Dr Alex Zelinsky – CSIRO Group Executive, Information Sciences and Director, CSIRO ICT Centre.

Security software licensed to Australian company

Reference: 08/233

In an agreement announced today, sophisticated analysis technology jointly developed by CSIRO and Boeing has been licensed by CSIRO to Australian company Semantic Sciences to enable the development of software for intelligence analysis to protect Australia’s security

• 15 December 2008

CSIRO Group Executive for Information and Communication Sciences and Technologies, Dr Alex Zelinsky, said CSIRO was pleased to be part of this successful technology transition.

“We are assisting the delivery of an important national outcome through an Australian SME - Semantic Sciences,” Dr Zelinsky said.

“This new company has world-class expertise in scalable knowledge management technology.”

Semantic Sciences’ Adelaide-based CEO, Dr Daniel McMichael, has 20 years research experience in probabilistic analysis, information fusion and intelligence processing. 

Dr McMichael’s former CSIRO research team previously won two contracts from Boeing for the creation of a 'cognizant control room' as part of Project Wedgetail, Australia’s airborne early warning and control program.

“Our system incorporated the first ever scalable whole-of-situation analysis capability, together with advanced operator action and speech monitoring with feedback,” Dr McMichael said.

Over the past year Dr McMichael – with support from the Office of Australian Industry Capability (OAIC) at Boeing – has been working to identify opportunities to utilise this technology.

“We are pleased that the excellent research conducted by Dr. McMichael and his team will be developed even further to the benefit of the Australia’s national security,” Senior Project Manager for the OAIC, Dean Webb said.

The research being carried out by Semantic Sciences addresses the need for solutions to what intelligence analysts dealing with counter-terrorism regard as a ‘needle-in-the-haystack’ problem. It is being financially supported by the Office of National Security within the Department of The Prime Minister and Cabinet through the Research Support for Counter-Terrorism program.

The activity will develop prototype software which analyses, crosslinks and queries huge datasets for use in counter terrorism. 

CSIRO has a strong strategic research partnership with Boeing in the areas of Advanced Materials and Structures, Complex Systems, mathematical and ICT technologies, and Advanced Platform Systems.

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