On April 30 via live stream, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) Director Vice Admiral Robert Sharp and SAIC’s Vice President of Programs Lew Messing presented the 2020 Innovative GEOINT Application Provider Program (IGAPP) Grand Challenge award to Tech Maven Geospatial.

The IGAPP Grand Challenge is an annual contest for commercial app developers to create a mobile app solution that addresses a need within the Department of Defense (DoD). Vendors have approximately three months to build, demonstrate, and deliver their app to the IGAPP team. These apps are then made available to U.S. DoD and Intelligence Community users worldwide via NGA’s GEOINT App Store.

“This is an outstanding event, recognizing the innovation of the developer community in support of NGA,”said Messing.

NGA Director Vice Admiral Robert Sharp (Right) and SAIC Vice President of Programs Lew Messing (Left)

Tech Maven Geospatial received the $20,000 Grand Challenge Winner award for its Geonames Map Explorer application, designed to maintain situational awareness and safe transportation in foreign regions. The app uses NGA’s Foreign GeoNames & USGS Domestic GeoNames databases in a highly optimized set up for display on a map, table/grid, and searching. The app also supports multi-language audio playback pronunciations, contains geopackage support, and includes advanced mapping features such as navigation, bearing, and distance calculations.

In addition, Vice Adm. Sharp announced the $5,000 Grand Challenge Runner-up, Translator with Speech by Sparkling Apps. The app allows users to instantly translate any typed or spoken text into any of 92 languages and will pronounce the translations with localization capabilities for 10 major languages. The app also supports interpretation of pictures and provides the ability to locally store and playback previous translations—great features for users on the go.

“Congratulations, once again to Tech Maven Geospatial, and all the other participants in the 2020 IGAPP Challenge. Next year, I hope to do this in person. I hope to congratulate people, to look them in the eye, to shake some hands. But until then, stay strong, stay safe. Be well,” concluded Vice Adm. Sharp.

Featured Image: IGAPP Banner