Member News: Cyber Defence Service wins AI competition sponsored by the US Department of Defense

HOST resident, the Cyber Defence Service (CDS), a sister organisation to Juicy Media, has won the XTechGlobal AI Challenge, working in partnership with the US Department of Defense (DoD).

The US Army, Air Force and Navy commissioned the XTechGlobal Artificial Intelligence Challenge to find innovative AI-driven enhancements to enable their future “War Fighters” – the end-goal being to make impactful advances to the DoD’s multi-domain capabilities. 

A product of the Cyber Defence Service, Overt AI captivated the organisers and resulted in reaching third place against thousands of driven minds with impressive ideas and innovations, all using machine learning to facilitate improvements in their products.

Ian Strachan, co-founder of the Cyber Defence Service, said:“The fact that we have made enough of an impact to be a top 10 finalist meant a great deal to us and our hard-working team. The prize money was welcome, well received, and somewhat of a surprise.” 

Peter Davies, co-founder and Technical Director added: “With companies applying internationally to be part of the challenge, it was a real technical achievement to make the top 10 and eventually top three companies.”

Overt AI is designed to provide real-time and recorded situational awareness of wireless heterogeneous networks and was of particular interest given its applicability to signals intelligence. 

Additionally, a prominent topic of the conversations was the work that the CDS had carried out on the discovery and classification of the radio frequency (RF) signals – using deep learning signal analysis for detecting RF links and associated components of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). As IED’s have been a significant threat to military personnel and civilians over the past few decades, its work attracted the attention of the organisers.

The CDS won a total sum of $40,000 which it is reinvesting into the development of its platform. It has also been accepted into the XTechGlobal Accelerator and made invaluable connections within the cohort and the DoD.