The 2019 GEOINT Symposium is the nation’s largest gathering of industry, academia and government, including defense, intelligence and homeland-security communities, to focus on the gathering and use of geospatial data and information.

In advance of MarkLogic’s attendance this year, I met with our Chief Strategy Officer for the Public Sector, Brigham Bechtel, to learn what he’s expecting of the conference and get his thoughts on MarkLogic’s attendance.

Brigham joined MarkLogic in 2018 after 27 years at the Central Intelligence Agency. A Navy veteran with a background in cryptology, Brigham has global experience as a Senior Operations Officer for the CIA and served as an analyst covering counter-terrorism and military issues.

Why is the GEOINT Symposium important to the intelligence and defense community?

The GEOINT Symposium brings together industry leaders with intelligence and defense customers who depend upon educational opportunities to learn what is possible and stay on the cutting edge of the geospatial community. At the same time, industry leaders need to learn about government requirements to inform their vision for the future.

Why is MarkLogic attending?

MarkLogic is a world leader in integrating data across domains and from various sources. Geospatial enterprises desperately need this because currently the volume and variety of information that is locked in silos hinder government officials who are trying to make the best decisions and deliver the best, finished intelligence.

MarkLogic can enable modernization into cloud environments while maintaining the integrity and security of data. We are currently running multiple mission programs on the AWS Commercial Cloud and the Government’s C2S Cloud. By being cloud neutral, we allow the flexibility for enterprises to remain innovative and continue their modernization efforts. Because of our ability to operate on various cloud architectures, MarkLogic could play a more significant role in NGA’s artificial intelligence, automation and augmentation.

Additionally, military defense commands require up-to-date and capable data systems for their own C5ISR requirements. Those requirements include integrating data from local ISR assets.

We are also excited to share information on our current work in geospatial supporting the intelligence community and showcasing demos as a result of exciting collaborations with our partners.

What are you hoping to learn?

It appears we’re at the cutting edge of some breakthroughs that will enable the machine part of the human-machine team to monitor known facilities and targets with an acceptable degree of reliability and capability. That, in turn, allows humans to invest more time in searching for new threats.

All of the advancements in geospatial intelligence analysis concerning artificial intelligence require the best available data at speed with proven integrity and governance.

I’m looking forward to hearing what the current thoughts and demands are on incorporating artificial-intelligence algorithms into geospatial surveillance and analysis.

What are you excited to see?

Advancements in this geospatial field are happening all the time. It’s an area in which people are highly focused. The GEOINT Symposium is a place where some of those pioneering geospatial developments get showcased for the first time.

I am excited to see demonstrations of the latest artificial breakthroughs and learn more about the handling of various streams of unstructured data and its incorporation into geospatial intelligence and artificial-intelligence algorithms. I’m also hoping to see advancements in some of the quality in ISR platforms and their imagery.

Visit us at booth #1011 to learn how MarkLogic is currently supporting the geospatial intelligence community by simplifying data integration and providing a complete and actionable view of disparate data.

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