WASHINGTON - Today the Army announced its first internal
applications development challenge, dubbed Apps for the Army or A4A.
Open to all Soldiers and Department of the Army civilians, A4A offers Army
personnel the opportunity to demonstrate their software development skills
and creativity.
In return, the Army hopes to improve its current capabilities or to add new
ones - all through the ingenuity of its people. The Army will recognize the
top submissions at the LandWarNet Conference in August 2010. Winners will
receive monetary awards. The total cash pool is $30,000.
"We're building a culture of collaboration among our Army community to
encourage smarter, better and faster technical solutions to meet operational
needs," said Lt. Gen. Jeff Sorenson, the Army's chief information officer.
"Soldiers and Army civilians will be creating new mobile and web
applications of value for their peers-tools that enhance warfighting
effectiveness and business productivity today," Sorenson said. "And, we're
rewarding their innovation with recognition and cash."
Participation in A4A is limited to the first 100 Army personnel - active
duty, Army Reserve and Army National Guard on active duty, and civilians -
who enroll. Teamwork is encouraged but not required.
A4A applications may tackle any aspect of Army IT - distributed training,
battle command, career management, continuing education, or news and
information distribution, for example. A4A will further deviate from
traditional development practices by utilizing the latest in collaborative
development media.
"Apps for the Army features an innovative cloud computing service for
participants to use during software creation," Sorenson noted. "This is key
because it eliminates the constraints of hardware provisioning prior to
prototype evaluation."
The service, provided by the Defense Information Systems Agency and known as
the Rapid Access Computing Environment (RACE), offers access to on-demand
virtual Windows and Linux development environments. Participants will be
able to pursue Web application development using all available programming
languages supported by Windows Server and the Linux, Apache, MYSQL and PHP
(LAMP) frameworks. They also will be able to build emulated Blackberry,
iPhone and Android applications.
Forge.mil will serve as the collaborative software repository for competing
teams. The tools inherent in milBook and AKO will facilitate the
cross-pollination of ideas, problems and solutions relevant to the Apps for
the Army initiative.
The registration form, rules and instructions are located at the Apps for
the Army Web site on the AKO portal: http://www.army.mil/ciog6/armyapps.
Rolling registration begins March 1, 2010. Apps must be submitted by May 15, 2010.