INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: SPADAC
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A: Since 2001, there has been an increased need for enhanced intelligence. In turn, the demand for highly effective predictive technology and analytics has dramatically increased. We founded SPADAC in 2002 to provide resources, solutions and expertise that respond to this need and are applicable to many other markets and situations. Today, SPADAC serves many organizations and is leading the fusion of spatial intelligence and predictive analytics. Our mission is to provide superior advanced geospatial intelligence services and solutions to defense, intelligence and homeland security organizations.
Q: What kind of work does SPADAC do and what industries do you serve?
A: SPADAC gives customers the power to make confident decisions in mission-critical situations. Our technology and services provide government and commercial decisionmakers with true geospatial intelligence. The company’s offerings include expert GEOINT teams that provide analytical on-site support, engineering services for the creation of customized decision-support systems, research and development, industry-leading products, and innovative technologies and methodologies to help customers make location-based decisions when accuracy and success are paramount. Solution areas SPADAC supports include predictive analytics, spatial content management, LiDAR analysis, geospatial risk assessments, SIGINT analysis, image extraction and geospatially based high-performance computing.
Q: What customers do you serve?
A: The majority of our current clients are in defense, intelligence and homeland security arenas. Specifically, some of our customers include DARPA, Department of Homeland Security, Office of Naval Research, USDA, multiple combatant commands, and a variety of other organizations and agencies throughout the Department of Defense.
Additionally, we have found that our products and services also can be highly effective and beneficial to commercial sector markets—such as insurance, transportation, and oil and gas—which value intelligence that can help them make optimized location-based decisions. By working with both defense and civilian organizations, we’re able to leverage technologies developed for each into more cost-effective, innovative solutions for both.
Q: What unique products does SPADAC offer?
A: SPADAC offers several commercially available technology products including Signature Analyst and EarthWhere. Signature Analyst is a software tool that performs geospatial predictive analytics. Our latest release seamlessly integrates into ESRI’s ArcGIS environment as an extension. Earth- Where is a proven spatial data management system that gives geospatial analysts fast, streamlined and enterprisewide access to geospatial data, such as satellite and aerial imagery, terrain and digital maps. We’re also working on a technology platform solution that will allow us to develop and deploy fully customizable multi-user, multi-role systems that, in essence, provide combined Signature Analyst and EarthWhere capabilities in a Web-based, enterprise environment.
Q: What changes have you experienced in the government intelligence and defense industry? How is SPADAC responding to these changes?
A: We’ve witnessed a continued commitment to and growing demand for cuttingedge data mining initiatives and programs in the intelligence arena, including many with geospatial intelligence requirements. SPADAC specializes in providing services and solutions that address these requirements, therefore helping our clients achieve success by solving these types of complex problems. SPADAC is dedicated to the continuing development of new products and solutions, bringing enhancements to existing technologies, and seeking partnerships with select organizations that will help us further expand our solutions offering for customers.
Q: What plans do you have for the future?
A: As the demand for expertise and innovations within the geospatial and predictive analytics industry grows, SPADAC is positioned to continue delivering outstanding services and solutions to meet those needs.
We have several key product releases scheduled this year. The upcoming release of Signature Analyst 3.2 will feature a number of significant performance enhancements and introduce multi-model approach for spatial forecasting. Future releases will include new temporal analysis tools, event sentinels to automatically generate threat maps, and a full-feature server edition for enhanced workgroup and enterprise collaboration. Upcoming releases of Earth- Where are focused on multi-int cataloging and provisioning [including vector and motion video], distributed processing and an updated user interface.
Also, we’re developing an innovative new solution for an insurance industry channel partner to deliver enhanced risk management capabilities by performing broad-area feature extraction off of Geo- Eye-1 imagery. We believe this solution will have many applications for our government customers as well. Of course, as we continue to grow and explore these new opportunities, we’ll be looking to add top talent to our outstanding team, and look forward to welcoming best-in-class partners, engineers and analysts to be a part of our ongoing success. ♦
