SBIR-STTR Award

In the past, the United States Air Force’s response to the Chinese threat has predominantly focused on its expanding military capabilities. This approach tends to focus on military engagement and understate diplomacy, soft-power influence, and publicly available information. For example, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), also referred to as the New Silk Road, is a Chinese global foreign policy infrastructure and investment project spanning more than 70 countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. The policy objective is to increase Chinese worldwide influence through large-scale infrastructure project development in order to increase Chinese influence in nation states having political and economic value to China. This Chinese policy objective is supported by a robust information and cultural campaign to influence the online conversation landscapes in those countries associated with the BRI, particularly the online discussion networks associated with topics of economics, trade, and national security of interest to China. The United States and specifically, USAF, is focused on understanding and analyzing the worldwide Chinese information and culture campaign and developing a “counter narrative strategy” that portrays the risk associated with alignment with a Chinese Communist government and this foreign policy objective. Our data-driven solution will analyze the Chinese government’s information strategy and tactics and assist with the development of counter narrative strategy options. Graphika leverages the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to create the world’s most powerful maps of online social media landscapes. Our unique SaaS platform uses AI and machine learning to help our clients and partners analyze how communities form online and how influence and information flow within large-scale networks. The Graphika platform maps structural relationships among online actors and segments large, complex networks based on patterns in relationships, discovering the key communities of interest and affiliation. This methodology allows users to measure the effectiveness (MOE) of information operations (IO) online and to identify when IO is successfully penetrating key target communities. Our methodology also enables users to measure their performance (MOP) and thereby develop elements of tactical counter narrative campaigns for commanders to consider and follow. The result is a targeted cyber-social landscape map and associated intelligence surrounding the audiences and communities of interest that matter most to specific Air Force commands.

Adversaries and competitors of the United States are increasingly leveraging the rapidly evolving Information Environment (IE) to advance their strategic interests against those of the US and allied nations. Maintaining an information advantage in the progressively fragmented online landscape is challenging, as the impact of activities in the IE are difficult to discern and “real-world” effects are often not well understood until long after the events have occurred. As the importance and complexity of the IE increases, effective understanding and navigation of the IE is crucially important to the success of US military missions around the world. The Department of Defense and Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) need the ability to measure the effectiveness of engagement with target audiences across a diverse range of social networks and online communication channels. Access to this data-driven intelligence will support better informed decision making and improved planning and execution of military operations across areas of responsibility (AORs). Octant Data’s technology addresses a clear defense need to precisely measure the effectiveness of adversary campaigns that seek to undermine the national security and economic interests of the United States. The specific use case addressed in this technical solution focuses on the ongoing war in Ukraine.