to disseminate information about upcoming EA Hackathon to the companies/universities that might be interested in participating in this event.

3.4 Expected benefits to respondents

This collaboration with ACT is an opportunity for industry and academy to demonstrate both their products and which benefits they can deliver to military organization. Also, it is expected that the respondents will gain an awareness of the specific challenge areas and knowledge of military thinking on the topics.

3.5 Industry Engagement. Industry is invited to send mentors to help participants with their work and/or team members to compete in the challenges. The company's promotional materials such as shirts, pens, stickers, etc. may be distributed. Because the event is self-supporting, with limited NATO financial support, companies or organizations may also elect to support and promote the event in other ways. To discuss further these or other options contact EA Hackathon Coordinator.

4 - REQUESTED INFORMATION

4.1 Answers to the RFI. In the response to this RFI companies/universities are requested to complete the registration process as described in the 2017 EA Hackathon Handbook.

4.2 Follow-on. Post-submission, selected RFI respondents may be contacted to provide detailed information on their intended participation.

4.3 Handling of Proprietary information. The resultant solutions developed during the competition for the specific challenges are kept in the open source domain to enable future development and collaboration. The best solutions might be deployed within NATO Enterprise to address urgent business needs. Consult 2017 EA Hackathon Handbook for further guidance.

4.4 Questions. Questions of a technical nature about this RFI announcement shall be submitted by e-mail solely to the above-mentioned POCs. Accordingly, questions in an e-mail should not contain proprietary and/or classified information.

4.5 Summary. This is a RFI only. The purpose of this RFI is to invite industry/academia to the 2nd EA Hackathon. HQ SACT has not made a commitment to procure any of the items described herein, and release of this RFI shall not be construed as such a commitment, nor as authorization to incur cost for which reimbursement will be required or sought. It is emphasised that this is a RFI, and not a RFP of any kind.

Tonya Bonilla ACT Contracting Officer - Allied Command Transformation (ACT) NATO/HQ SACT Tel:

(757) 747-3575, E-mail: tonya.bonilla@act.nato.int mailto:tonya.bonilla@act.nato.int