Sole_Source_Justification.pdf

SOLE SOURCE JUSTIFICATION FOR SIMPLFIED ACQUISITIONS

FAR Part 13.501(a)(1)(ii)

1. Identification of the agency and the contracting activity:

In accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) 13.501(a)(1) in accordance with 41 U.S.C. 1901 or the authority of 41 U.S.C. 1903, the Office of Acquisition Management proposes to award a purchase order on the basis of other than full and open competition with Dataminr for DataMinr/First Alert services, training and support on behalf of Open Source Intelligence Program (DS/TIA/OSN). The total estimated cost is

$XXXXXXX.

2. The nature and/or description of the action being approved.

New purchase Order for commercial items. This procurement is being conducted under FAR Part 13 Simplified Acquisition Procedures.

3. A description of the supplies or services required to meet the Department’s needs.

The Department of State (DoS), is requesting this acquisition for the continued use of DataMinr, a proprietary social media monitoring, web-based information management tool that provides warnings and alerts on incidents and threats derived from information posted on social media services. This service is an integral part of the DS open source intelligence software as a service (SaaS) solution set. This procurement is essential to the Open Source Intelligence Program (DS/TIA/OSN) requirements to provide technology solutions to support the Department’s mission.

DS requires the continued and expanded use of the Dataminr social media warning and alerting services currently in use by DS offices. Other Department elements may have limited requirements that may supported as available under this order. DS currently uses Dataminr/First Alert based on an order that was placed in September 2018 which expires August 2019. DS has a requirement to maintain access to social media data streams to maintain and enhance the mission critical abilities for collecting, analyzing and sharing publically available third party data. Dataminr/First Alert provides warning and alerts are based upon internal algorithms configured by topical and geographical settings (called stencils) that Dataminr applies to Twitter data feeds to produce real-time warnings and alerts that are sent to the DS subscribers for onward action. Dataminr is a direct warnings and alerts system. There is no periodic or on-going software development, modification or change process between DS users and the Dataminr team. The warnings and alerts provided by the Dataminr/First Alert service allows DS to quickly vet, identify, and geo-locate breaking events, incidents, emerging threats, and other items of interest. This data will be integrated with existing analytic tools used by DS staff to enhance situational awareness and help support or inform tactical and strategic decision making.

This service provides for warnings and alert notifications based configurable parameters provided to Dataminr which applies them to the Twitter data stream. The core data is constantly updated, and searches are continuously run to identify breaking events, or emerging threats. The Dataminr/First Alert capability is currently in use by DS personnel and has proven to be a highly valuable service. Continued use of this service has been deemed a critical requirement for continued mission support.

To meet mission support requirements DS requires between 100 and 500 license seats to support DS headquarters (multiple offices) and overseas Regional Security Officer (RSO) requirements. The immediate requirement for license coverage for paid, and pilot seats is

129. Use of these seats expires in August 2019. The pricing model for DataMinr/First Alert seats is economically beneficial beyond 120 licenses due to the significant discounting for enterprise pricing at 500 licenses above. Over the next 12 months DS’ expected overseas and domestic growth requirements will be supported by the 500 seat level, with requirements beyond 500 seats being supported by a separate DoS procurement action.

4. An identification of the statutory authority permitting other than full and open competition:

FAR 13.501(a)(1) - Only One Responsible Source

5. A demonstration that the proposed contractor’s unique qualifications or the nature of the action require use of the authority cited.

Dataminr, Inc. is uniquely qualified to provide these services to Diplomatic Security based upon the following:

Dataminr provides unique and actionable alerts reporting of publicly available information based on configurable parameters that are easy to establish, maintain and change. The primary social media service currently supported by Dataminr is Twitter, through DataMinr’s Official Partner status with Twitter. The partnership access between Dataminr and Twitter provides direct proprietary access to the Twitter data set, whereas other analytics service providers are subject to the public AIP and specific business/use cases in order to access to the Twitter data stream. Other applications had encountered sudden or unexpected suspension of their access to the Twitter data while they bring their tool and operations into compliance with new Twitter terms of service requirements. The Dataminr/First Alert application uses proprietary machine-learning, analytical and event-detection methods that can detect and alert early patterns indicating breaking events.

These real-time warning and alerts provided by Dataminr/First Alert address a common, on-going and specialized need common to DS, the Intelligence Community, and other Federal Law Enforcement Agencies to gain unfiltered real-time data indications of activities that may impact Department personnel or facilities. The warning and alerts provided by this service are quicker than local and national or international news services and this has been observed repeatedly by current Dataminr/First Alert users in the Department. This service provides real-time, actionable intelligence that will enhance DS analytic functionality. The ability to constantly monitor and analyze open source, web-based data sources through advanced techniques (statistical, linguistic and crowd sourcing) is a capability that DS cannot develop and operate. Use of this product is a cost effective means of providing real-time threat and action influencing information to DS analyst and management staff without having to expend significant cost to build a like capacity.

6. A description of the efforts made to ensure that offers are solicited from as many potential sources as is practicable, include whether a notice was or will be publicized as required by Subpart 5.2 and, if not, which exception under 5.202 applies.

A FedBizOpps Notice will be published as required by FAR Subpart 5.2.

7. A determination by the contracting officer that the anticipated cost to the Government will be fair and reasonable. Note: dollar amounts may not exceed statutory limitations for the commercial items test program identified in FAR 13.500.

The Contracting Officer will make a fair and reasonable price determination in accordance with FAR 13.106-3, and will be based on market research, comparison of previous purchase prices found reasonable, or a comparison with similar items in related industry.

8. A description of the market research conducted (per FAR Part 10) and the results or a statement of the reason market research was not conducted.

DS surveyed a number of commercial providers of social media event analysis and reporting systems and reviewed an RFI for related services conducted by IRM in August 2018. No other providers were identified that had the level of needed access to the primary social media communications platform (Twitter) than Dataminr. DS also reviewed other FedBizOpps posted Limited Source Justifications from the Department of the Air Force FA7014-19-R-A013; the FBI DJF-17-1300-PR-0000555 and Other Defense Agencies HQ0034-16-C-0081 which confirmed DS research that the Dataminr/First Alert is the only product currently available that can provide DS access to unfiltered Twitter data and alerts in near real-time to meet DS alerting requirements. Note, that according to Twitter’s website, Dataminr is the only official twitter partner who provides breaking event identification and information (https://partners.twitter.com/en/find-a-partner.html?section=des-services&filter=des-services/monitoring-social-trends).

9. Any other facts supporting the use of other than full and open competition such as:

The Dataminr/First Alert service is not available from resellers at this time.

10. A listing of the sources, if any, that expressed, in writing, an interest in the acquisition.

Dataminr

11. A statement of any actions the agency will take to remove or overcome any future barriers to competition before any subsequent acquisition for the supplies or services required.

Acquisitions conducted under simplified acquisition procedures are exempt from the requirements in FAR Part 6. Nonetheless, this justification will be publicized on FedBizOpps with the Combined Synopsis/Solicitation, in accordance with FAR 5.102(a)(6) and 13.501(a)(1)(iv).