TACFI for Rubicon Partner Nation

AFWERX · AFWERX TACFI · AFWERX

AI-Readiness Score

19/25

Pathway Speed

4/5

Timeline Realism

3/5

Problem Framing

4/5

AI / ML Fit

5/5

Award + Transition

3/5

Award

$1,897,907

Award ceiling

BLACK CAPE, INC.

Awardee

Posted August 12, 2024

Description

Under a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II contract, Black Cape, Inc. (Black Cape) has been working in collaboration with the 621st Air Control Squadron (ACS) on an innovative technology solution that addresses four primary capability improvement areas:Military Language Translation and Chat IntegrationRadio Speech TranscriptionOutstation Reporting Tool (ORT)PLI Analytics for Anomaly and Pattern Detection. Black Cape has made substantial progress in each of these four topic areas, and together with the 621st ACS would like to continue that work and further enhance the capabilities through the Tactical Funding Increase (TACFI) program. Black Cape’s technology in its current form, has already proven effective enough that it has been integrated into standard operating procedures (SOPs). Continuing this work could directly lead to improved mission outcomes for the customer.Through the proposed effort, Black Cape will progress the current Phase II solution along the following four original topic areas: Language translation.Radio transcription. Outstation reporting and workflow optimization.PLI analytics in the pattern and anomaly detection domain.

Score Rationale

The AFWERX TACFI instrument is a modern fast-track pathway (scoring near the top), and the four capability areas — language translation, radio speech transcription, workflow optimization, and PLI anomaly/pattern detection — are genuinely AI-shaped problems with a named end-user (621st ACS) and evidence of prior integration into SOPs, indicating data availability and operational grounding. The award ceiling of ~$1.9M sits in the lower-mid range and while TACFI structurally implies a transition pathway toward STRATFI or program-of-record, no explicit follow-on mechanism is named in this solicitation, and the unknown response deadline introduces meaningful timeline uncertainty that prevents higher scores on realism and transition.

Source

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