B. ACADEMIA AND INDUSTRY PARTICIPATION IN TWO UPCOMING STUDIES The National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) is responsible for providing the most advanced imagery and geospatial analysis and information to the US national security and civil communities, and to America's global allies. Established in 1996, NIMA was created to centralize responsibiities for imagery and geospatial information, achieve synergies across the fields, and exploit the tremendous potential of enhanced collection systems and digital technology. As a defense and intelligence agency, NIMA is under the authority of both the Secretary of Defense and Director of Central Inelligence. NIMA Technology Office is responsible for identifying, researching, developing, assessing, and transitioning technical solutions and provices to enable NIMA to meet its mission. To achieve its mission, the Technology Office is starting a new futures forecasting program that will guide NIMA's strategic and tactical investments in new technologies and assist in selecting technologies for operational use that will enable NIMA to achieve its vision. The product will be an annual forecast that includes critical drivers and key technologies. Each year, multiple studies in critical technology domains will be conducted using a web-based Delphi process. The Delphi process brings together a panel of experts, who, through a series of questionnaires, develops a forecast of the technology domain under consideration. NIMA is soliciting participation of industry and academia in two upcoming studies: 1) Databases 2) Information Mangaement and Data Handling Key technology developments and successful implementation of these two technologies domains are critical to helping NIMA achieve its vision of guaranteeing the information edge. To do this, our objectives are to structure our information to provide a common reference framework for planning, decisions, and actions; provide our customers with ready access to the databases of imagery, imagery intelligence, and geospatial information that we acquire or produce; use our information to create tailored, customer-specific solutions; and use our information to enable our customers to visualize key aspects of national security problems. Detailed information on our requirements and reference material will be provided to all survey participants via an Internet website. In addition, the results of the two forecasts will be unclassified and provided to all survey participants. The survey will begin in early October 1999 and be completed by December 31, 1999. Results should be distributed in Feburary 2000. Posted 08/16/99 (I-SN368270).

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