2010 American Security Challenge Generates at Least 16 Winners

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- After thorough screening by over 100 experts, 14 companies were selected for 16 customer and investor awards at the 2010 American Security Challenge (ASC) announcement ceremony held September 23 in the Washington DC area.  The American Security Challenge is the nation's premier program to identify innovative technology that has security applications/implications and accelerate its deployment into the defense and intelligence community as well as private sector critical infrastructure owners.  

This year, 150 companies (known as Challengers) submitted technology for the pilot and investor awards.  Six Challengers -- Bit9, BlueCat Networks, Chiliad, Pikewerks, Rapid7 and Triumfant were selected to participate in pilots (which are sponsored by Pilot Award Partners including ArcSight, ManTech, Intuit, and others).  Seven Challengers -- Oculis Labs, RoundTrip, Widetronix, CipherOptics, Techno-Sciences, AginCourt, and Rsignia were picked for final investment consideration by Investor Award Partners Grotech Ventures, Valhalla Partners, Active Angel Investors, Blue Heron Capital and .406 Ventures.  Challengers Rapid7 and Pikewerks were selected for both pilot and investment awards.  Additionally, Raytheon selected Harbor Wing to apply for Mentor Protege status program in conjunction with Department of Defense and Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Last year's Challenge resulted in over $10M of term sheets, funding, sub-contracts and teaming agreements.  "I think we'll be closer to $25M this year," said ASC Advisory Board Chairman Roger London.  "We saw a ten-fold increase in our traction with the consumers of security technology (defense, intelligence and Fortune 500 markets), and the near-term 'deployability' of the technologies submitted is much higher this year."

"This is useful for ArcSight to explore all these new technologies," said new Public Sector Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Prescott Winter, formerly CTO of the National Security Agency until recently moving to ArcSight.  "We picked up a large number of pilots...and will have our product facing folks get involved to talk about the value to our customers.  We are very excited about it; it is a valuable experience for the whole company."

The daylong program included presentations from a number of the winning Challengers, discussions between industry security thought leaders and the presentation of the Patriot Award.  This year's Patriot Award was presented to General Keith B. Alexander, Director of the NSA and Commander of the new U.S. Cyber Command who accepted the award on behalf of those at "NSA and CCS who protect this nation day in and day out with very little publicity.  They are in fact the true Patriots."

Jumpstarting the program's activities were a "Fireside Chat" with Governor Tom Ridge, moderated by FOXNews intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge.  The country's first DHS Secretary warned, "Cyber-war represents the biggest lurking threats for the U.S.  We are under attack constantly.  The targets are not the typical military targets present in a physical war, but a mix of critical private and public infrastructure, including gas, power and communications grids."  

Raytheon's Terry Downing, Manager of Special Projects was very pleased with Raytheon's outcomes, "We ended up actively pursuing relationships with seven companies.  That's a phenomenal win for us...and really pays tribute to the veracity of the American Security Challenge."

"The process was not cumbersome and we are thrilled," said one of the award winners Larry Butera, CEO of Rsignia.  "For a small company with limited marketing budget, it's a great opportunity and was a tremendous experience for us."

Of the Challengers presenting at the event, the audience selected AginCourt as the Challenge's Most Promising Technology in an exciting real-time text vote.

ASC will continue to pulse the market for new technologies and refresh its current inventory of Challengers who upgrade their products, secure outside capital, acquire key customers or other note-worthy activities.

ABOUT AMERICAN SECURITY CHALLENGE (ASC)

As the largest competition and matchmaking opportunity in the nation, the American Security Challenge is the center of gravity for the critical stakeholders in the security technology market.  By quickly identifying solutions to mission critical and highly visible issues, the American Security Challenge public/private partnerships are working to secure our nation's citizens, our assets, and our economy. 

SOURCE American Security Challenge