DIGITAL MIND - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Research Scientist at MIT CSAIL

Dr. Paul Keel is a research scientist at MIT CSAIL (Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory). Keel's work encompasses both theoretical and applied research on the development of new models for knowledge construction, computer supported collaborative sense-making and visual analytics in defense and education environments. Keel's expertise draws from different disciplines including artificial intelligence, computer science, cognitive science, organizational management and architectural design. For the past ten years, Keel has managed and advised various DoD and academic research efforts focused on new prototype architectures for knowledge transfer and collaboration. Previously, Keel helped establish MIT's Space, Planning and Organization Research Group where he carried out various projects on the development of physical environments and information technologies that help foster innovation, collaboration and decentralized work. Some of Keel's most recent projects include: the Virtual Transactive Memory, a computational collaboration environment that estimates the expertise of individuals; the T-Soldier, a technology solution focused on improving the decentralized intelligence exchange at lower levels of command; and the Design Decoder, a series of analytics tools to help investigate the genealogy of design decisions. Keel has the B.A. from ZTL in Switzerland (Central Swiss Institute of Technology) as well as the Master and the Ph.D. in Design and Computation from MIT. Keel completed his postdoctoral work at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT. Keel is trained in commercial and instrument flying and has received a military education in planning and coordination at the command and control center of the Swiss Air Force. Experience: Research Scientist

Job Titles:

• Chairman
• Chief Executive Officer
• Strategic Advisor

Walter L. Christman is a pioneer in the global adoption of new cooperative ventures in education and research to enable enhanced regional and global security. He is the principal architect of seven Secretary of Defense initiatives, three of which were endorsed by a President of the United States. He is currently President of Global Strategic Analysis, LLC, a professional services firm located in San Luis Obispo, California. Global Strategic Analysis is a forward-thinking professional services firm offering confidential analytic support and creative services to world-wide clients who seek to foster innovative solutions for a secure and sustainable world. It provides access to boundary-spanning, unconventional thinkers with credibility; builds entrepreneurial networks through strategic partnerships; and produces foresight, resilience and enduring value. He is also Chairman and Founding Director of the Global Challenges Forum Foundation in Geneva, Switzerland, an organization of think tanks, research centers, and academic institutions with the goal of contributing to the much-needed resolution of existing and future global security challenges. He guides its work through offices in: Geneva, Switzerland; Amman, Jordan; Bangalore, India; and San Luis Obispo, California. Dr. Christman's nearly thirty-year career with the US Government spanned service in the Armed Forces, the US Congress, the Pentagon, the State Department, and the White House, with travel to more than fifty countries and over ten years of service as a US diplomat in the international community of Geneva, Switzerland. His academic career includes service as Associate Professor of Global Public Policy with the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, Visiting Fellow of the Center for Technology and National Security Policy at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, and Visiting Scholar at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China. Dr. Christman has overseen strategic collaboration efforts in support of the Office of the Secretary Defense and the US Joint Forces Command in collaboration with the United Nations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and through bilateral agreements with partner nations in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. He was awarded the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Service Medal for his leadership in conceiving and establishing the George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany, which in the past twenty years educated tens of thousands of participants in defense and security topics. Dr. Christman holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Geneva, a Masters in Public Administration from Harvard University, a Masters in International Affairs from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Duke University. Prior to university, he served for four years on active duty in the US Army Special Forces. His professional associations include the Council on Foreign Relations, Trustee of the Marshall Foundation, editorial board of the journal "European Security." Presently, Dr. Christman is general co-editor of the "SUNY Series on Global Challenges in the 21st Century." His forthcoming book under contract is entitled: "Framing NATO's Engagement with China: Relationality and Partnership." He lives in San Luis Obispo, California.

Job Titles:

• Intelligence Advisor
• Strategic Intelligence

A renowned expert in strategic intelligence matters, John G. Heidenrich has long advocated an analytical approach that is "holistic" (comprehensive) by assessing the interactions of political, military/security, socio-cultural, economic, technological, and environmental variables. His analytical reports and studies over the years have focused on almost every region of the globe, as well as functional areas ranging from ethnic/religious conflict and genocide, to terrorism and guerrilla insurgency, to conventional military forces, to proliferation dangers involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD), to arms control treaties, to foreign espionage campaigns, to drug and human trafficking, to energy and water security issues, to environmental issues and their geo-strategic ramifications. He is a longtime expert at collecting and utilizing open source intelligence (OSINT), whether for governmental or private sector purposes. Over a career spanning more than twenty-five years, via government service or private consulting, Mr. Heidenrich has worked with nearly every agency of the U.S. Intelligence Community, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the respective intelligence organizations of the U.S. Armed Forces, including the Coast Guard's. Other past clients of his include the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) and the U.S. military's European, Central, Strategic, and Special Operations Commands (EUCOM, CENTCOM, STRATCOM, and SOCOM, respectively). Mr. Heidenrich is the author of the book How To Prevent Genocide: A Guide for Policymakers, Scholars, and the Concerned Citizen (Praeger, 2001). Its research was funded in part by a U.S. Government grant, and many readers consider it the definitive work on the subject. Ascertaining how to prevent genocidal violence requires a substantive understanding of every social science and how they interact. To that end, the book integrates concepts from political science, international relations, sociology, psychology, economics, history, anthropology, and social-biology (a.k.a. evolutionary psychology), along with an in-depth understanding of bureaucratic behavior, governmental decision-making, international law and diplomacy, military science, the pros and cons of peacekeeping and stability operations, and how violent political instability - such as a genocide - can be forecast from indications months or even years in advance. In 2007, Mr. Heidenrich published a provocative essay in the CIA-published journal Studies in Intelligence, entitled "The Intelligence Community's Neglect of Strategic Intelligence." The essay is unclassified and online. Despite its provocative title, many CIA senior officials quietly agreed with it and the Agency published it in that edition of Studies which commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Agency's creation. The essay has since become required reading in several universities' courses about intelligence work, and at the CIA Sherman Kent School for Intelligence Analysis, which trains new CIA analysts.

Job Titles:

• Operations Research and Analysis

Job Titles:

• E - Learning and Gaming

Doug has successfully produced over 20 interactive courses, simulations, and games in the ten years since he founded Kinection. His clients include major players from the commercial, nonprofit, defense, and government sectors. Prior to Kinection, Doug worked in education, nonprofit, and high technology organizations, including Apple Computer, Inc. and the Yale-China Association. During his years of living and working overseas, he learned to speak several languages and developed an intuitive sensitivity to the nuances of cultural diversity. These skills have proven invaluable for his leadership with Kinection, whose target audiences run the gamut from professional military officers to community youth organizers. Doug is former Board Chair of the North American Simulation and Gaming Association (NASAGA). He is also an enthusiastic recreational gamer who has developed a keen sense of game mechanics over 30 years of playing (and deconstructing) handheld, console, computer, and board games. He is a graduate of Yale University, speaks Japanese and Cantonese, and was featured in Time Magazine and NBC News for his work on serious games.

Job Titles:

• Principal
• Technologist
• Principal - Digital Mind Inc.

Ivan Labra is a technologist and business person with over 20 years applying strategy to solution and product development in environments ranging from startups to fortune 500, corporate, and government. His career began at IBM in the early days of the commercialization of the Internet, globalization and offshoring, working on complex distributed systems with distributed international teams. In California, Ivan worked on product architecture teams in bringing together engineering and product development to deliver products the early days of SaaS development. While working for working for SPAWAR (Space and Naval Warfare Command) he served as the lead architect for the Multinational Interoperability Group defining a new approach for the government to build technical capability, for next generation multimodal command and control systems focused on supporting complex decentralized operations such as tsunami and earthquake relief. Ivan was a member of the research faculty at the Cebrowski Institute for Information Superiority (now Dominance) at the Naval Postgraduate School under Dr. Peter Denning researching "generative networks" - value graphs, such as open source communities that exhibit self-propagating behaviors across a variety of dimensions.

Job Titles:

• Chief Information Officer
• Strategist

Joel Higham is best described as a creator, a strategist, and an athlete - in sports and in business. A life-long resident of the California Central Coast, he combines his passion for creative writing, illustration, graphic design, and good fun to help small business enterprises advance their business opportunities on a global scale. A self-motivated, collaborative, people-oriented Information Technologist, Joel specializes in Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He researches promising technologies and develops customized, leading-edge online platforms for public and private sector organizations that strengthen the value-added chain between client, customer, and wider communities of interest. Confident, connected, open to change, Joel Higham's core network of Millennium Generation co-conspirators in digital excellence are able to search across domains and industries to find the right solution for your organization. Combining the best-of-breed technologies with elegant simplicity in application, Joel's California-based team brings tomorrow to today.

Job Titles:

• Strategic Advisor

Colonel (ret.) Thiele (*1953 in Treuenbrietzen, Germany) has been since 1997 Chairman of the Berlin based "Politisch-Militärische Gesellschaft" (Political-Military Society) and since 2013 CEO of StratByrd Consulting. In several decades of politico-military service he has gained an extensive broad political, technological, academic and military background. Ralph Thiele has studied business administration (MBA) and political science in Munich. In several commanding officer assignments he has developed valuable operational expertise. As Commander of the Bundeswehr Transformation Centre he has introduced Network Enabling Capabilities into the German Armed Forces and driven respective multinational, global developments. While serving in the personal staffs of the German Armed Forces Vice Chief of Defense Staff and the NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe, and in the Planning and Policy Staff of the German Minister of Defense, Ralph Thiele has been directly involved in numerous national, European and NATO strategic, technological and political issues. In his academic assignments he has been Chef de Cabinet and Chief of Staff at the NATO Defense College in Rome and Director of Faculty at the German General Staff and Command College in Hamburg. He has also been involved in numerous national and European Security Research Programs. Ralph Thiele has published numerous books and articles and is lecturing widely in Europe, Middle East, Asia, North and South America on current comprehensive security and military affairs, network enabling and cyber technologies. Expertise Comprehensive Security including Situational Awareness, Critical Infrastructure, Maritime Domain Security, Event Protection, Energy Security, Disaster Response, Cyber Security