The iBITS Team is a veteran of both CIO-SP2 and CIO-SP3. It uses the e-GOS site for tracking and responding to CIO-SP3 opportunities. On CIO-SP4, we will continue to use eGOS’s Award Reports to analyze past contracts and target potential opportunities to market. We will provide all the iBITS CTA partners access to e-GOS and establish automated email distribution of notices.
The iBITS Team has a combined team of 13 business development professionals incentivized to market the CIO-SP4 vehicle to our current and potential customers and to win work on the contract for iBITS. Our business development leaders will work with our customers to show the benefits of releasing work on the CIO-SP4 vehicle. Currently the Team has 12 contracts expiring over the next 2 years that will be marketed to use the CIO-SP4 vehicle for the recompete. We will consider CIO-SP4 our preferred contract vehicle when marketing new opportunities to our future customers. All team members will market the CIO-SP4 contract on our websites, social media channels, and through our industry association memberships. We participate in trade shows, lead working groups for industry associations, and contribute to working groups in our industries. Our division, program and project leaders are also incentivized to build opportunities for iBITS on the CIO-SP4 vehicle through their bonuses and salary increases.
Technological Innovations
We build a commitment to training and innovation into the DNA of our iBITS Team. Our commitment to technological innovations is closely related to our training approach since technical innovation starts with ideas and must progress through know-how to become a reality. To spur on ideas, iBITS Team member CITI hosts a quarterly Creative Solutions Day at our corporate headquarters. CSN is an evening forum for different teams to give presentations and demonstrations of interesting and innovative solutions they are working on. It is open to the entire company, customers, partners, and friends; features food and drink. It is well attended. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have shifted this to a virtual platform as part of weekly Microsoft Teams All Hands meetings during lunchtime. These types of forums not only spread ideas, but they give people contact with other technologists in the company they can follow up with to take a dive deeper. The iBITS Team has assigned Joe Richardson as its official iBITS Innovations Incubator (iII). This role incubates and motivates iBITS team members, task order teams, and marketing staff, recruiters to be conversant and capable in emerging technologies for CIO-SP4 customers. Joe is well suited for this role as demonstrated by the many Creative Solutions Day and All Hands technology presentations he has given over the years. The iII is empowered to coordinate innovation for the iBITS Team. This consists of connecting the dots between the marketing team tracking future opportunities in need of innovation; recruiters seeking new resources with innovative skills on board already; task order leaders transitioning to and implementing innovations; and employees seeking training for innovative skills. The Innovation Incubator is responsible for managing the Attaining Innovation Matrix (AIM). The AIM is where we collect the targeted innovative technologies we aim to implement. These could be on task orders we are already executing and/or on those opportunities we intend to pursue. We assess our collective proficiency in terms of current staff with existing experience, and any significant training or certifications they already hold. We determine what training paths will prepare staff for implementation and establish a plan in the AIM for all staff pursuing that path. We establish milestones along the way for monitoring and control. In addition to subsidizing the cost of training activities, the iBITS Team provides spot bonuses for achieving AIM milestones and certifications in highly sought-after innovative technologies. These can also be obtained through thought leadership in the softer skill sets by playing a significant role in bringing an innovation to fruition on a project though analysis, design, testing, and management. We also share the AIM with our recruiters to assist in identifying new staff that can attain our innovation targets either completely or partially. Managers use the AIM during quarterly training reviews to keep everyone on task and to provide motivation and assistance when team members struggle. Learning new skills can be challenging, so we connect learners with mentors whenever possible. We track this in the matrix.
iBITS Team member AIS has empowered employees to lead internal bootcamps and training sessions. These internal bootcamps and training sessions led to the creation of aisU, open to all iBITS Team memebers. aisU instructors focus on a multitude of topics including security, Azure, and other Cloud topics. Courses recently have included an “Azure Application Bootcamp”, which is a two-week course designed to provide individuals an overview of activities and knowledge related to the design and development of modern secure web applications in the cloud. “Cloud Security & Information Assurance Deep Dive” focuses on introducing some of the top regulatory compliance frameworks used to achieve cloud security compliance. When we develop projects to apply innovative technologies to our clients or corporate operations, we thoroughly baseline the cost, efficiency, return on investment, quality of the product, and potential savings. Typically, we pilot innovations in a low-impact test case. At the end of the pilot, we compare the innovation results to the baseline. We measure Success by the effective improvement across one, multiple, or all area(s), as well as on realized or potential customer satisfaction. Below are samples of iBITs Team member innovations.
- Established a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline and DevOps culture before it was fashionable to do so, leading to faster development and deployment
- Implemented Automated Data Capture (ADC) with Machine Learning to capture structured and semi-structured data in place of manual data entry. Achieved 95-99% confidence after first pass and 100% accuracy with QC, saving the customer $1.5M
- Assisted in the design/implementation of Robotic Processing Automation (RPA) (bots) to perform dual entry into agency systems. Also developed a mapping tool to streamline synchronization between the systems, achieving a 75% time savings over manual data entry.
- Piloting and ADC solution using Artificial Intelligence to capture structured and unstructured handwritten data to enhance the ability to trace weapons used in a crime.
- Using Deep Learning Methods in support of multiple imaging quality control and analysis methods. A specific example is bone lesion segmentation in PSMA PET/CT for Metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC) Given the extent and complexity of this signal and the importance of 3D segmentation, manual and semi-automated segmentation methods are impractical to scale. To address this bottleneck, a 3D multi-modal UNet was trained and is being successfully used.
- Super-resolution (SR) methodology has emerged as a practical tool that may improve the interpretability and reliability of clinical MRI [1,2] for structural measurements. We employ a custom 3D variant of the deep back projection network which is optimized with both distortion-minimizing and perceptual losses.
For more information visit NITAAC/CIOSP4/RFP#75N98121R00001
