Army-specific apps earn cash - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Army-specific apps earn cash

Soon the Army may deploy androids on the battlefield. Hold on, not that kind of android. Google’s Android, Apple’s iPhone and other mobile devices could be issued to soldiers in the war zone “within the year,” said Lt. Gen. Jeff Sorenson, the Army chief information officer/G-6. Such devices are being tested for use with Army mobile networks, and both Apple and Google are on track to receive encryption certification from the National Security Agency within a year as well, Sorenson said.

To develop Army-specific applications for the mobile devices, the service solicited ideas from soldiers with a contest offering a top prize of $3,000.

The contest yielded 53 apps — and foreshadowed a promising way to quickly get technology to the battlefield, Sorenson said.

“I think that it portends a different way we can do future acquisition of applications for the war fighter,” Sorenson told reporters, adding later: “What I’m trying to do is to get capability to the war fighter much more rapidly, and it still conforms to the intent of the acquisition process, but in many cases, cuts through the bureaucracy and the formality of the process.”

The Army announced the winners of Apps for the Army, its first mobile phone app design contest, at the LandWarNet conference in Tampa, Fla.

The contest launched March 1 yielded 53 Web and mobile applications in 75 days, many of them for the iPhone or Android.

Sorenson told reporters the contest model could supplant the Defense Department’s bureaucratic acquisition process as a more flexible means of developing software. He suggested the Army tap several collaborative forums, such as the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., to broadly identify capability gaps, and then hold contests for the commercial sector to develop solutions.

Stealing a page from the iTunes Store, the Army plans to create a developmental framework for third-party software developers to design Army-focused apps for mobile devices. An acquisition decision memorandum detailing the nascent project is due in August, Sorenson said.

As with the contest, mobile apps can already be developed using the Defense Department’s collaborative software design platform at www.forge.mil and distributed via its hub at https://storefront.mil, where some of the contestants’ work is already available.

“The ones that we have been able to put on the storefront, soldiers can download today, and I think that not only creates some opportunities for some to improve what they do on a daily basis but maybe encourages them to consider going onto forge.mil and writing an app on their own,” Sorenson said.

One first-place winner, Maj. Greg Motes of the Army School of Information Technology at Fort Gordon, Ga., said he and several students designed the “Physical Training Program” app in the run-up to a planned class on app development.

The intent of the iPhone-compatible app was to help soldiers develop their own PT program, Motes said. It converts the “wall of words” in new Army physical readiness doctrine into a searchable format, with multimedia; in this case, demonstration videos from the PT proponent at Fort Jackson, S.C.

Motes suggested future Army manuals could do the same. “Some people learn better from words and pictures and some people appreciate the videos,” he said.

Fifteen winners and 10 honorable mentions were selected from among the apps, which were developed by 141 soldiers and Army civilians. After passing security certification, the apps were judged in five categories by a panel from across the Army. Each of the five categories had first- ($3,000), second- ($1,500) and third-place ($1,000) winners plus honorable mentions.

Aside from Motes’ app, there was the “Telehealth Mood Tracker,” which was another winner. The program allows users to track their psychological health over time and experiences associated with deployment-related behavioral health issues.

Sorenson was optimistic about research into apps that could control unmanned aerial vehicles, research into the use of commercial or “good enough” encryption, and the efforts of companies to ruggedize and integrate commercial mobile devices into Army systems.

“I can foresee a day when [soldiers] will be equipped with an iPhone or equipped with an Android in order to conduct the mission,” Sorenson said. “We have a lot of commercial companies developing capabilities that will be extraordinarily beneficial to what we’re trying to achieve on the war-fighting front as well.”