got geoint?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers took less than nine hours to find 10 red weather balloons that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) had placed randomly in public places around the United States as part of its “Network Challenge.” The winners from MIT used what is called an “inverse pyramid” approach to locate the coordinates for 10 red balloons in less than nine hours, claiming the $40,000 contest prize. About 4,300 teams participated in the contest, and the Pentagon will study the results to better understand how social networking can solve large-scale problems that require fast solutions.

This contest also commemorated the 40th anniversary of the original Internet, Arpanet, which was developed by DARPA. In 1969, the early Arpanet connected computers in universities. The first links connected Stanford and the University of California Los Angeles, but Arpanet eventually moved beyond college campuses and evolved into the modern Internet, linking millions of computers and giving rise to the kinds of social connections that Darpa is testing.

According to the Wall Street Journal, some teams were very creative in their tactical approach — offering a cut of the prize money, building iPhone applications, as well as pledging to donate the money to charity. The winning team from MIT used a combination of these strategies. They solicited information from the public and offered to pay for it in increments. In addition, Twitter and Facebook were host to a constant stream of updates that made reference to the contest, although many of these updates provided false information.

It is no wonder that this contest received an amazing amount of press coverage. It is the ultimate test of using only social networking skills to solve what is really a GEOINT-related problem. It would be interesting to see if the NGA would host a similar contest. It would certainly help gain some PR mojo and perhaps gain some insightful DIY-GEOINT data.

Tags: DARPA, DARPA Network Challenge, Department of Defense, GEOINT, got geoint?, Inverse Pyramid, National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, Network Challenge, NGA, Pentagon, The Red Balloon, Weather Balloons