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ETV's KeenAI™ Military Application Aims to Protect Deployed Trrops
With the help of: New Mexico Manufacturing Extension Partnership (New Mexico MEP)
About
Founded in 2014, Emerging Technology Ventures, Inc. (ETV) is an economically-disadvantaged woman-owned HUB Zone small business located at 1300 Lavelle Road in Alamogordo, New Mexico, with a satellite office at the Genesis Center on the Las Cruces campus of New Mexico State University. Deborah and Eugene “Cliff” Hudson operate the 16-employee company that focuses on autonomous air and ground platforms, integrated sensing, precision agriculture, critical infrastructure inspection, public safety, and defense.
The Challenge
The Department of Defense and NASA recognized the value of ETV’s patent-pending KeenAI™ technology; and since 2022, ETV has been working through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) process to create prototype inspection systems that meet the performance requirements of strategic military and defense applications. The interactive creative process of continual testing and refinement intrinsic to SBIR will soon culminate in full-scale manufacturing and additional contracts for the company. ETV needed help understanding how to meet DOD and NASA’s contract accounting protocols and their heightened cyber security protections, including Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC ) to protect networks, data transmission, and control of hardware inventory. ETV also needed an approved Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) assessment to pursue authority to operate across the deployed government networks. ETV turned to New Mexico MEP, part of the MEP National Network™, for help.
New Mexico MEP is a valuable strategic relationship for us. Denise spends the time to understand our issues, our workflow, and then she looks for opportunities for how we can improve systems. If you don’t do that front-end work, you’re not really prepared to help a company. And Denise is outstanding in doing that front-end work to make the engagement so beneficial for us. We really appreciate her diligence.
MEP's Role
New Mexico MEP Innovation Director Denise Williams helped ETV prepare for anticipated government contracts. CMMC security standards were incorporated into processes, and inventory control software was acquired and configured according to defense contract audit agency requirements. A system security plan was implemented to ensure the protection of materials and data during contract performance. The FedRAMP front-end assessment with the required documentation was completed without diverting critical labor and resources away from the company’s core task of preparing KeenAI™ to be integrated into government applications.