A total of 64 entries were submitted and carefully reviewed by the judges, to determine the top technologies that will have the greatest potential to make the US Army more digitally agile, effective, efficient, affordable, and scalable. Last week, the eight finalists presented their solutions to a panel of Army subject matter experts through a private virtual event on November 15. After careful consideration, the judges selected their two winners. The winners are:

IRONPIPE with RAG Capabilities: Revolutionizing Army Digital Transformation with IoT and Generative AI, by Aptima, Inc.

• The IRONPIPE platform, developed by Aptima, is an IoT-based, cloud-integrated system designed to address digital transformation challenges in distributed operational environments. Originally developed for the Department of Navy, IRONPIPE provides real-time situational awareness by consolidating data from environmental, human, and machine sensors into a unified Common Operating Picture (COP). Building on this foundation, its latest innovation—Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)—introduces generative AI capabilities to the IRONPIPE platform. It allows users to automatically generate actionable reports on-demand based on real-time data collected from IRONPIPE sensors. This eliminates the need for manual data analysis and report generation, providing critical insights on personnel, equipment, and environmental conditions.

SBE Vision Digital Engineering Ecosystem, by SBE Vision.

• SBE Vision has developed an enterprise-class interoperability solution, the SBE Digital Thread Platform. Engineered to manage large-scale data through advanced cloud-based technology and a distributed architecture, this platform enables seamless data integration across a variety of engineering applications. A defining feature of the SBE Platform is its cloud-agnostic deployment capability, which allows it to operate in an on-premise, cloud, or hybrid environments. In addition to this flexibility, the platform’s innovative hub-and-spoke model enables the traceability and auditability of data across the digital engineering ecosystem (DEE). As the needs of the DEE evolve, and additional tools are integrated, data is transformed between tools without requiring constant updates to individual connections.

NCMS will be awarding both of the winners’ innovations with $50,000 of in-kind support and $50,000 in project funding, applicable to a future DOD demonstration project.

For more information about the 2024 Army Digital Transformation Challenge, including an electronic book of this year’s entries, visit: https://ncms.org/events/2024-army-dtc.