NIMA/PCE, 4600 Sangamore Road MS D-88, Bethesda MD

A -- NATIONAL TECHNOLOGY ALLIANCE DUE 031797 POC Contact Brian Wolfe, Contracting Officer, 301/227-2158 or wolfeb@nima.mil BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT FOR NATIONAL TECHNOLOGY ALLIANCE In 1990, an intelligence agency established two National Technology Laboratories known as the National Information Display Laboratory (NIDL), hosted by David Sarnoff Research Center, and the National Media Laboratory (NML), hosted by 3M, to represent a new model for cooperative research and development between government and industry. This partnership has created a powerful alliance known as the National Technology Alliance (NTA), for the purpose of focusing research and development on certain commercially driven information technologies. The Alliance has expanded its customer base to the entire intelligence community and will operate in a more open relationship among the intelligence community, other Government agencies, and industrial and academic partners. The goals of the NTA are to: (a) Facilitate joint ventures between intelligence and other Federal Government agencies to avoid duplication and reduce cost; (b) Perform applied research by focusing the best commercial resources, through industrial partnerships, on the Government s critical technology needs in order to tap into the accelerating advances in the commercial world; (c) Influence commercial standards to promote compatibility and interoperability between systems; (d) Ease the transfer of Government technologies- to industrial partners willing to transition these technologies into Commercial-Off-the-Shelf (COTS) products in order to reduce operation and maintenance costs; (e) Provide constant open communication to increase intelligence community awareness and to share needs and results in the critical technology areas of the Alliance. The purpose of this announcement is to solicit research proposals from qualified industrial sources to act as an expanded National Technology Alliance. The NTA will bring together the best in government, industry and academia for the purpose of identifying, accelerating and developing commercial information technologies which the government can apply to meet the critical needs of its users. The premise for this concept in technology R&D is that, for many of its needs, the Government can leverage the vast resources and talents of commercial industry. This approach also benefits industry by better focusing solutions for the government market thereby creating new opportunities for new products. The industry host is the crucial element of the NTA business model and the single most important factor contributing to the successful execution of all laboratory endeavors. The laboratory host must operate as the focal point of the NTA programs in order to achieve the strategic objectives of the NTA. The NTA encompasses a broad set of skills, services, and technology programs and serves as a vital link between commercial industry and government. The NTA is founded upon the principle of cooperative technology development conducted through extensive partnerships among the best in industry, government and academia. While focusing on the critical technology needs of U.S.Government users, the NTA aggressively pursues the application and development of commercial technology solutions. The host(s) of the NTA must ensure that all technology programs are founded upon the expressed requirements of a diverse set of Government users. These users routinely represent a variety of unique applications, but they also share the common need for a particular fundamental technological capability underlying their application. By working with sets of users with common interests and issues, NTA programs can provide opportunities for leveraged R&D investments which can also result in an accelerated development cycle toward potential commercialization. NTA hosts are also principally responsible for combining the extensive high quality resources base in commercial industry and academia in collaborative research programs. The expert knowledge and experience of the NTA host provides the capability to identify and engage the best available resources in finding innovative technology solutions. Inorder to ensure a more efficient utilization of limited government resources, the sharing of technology has become necessary under the general concept called dual use. The NTA develops products that are useful in more than one government application. In addition, the NTA produces products that are useful in both government and commercial applications. The NTA was established to allow the intelligence community to aggressively exploit the growing opportunity in information processing technology. The primary focus of the NTA is the analyst. The fundamental approach of the NTA is to support these users and applications with world class resources for both current and future needs. When appropriate, NTA solutions are based on current COTS technology. However, the NTA has developed advanced technology to be commercialized as future COTS products. A host of the NTA must have a full complement of capabilities to successfully initiate and orchestrate a comprehensive and balanced set of technology programs. A NTA hostmust possess the following essential combination of qualifications which represent the evaluation criteria for award: Recognized U.S. Commercial Industry Leader; National and World Record of Achievement in R&D; Broad Government and Commercial Business Base; Breadth of Experience; and Proactive Leadership in their field. NIMA is seeking NTA hosts with the attributes listed above and specific commercial expertise in the following core capabilities: high bandwidth information communication, compression, computing, displays, information processing, records management, distance learning, assisted target recognition, multimedia databases, data architectures, storage media and storage devices. Interested parties should submit research proposals identifying the area or areas in which they could best serve the NTA and fully delineating how they meet the evaluation and core capability criteria set forth above. Security clearances for employees and facilities may be required for some tasks and potential hosts are therefore asked to identify clearance levels in their proposals. Organizations with specialized expertise are encouraged to partner to provide the broadest range of research capabilities. To allow shared funding of multiple acceptance of research proposals, IDIQ contracts are anticipated. Funding potential is $75 million over a three year period. Proposals are due not later than 5:00 p.m. EST on 17 Mar 97 and facsimile proposals will not be accepted. (0029)

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