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On October 8, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA issued the Information Innovation Office (I2O) Office-Wide Special Notice for a Proposers Day. Registration closes at 5:00 p.m. Eastern on October 24 for the November 7 event.
DARPA I2O is sponsoring an unclassified hybrid Proposers Day in support of the anticipated I2O Office-Wide Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). The purpose of this event is to provide information on I2O’s technical goals and challenges, address questions from potential proposers, and provide an opportunity for potential proposers to consider how their research may align with the I2O Office-Wide BAA objectives. Attendance is voluntary and is not required to propose to the I2O Office-Wide BAA.
The mission of the Information Innovation Office (I2O) is to create groundbreaking science and develop transformational capabilities in the informational and computational spheres to surprise adversaries and maintain enduring advantage for national security. I2O programs focus on overcoming technical challenges in bringing these technologies to the mission more rapidly than others think is possible. I2O programs are organized into four thrust areas:
Proficient artificial intelligence (AI): seeks to (1) advance the state of the art of AI, (2) apply state-of-the-art AI to create new capabilities for national security, and (3) develop techniques to mitigate the threats posed by state-of-the-art AI systems. The predominant research challenge on the path to proficient AI is defining and creating trustworthy AI systems, including in the face of attacks by skilled, high-resource adversaries. In these efforts, I2O will leverage the AI Forward initiative to explore new directions for AI research that will result in safe, secure, and trustworthy systems for national security missions.
Resilient, adaptable, and secure systems: aims to dramatically enhance the security and resilience of both new and legacy software, with a focus on practical and scalable approaches. The portfolio emphasizes formal methods development while leveraging AI and machine learning. Techniques and tools are provided to both the broad community (for example, as open-source software), the defense industrial base, and the Department of Defense (DOD).
Advantage in cyber operations: leverages and advances state-of-the-art AI and secure resilient system technologies to produce trustworthy cyber tools and capabilities that operate beyond the capacity or speed of humans. Efforts in this thrust anticipate adversary countermeasures to create enduring capabilities for cyber defenders or warfighters.
Confidence in the information domain: focuses on protecting, detecting attacks on, and measuring the health of the information domain, broadly construed. This domain spans the cognitive level of beliefs and attitudes; the knowledge level of scientific discourse, the financial system, supply chains, etc.; the tracking level, which records the digital dust we all leave behind when interacting with the myriad digital devices required by modern life; and finally, the transport level, which delivers electronic messages in many forms and with various gradations of observability.
I2O may also consider submissions outside these thrust areas if the proposal involves the development of novel capabilities having a promise to provide decisive information advantage for the United States and its allies. I2O seeks unconventional software-based approaches that are outside the mainstream, challenge accepted assumptions, and have the potential to radically change established practices. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in software science, technology, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of the art.
Source: SAM
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