<nettime> Getting IN with In-Q-Tel: send your business plan/proposal to the CIA to let them know 'what's coming down the line'.

["Lachlan Brown" <lachlan {AT} london.com>]

Thirdnet Ltd 
difference engine - cultural knowbotics:
Lachlan Brown

 
I thought I would share this important 
source for Venture Capital with you now 
that the market for IT has bottomed out at 
a more ‘realistic’ level so that you can 
tool up and staff for the coming ‘long boom’. 

http://www.in-q-tel.com 

What's interesting about this Venture Capital company, its directorship
and its portfolio of technology companies is not merely that it is a CIA
company, and more or less alone among VC companies seeking unsolicited
business plans, but that an analysis of both the directorship and
portfolio provides insight into the level of the State's current knowledge
about the field of distributed computing. While it is not in any
businesses interest to outline in full its knowledge-base or plans
publicly, and clearly not in the interests of national security to give
detail of all operations and knowledges, there seems something a little
desparate in the CIA forming a VC company, putting up a web site up and
asking companies to submit their IT business plans for review. I think we
all know that 'Information technology' only goes so far, very little of it
does what the marketing blurb promises, and that articulations of the
technology in culture, employing familiar and some new cultural tactics
and strategies go an awful lot further. But maybe the CIA knows this
too...

The Central Intelligence Agency has a non-profit venture capital arm
called In-Q-Tel, with 40 employees based in Menlo Park California and
$30,000,000 per annum to seed in new technology firms. The Chief Executive
Officer, Gilman Louie, who was video game developer of the Falcon computer
flight simulator and

publisher of Tetris… says that In-Q-Tel is a way to learn
‘what’s out there and what’s coming down the
line’.

In-Q-Tel's address for job seekers: 

In-Q-Tel, Inc. 
P.O.Box 12407 
Arlington, VA 22219 
(703)248-3033 (FAX) 

In-Q-Tel is named for the fictional ‘Q’ ‘the gadget guru
who outfitted James Bond with tiny homing beacons and ejecting car
seats’, has backed the following companys:  Browse3D Corp, which can
show Web surfers several pages at once in virtual “rooms” that
reveal ‘what lies behind the links’. Hmmm...  Graviton Inc.
networker of tiny sensors that relay information to detect chemical or
biological agents.  SafeWeb Inc. which has developed software to allow
analysts to visit foreign web sites without leaving a trace they came from
cia.gov. Sounds an important innovation.

Stratify Inc which is developing software to find important information in
‘unstructured data’ or data scattered throughout an
organizations files, in wordprocessing files, email and databases and
‘puts them together in a way that makes sense’. One has to
pose the question: makes sense to whom?  Tacit Knowledge Systems Inc. of
Palo Alto which scans email to determine who in the organization has
‘potentially insightful expertise’ that someone else should
know
 
about.

Mohomine Inc. of San Diego makes software ‘that culls and
categorizes information spread across various kinds of documents –
even in foreign languages’.

Intelliseek Inc. of Cincinatti are working with Mohomine and Stratify (one
can imagine many co-ordinations and partnerships between these remarkable
companies and their board members) with a mission to monitor overseas
radio, newspaper and Internet reports for current and future trends in the
industry.

The CE of In-Q-Tel Gilman Louie states that the mission is ‘to go
after technologies
 
that are going to get to market anyway.  We want to get there ahead of
time. We want to get there early”. Most In-Q-Tel employees have no
experience of government or CIA employment.


Reviews? David Gilmour. Head of Tacit 

“[Tacit Knowledge] inherited a huge 

technical resource that’s on our side 

and available with a phone call.” 


If you don’t mind parting with shares in your company to a
government organization, especially one presently engaged in a paranoid
‘War against everyone’ remember it is ‘not for
profit’, there is a distinguished history of government subsidising
Small and Medium sized Employers during their start up, and I am sure you
can easily negotiate a non-executive share which may ensure that the CIA
does not have a representative on your board.  Lachlan Brown Cultural
Studies Goldsmiths College 480 Crawford Street Toronto M6G 3J8 I attach
material from their web site.

> From the web site: 
> 
> “If your technology rocks in one of our 
priority 
> technology spaces and youve got the team 
> to back it, wed like to talk to you.” 
> In.Q-Tel web site 
> http://www.in-q-tel.com. 
> On February 19, 1999, the Central 
> Intelligence Agency (CIA) chartered 
> In-Q-Tel, Inc., a private, not for profit 
"venture catalyst" dedicated 
> to developing information technology 
> that enables the gathering of accurate, 
comprehensive, and timely information 
> in the interest of national security. 
> The fast pace of IT development 
> has made it difficult for any government 
agency to access and utilize the latest 
> in information technology. By leveraging 
> other people's resources and its own 
> unique technology assets, In-Q-Tel strives 
> to extend the Agency's access to new 
> IT companies with commercially available, 
affordable and supported technologies. 
> As the CIA's IT change agent, In-Q-Tel 
> helps the Agency absorb new high-impact 
> information technologies, and assists in 
> achieving its IT strategy. 
> This makes In-Q-Tel a uniquely valuable 
> venture partner providing opportunities 
for 
> innovators to develop their cutting edge 
> technologies, access capital and the 
> marketplace, and enhance national 
security. 
> Its ability to provide entrepreneurs and 
> financiers with a thorough, complete 
> evaluation of new technologies represents 
a 
> distinct advantage in their efforts to 
bring 
> new products to market as quickly as 
> possible. 
> 
> In-Q-Tel is led by a team of executives 
with 
> successful track records as entrepreneurs and 
> business leaders in the technology arena. 
> 
> 
> 
> Since September 11th, In-Q-Tel has 
received 
> an unprecedented number of quality 
> technology business proposals reflecting 
> the innovation and imagination that make 
> our country great. These represent a 
tremendous opportunity for In-Q-Tel to 
> better serve the CIA, and support its 
> mission. As such, we carefully evaluate 
> each proposal as quickly as we can while 
> still performing the in-depth analysis 
necessary to assess its potential to 
> address our needs. 
> Once we receive a complete package from 
> you (including a Business Plan, 
> Technology Whitepaper(s) and a list 
> of Corporate Officers and Directors, 
> key members of the Technical Team 
> and Principal Investors), we assign 
> analysts from our business and technical 
> teams to review your company and assess 
> your technology, including its potential 
> to address challenges in our customers 
environment. This process takes time, but 
> you can help by ensuring that your 
> submission includes all of the requested 
information. 
> If your technology meets our needs, we 
will request a meeting with your company. 
To save your time and ours, we take 
meetings only after we have done this 
initial assessment. 
> We respond to each and every proposal. 
You will hear back from us. 
> Click here to submit your proposal. 
> 
> 
> 
> In-Q-Tel has assembled a talented 
team to work on solutions to the CIA's 
most difficult IT problems, and to 
make these solutions commercially 
available. We are technology experts 
and business builders with broad experience 
spanning the worlds of high tech, strategic 
venturing, government, and national security. 
> Gilman Louie, President & Chief 
Executive Officer 
> Ronald Richard, Chief Operating 
Officer & Managing Partner 
> Stephen Mendel, Executive Vice 
President & Managing Partner 
> Michael Tyrrell, Vice President, 
CFO & Partner 
> Bruce Adams, General Counsel 
> Eric Kaufmann, Vice President & 
Partner 
> Andy Halliday, Entrepreneur In Residence 
> Dominique Brezinski, Technical Guru 
> Gayle von Eckartsberg, Associate Vice 
President, Corporate Communications 
> Robert Stratton, Director, Strategic Projects 
> 
> 
> Your company or laboratory may have 
potential to tackle the Agency's priority 
problems while creating substantial 
commercial value by working with In-Q-Tel. 
> Entrepreneurial Companies: 
> In-Q-Tel provides a source of capital, a 
beta/prototyping site, a fast track to a power 
user, and a potential source of revenue. 
In-Q-Tel provides an opportunity for young 
companies and their backers to validate their 
investments. 
> Established Companies, Department of 
Defense and Intelligence Community Contractors: 
> In-Q-Tel can help unlock unrealized 
value in established companies by identifying 
new commercial opportunities for their 
technologies. These companies often have 
a wealth of technology, ready to be 
discovered, and spun out or leveraged 
through a strategic partnership. 
> Universities and Research Labs: 
> In-Q-Tel offers the opportunity to find 
commercial applications for their technologies. 
Universities and research labs would be
 more successful in licensing and 
commercializing their technologies 
if they had more access to the marketplace. 
> 
> 
> We back great entrepreneurial teams 
with frame breaking technologies that 
have the potential to address high growth 
commercial markets. Our focus is not 
procurement or off-the-shelf technology 
solutions. Rather we are seeking companies 
interested in strategic investment and the 
opportunity to develop their technologies 
for our customer the CIA, and for the 
commercial market place. 
> Commercial success for our partners is 
critical to achieving our ultimate goal of 
reducing the total cost of ownership of 
technology to the CIA. As such, we are 
not looking for government-specific 
solutions. We focus on identifying commercial 
analogs to the CIA痴 own enterprise 
problems謡here the needs of the market and 
the CIA meet. Our priority areas: 
> Internet Search and Discovery: 
> · web crawling, indexing, ranking 
> · personalization 
> Information Security and Privacy: 
> · adaptive threat detection 
> · network privacy/anonymity 
> · digital rights management 
> Enterprise Knowledge Management 
and Visualization: 
> · e.g. enterprise search/retrieval, 
indexing, access management, personalization 
> · data warehousing/mining 
> · collaboration environments 
> Geospatial Information Services 
> Distributed Sensing / Data Acquisition 
> 
> Investment Portfolio 
> 
> 
> Browse3D is a software company 
developing products for quickly finding, 
organizing, saving and exchanging 
Web-based content. The company痴 
initial software product, the Browse3D 
Browser, allows users to find and view 
multiple Web pages simultaneously in 
a three-dimensional desktop environment. 
Users can organize Web content while 
browsing, save rooms of information, 
and exchange these rooms with colleagues 
and friends. The product also gives 
Web site designers the ability to present 
users with multiple prioritized Web pages 
all simultaneously viewable on a standard 
computer screen. Browse3D is the winner 
of the Comdex Fall 2001 Best Internet
 Software award. 
http://www.browse3D.com 
> 
> Graviton provides integrated, web-based 
monitoring and control system solutions for 
commercial, industrial and environmental
 applications over distributed wireless 
sensory networks. Graviton痴 solutions 
allow companies to remotely manage
 their business assets, resulting in significant
 reductions in operating and maintenance 
costs, increases in productivity, improvements 
in reliability and enhancements in product 
safety. http://www.graviton.com 
> 
> Intelliseek is changing the way businesses 
think about, gather and use enterprise intelligence. 
Its solutions solve the fundamental problem 
of "information overload" by searching relevant, 
targeted and personalized content from the 
Internet, intranet and extranets to empower 
companies with comprehensive, up-to-the-minute 
consumer, competitive intelligence and industry 
information. 
> www.intelliseek.com 
> 
> MediaSnap's vision is to create and 
drive a new standard of persistent document 
protection that enables customers to 
eliminate the burden2 of managing private, 
sensitive information. MediaSnap targets 
vertical markets including insurance, medical, 
financial and government markets by offering 
a cutting edge privacy protection document 
server, the PIPE (Privacy Information 
Protection Environment). Because MediaSnap 
focuses solely on document protection, they 
offer the latest in state-of-the-art technology. 
> www.mediasnap.com 
> 
> Mohomine builds licensable and OEMable 
software that provides a bridge between 
unstructured and structured data. Mohomine 
is a software infrastructure company who 

creates products enabling enterprise applications 
to access and intelligently utilize unstructured 
data. Mohomine's customers are the enterprise 
and the software companies that sell products 
or services to the enterprise. Mohomine's 
products are designed to be the intelligent 
engine that enables a myriad of different 
software applications. 
> www.mohomine.com 
> 
> SafeWeb designs 渡ext generation・intelligent 
security applications. SafeWeb痴 Secure Extranet 
Appliance (SEA) lets companies build secure 
extranets within hours so that remote employees, 
customers and partners can access internal 
network resources using any Web browser. 
SafeWeb also delivers customized versions 
of its award-winning technology to high-profile 
U.S. government and intelligence agencies. 
> www.safewebinc.com 
> 
> Stratify, Inc. is the emerging leader in 
unstructured data management software. 
The Stratify Discovery System is a complete 
enterprise software platform that helps 
organizations harness today's vast information 
overload by automating the process of 
organizing, classifying and presenting the 
business-critical, unstructured information 
that is usually found in documents, 
presentations and Web pages. The Stratify 
platform transforms unstructured data – 
both internal and external -- into relevant 
and immediately accessible information 
by automatically organizing millions of 
documents and displaying them in an 
easy-to-navigate hierarchy. 
> www.stratify.com 
> 
> Tacit Knowledge Systems, Inc. is 
the pioneer and leader in Expertise 
Automation for the enterprise. The 
core technology behind Tacit's award-
winning products enables organizations 
to resolve complex business problems 
beyond the reach of other technologies 
by continuously discovering and delivering 
human expertise in the organization. 
Automatically and with complete privacy, 
Tacit痴 KnowledgeMail enterprise product 
inventories the most important organizational 
asset: employee expertise. Tacit is 
headquartered in Palo Alto, and has regional 
sales offices throughout the continental U.S. 
including Illinois, Maryland, and 
Pennsylvania. 
> www.tacit.com 
> 
> Traction Software is a start-up company
that has developed a knowledge management 
software tool designed to help organizations 
collect, organize, and disseminate information. 
> 
> Technology Partners 
> 
> OGC is an international industry consortium 
of over 200 companies, government agencies
 and universities participating in a consensus 
process to develop publicly available, widely
 implemented geoprocessing interface and 
protocol specifications. These standards 
"geo-enable" the Web and mainstream IT, 
enabling technology developers to make 
complex spatial information and services 
accessible and useful with all kinds of 
applications. 
http://www.opengis.com 
> 
> SRA is an information technology firm 
that provides services and solutions to 
business and government. The Company 
specializes in data and text mining, 
Internet systems development, systems 
and software engineering, network 
integration and management, information 
security, enterprise systems management, 
and e-mail management systems. Founded 
in 1978, SRA serves clients in national 
defense, health care, civil government, 
and financial services. 


> The sources are Associated Press and the 
> In-Q-Tel promotional website: 
 

 
Lachlan Brown
Thirdnet


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