{"id":211432,"date":"2019-02-26T07:45:44","date_gmt":"2019-02-26T15:45:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=211432"},"modified":"2025-10-09T07:54:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T14:54:20","slug":"humans-team-up-with-machines-to-ensure-national-security","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/humans-team-up-with-machines-to-ensure-national-security","title":{"rendered":"Q&#038;A: Humans Team Up with Machines to Ensure National Security"},"author":5252,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[931],"tags":[278902,279512,1711,321922,484172],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[478462],"esri_blog_department":[478242],"class_list":["post-211432","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spatial-analysis","tag-data-science","tag-geoint","tag-machine-learning","tag-nga","tag-qa","esri-blog-category-viewpoint","esri_blog_department-public-safety"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) creates a human-machine team to deliver geospatial intelligence, a decisive advantage.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<em>A Conversation with Sue Kalweit, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), director of the Analysis Directorate <\/em>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"Key Takeaways\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>The NGA pairs humans with machines to find patterns and trends in volumes of data to aid the warfighter and advance the mission.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Analysts use machines to augment traditional analysis and improve the accuracy and speed of answers.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Engineers aim to give automation the same rigor and validity as traditional tradecraft, eliminating bias and considering alternatives.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Analysts at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) often work behind the scenes, providing maps and data to policy makers, the armed forces, intelligence agencies, and first responders. Their work\u2014much of it done using geographic information system (GIS) technology\u2014supports critical military, political, and humanitarian missions worldwide. Now, NGA teams are receiving support from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/artificial-intelligence\/overview\">artificial intelligence and machine learning<\/a> to process data and help speed the delivery of powerful geospatial intelligence, known as GEOINT.\r\n\r\nSue Kalweit, NGA director of the Analysis Directorate, has been heavily involved in the agency\u2019s modernization, focusing on data science, artificial intelligence, and automation.\r\n\r\nKalweit addressed the audience at Esri\u2019s Federal GIS Conference in Washington, D.C. on January 29, 2019. We spoke to her at the event about taking advantage of all available data; map-based deliverables evolving to meet customer needs; and how to add automation to analysis while maintaining customer confidence and trust.\r\n\r\n<em>This interview has been edited and condensed.<\/em>\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<strong>You refer to the human-machine team. How do you break down the responsibilities of this partnership?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThere\u2019s no doubt machines excel at processing lots of data, connecting dots, and uncovering trends and patterns. Machines process data faster, and humans can get overwhelmed by large volumes of data.\r\n\r\nHowever, machines are not creative thinkers. They don\u2019t work collaboratively with others to bring diverse viewpoints and opinions together. That\u2019s what people do best.\r\n\r\nSo, when you pair humans and machines you get a really powerful team to take advantage of the explosion of data. It\u2019s not just <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/arcgis\/products\/imagery-remote-sensing\/overview\">remotely sensed imagery<\/a> that has grown exponentially, everywhere you look there are sensors and sources that provide spatially and temporally referenced data.\r\n\r\n<strong>Defense mapping has historically been done behind closed doors, but increasingly your work is in the public eye. To what do you attribute this openness?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nPeople who haven\u2019t been our long-standing customers are now needing our products and services. The Ebola epidemic stands out because the global community of health workers needs our information and data visualizations to support the humanitarian response. It became an imperative for us to open up and share what we had for the good of the world.\r\n\r\nOn top of that, the explosion of imagery from commercial remote sensing companies, and our need for what the commercial marketplace offers, has pushed us to work in the open. We have learned to use commercial imagery and the data the geospatial industry creates from that imagery.\r\n\r\nWe owe it to the defense, intelligence, and national security communities we serve to use all available data to help answer questions, plan missions and operations, and identify threats. It only makes sense to expose what we're doing and reach a hand out to the private sector.\r\n\r\nIndustry tends to innovate more quickly than the public sector can, and our customers need us to be at the top of our game. We need to get inside our adversaries\u2019 decision and action cycles, therefore, we need to take advantage of innovation."},{"acf_fc_layout":"quote","image":211462,"text":"Algorithms are representations of analytic models that reside in the heads of analysts. To automate an algorithm, analysts have to be able to describe those models in a way that can be coded in software.","author_name":"Sue Kalweit","author_profession_organization":"Director of the Analysis Directorate, NGA"},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<strong>How have the products you deliver evolved to use the increasing volume of data?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nHistorically, and to a large extent today, we produce static visual products made from digital data. When we talk about GEOINT at the speed of need, we\u2019re allowing our customers to interact with information, ask questions, and visualize data in meaningful ways.\r\n\r\nWe are delivering a new wave of interactive applications to meet mission needs and add to static products. We\u2019re soliciting feedback to make sure what we deliver fits our users\u2019 needs. Customer feedback is incredibly valuable to our data collection and knowledge cycle.\r\n\r\nIn some cases, we create a digital map to provide the common operational picture with direct input from forces in the field. To that we add updated threat intelligence. If the customer wants a map to share with others, such as for diplomatic purposes, then it\u2019s updated to be releasable. Both are made from the same data, created once and used many times.\r\n\r\n<strong>With the move to interactive apps, has the paper map gone away?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nI believe the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), which provides paper maps to the war fighter, is as busy as ever. I don\u2019t think the day of paper maps has gone away. We will continue to support our partners at DLA, particularly until the war fighter has the means, equipment, and doctrine to operate in a completely digital mapping environment.\r\n\r\n<strong>As the director of the Analysis Directorate, do you spend a great deal of time staying on top of the rapidly evolving field of data science?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWe are busy developing the tradecraft and standards necessary to apply data science to our analytic mission with rigor. I don\u2019t foresee having a workforce of 100% data scientists, but everybody needs to be conversant with the world of data science\u2014understanding where data comes from, how it is structured, and how algorithms are developed.\r\n\r\nAlgorithms are representations of analytic models that reside in the heads of analysts. To automate an algorithm, analysts have to be able to describe those models in a way that can be coded in software.\r\n\r\nData scientists need to understand something about geopolitics, doctrine and tactics of foreign adversary military forces. Analysts need to think about data science skills in the context of answering questions for our customers.\r\n\r\n<strong>How do you evaluate the quality of your answers?<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThere are intelligence community-wide standards. Applying these standards to our work is important to maintaining quality and accuracy in our reports. Standards help us avoid political bias in our analysis and ensure we are conducting analysis of alternatives.\r\n\r\nIn this era we at NGA call AAA \u201cAutomation, Augmentation and Artificial Intelligence,\u201d we have to make sure we apply tradecraft standards. In our analytic reports, we cite the imagery used. We must decide what to cite when an algorithm makes the same type of observation, such as an observation of aircraft present at an airfield. Do we cite the algorithm, the data source the algorithm used, or the analytic model embedded in the algorithm?\r\n\r\nThese are all questions we are now thinking through in our work to establish processes for governance and algorithm validation to adequately assess algorithm quality.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nLearn more about Esri <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/industries\/government\/departments\/intelligence\">solutions for defense and intelligence<\/a> organizations."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Q&amp;A: Humans Team Up with Machines to Ensure National Security<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) delivers world-class geospatial intelligence with its human-machine team to provide a decisive advantage.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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