The OSINT Foundation honors intelligence community organizations and individuals who champion open-source tools and tradecraft in support of national security. Senior leaders from the FBI, CIA and U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command attended the ceremony.

The Product of the Year Award recognizes a finished, unclassified and publicly available open-source intelligence product that demonstrated exceptional value to the nation, provided substantial impact to the organization’s mission and benefited the public good by increasing the public’s understanding of the value of OSINT.

The foundation was especially impressed with how the product’s “compelling narrative” broke down a complex, highly technical issue with exhaustive footnotes into an intuitive product that speaks to all readers regardless of intelligence community affiliation.

The unclassified booklet includes a timeline of the growing relationship between Russia and North Korea, background on the North Korean missile program and highlighted systems Pyongyang provided to Russia. It also visually compares missiles depicted in North Korean state media with missile debris from Ukraine, making the case that Russia is using North Korean missiles.

Source: DIA

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The following recipients of the OSINT Foundation’s 2024 Awards were recognized:

• Paige McMillan, U.S. Army Asian Studies Detachment received the LTC Ed Waller IC OSINT Practitioner of the Year award, which recognizes the IC OSINT professional who has demonstrated exceptional service to the nation, materially contributing to the OSINT discipline and mentoring other OSINT practitioners.
• S. Army Asian Studies Detachment, 500th Military Intelligence Brigade (Theater) received the Dr. Graham Turbiville IC OSINT Unit of the Year award, recognizing the IC unit that has demonstrated exceptional impact to national security and materially contributed to the OSINT discipline by making its products or services available to the broader IC or decisionmakers, gaining greater respect for the contributions of OSINT, implementing innovations and codifying and sharing resulting tactics, techniques, or procedures, or demonstrating effective means of displaying or disseminating its OSINT-related products.
• Neil Stern, Directorate of Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation received the inaugural Dr. Adele Kibre IC OSINT Catalyst of the Year, which recognizes OSINT professionals such as librarians, data scientists, auditors, trainers, linguists, operational support, COTRs, policy analysts, program managers, and OSINT managers who enable practitioners, demonstrate exceptional service to the Nation, and materially contribute to the OSINT discipline.
• Indo-Pacific Regional Center, Defense Intelligence Agency, for “North Korea: Enabling Russian Missile Strikes Against Ukraine” was given the IC OSINT Product of the Year Award, recognizing a finished, completely unclassified and publicly available OSINT product that has demonstrated exceptional value to the nation, provided substantial impact to the organization’s mission, and benefitted the public good by increasing the public’s understanding of the value of OSINT.
• The Open Source Enterprise, Central Intelligence Agency, for the Osiris platform, was recognized with the inaugural IC OSINT Innovation of the Year Award, given for the novel technique, process, or platform that is at the unclassified level, derived from U.S. Government technology, and which has demonstrably improved the effectiveness of the OSINT discipline and significantly impacted the national security of the United States.
• David Reese, Chairman, OSINT Foundation Practitioner Committee, was named the OSINT Foundation Volunteer of the Year award in recognition of his outstanding service to the OSINT Foundation and the OSINT discipline.

The Awards Reception drew over 140 attendees, with the keynote address given by Jason Barrett, the Intelligence Community OSINT Executive. Also in attendance were Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Tonya Ugoretz; MG Timothy Brown, Commander of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command; and Randy Nixon, Director of the CIA Open Source Enterprise. BAE Systems hosted the event at its Falls Church, Virginia facility.

Source: OSINT Foundation

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The following recipients were recognized:

Shawn Porter, 312th Military Intelligence Battalion, US Army

Porter received the LTC Ed Waller IC OSINT Practitioner of the Year award, which recognizes the IC OSINT professional who has demonstrated exceptional service to the nation, materially contributed to the OSINT discipline, and mentored other OSINT practitioners.

Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, Open-Source Intelligence Branch

The Branch’s exceptional work was recognized with the Dr. Graham Turbiville IC OSINT Unit of the Year award, given to the IC unit that has demonstrated exceptional impact to national security and materially contributed to the OSINT discipline.

NGA Tearline and University of Mississippi

They were jointly awarded the foundation’s new OSINT Product of the Year honor for a product entitled “China’s Interests in Montenegro: Alternative Analysis Case Study.” The award recognizes a finished OSINT product that has demonstrated exceptional value to the nation. The students’ product demonstrated effective OSINT tradecraft and served as an exemplar of a high-quality OSINT product.

Abel Vandegrift, Authentic8

Another new foundation award this year, the OSINT Foundation Volunteer of the Year award, was given to Vandegrift in recognition of his outstanding service to the OSINT Foundation and the OSINT discipline.

Barbara Alexander, president of the OSINT Foundation, noted the awards are important to celebrate the growing professionalization and maturation of the OSINT profession as a critical Intelligence Community discipline. Additionally, 100% of the proceeds of the tickets goes to support the foundation’s scholarship fund, with two scholarships awarded annually to students in an undergraduate degree program who are interested in OSINT and a career in national security. She announced the evening’s ticket sales fully funded the 2024 scholarships, and that the foundation is adding a graduate scholarship next year for OSINT professionals who are pursuing advanced degrees.

The awards reception drew over 120 attendees, who appreciated the keynote address given by Lieutenant General Laura Potter, the US Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, G-2. Attendees representing the honorees’ organizations included Colonel Bradley Bean, USMC, Commander of the Marine Corps Intelligence Activity, and Command Sergeant Major Kyle Gillam, US Army, of the Intelligence and Security Command. Lieutenant General Ron Burgess (US Army, retired), former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and OSINT Foundation advisory board member, provided the closing remarks. BAE Systems hosted the event at its Falls Church, Virginia facility.

Source: OSINT Foundation

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“Expanded open source intelligence is a natural progression for the intelligence community as modern technology continuously increases the amount and quality of available data,” said Rasmussen. “I’m looking forward to working with OSINT practitioners across the spectrum to help make sure that we can combine the power of OSINT with NGA’s expertise in intelligence and analytical observations.”

Rasmussen will serve as NGA liaison as part of his official duties at NGA. He was selected due to his long history with OSINT in the DoD and IC, including his award-winning work as manager of NGA’s Tearline project.

Tearline is an ongoing series of collaborations with academia and non-profit groups to create public-facing, open source intelligence on various strategic, economic and humanitarian intelligence topics that are under-reported.

Source: NGA

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The Dr. Joseph Markowitz IC OSINT Advocate Award recognizes the U.S. Intelligence Community senior leader who has advanced the open-source intelligence discipline, demonstrated advocacy of the OSINT practitioner profession, and taken steps to establish or strengthen a program of record for OSINT in their agency. Dr. Markowitz served as the first Director of the Community Open Source Program Office (COSPO) and dramatically advanced the Intelligence Community’s OSINT capabilities.

During a recent National Intelligence University OSINT Panel discussion, Army G-2 Lt. Gen. Laura Potter said that the  “Army continues to make great strides in the professionalization of OSINT. We see OSINT as a foundational intelligence collection discipline that tips and queues other intelligence disciplines. OSINT is instrumental to the success of our intelligence collection efforts.”

Lt. Gen. Potter, aided by her OSINT leadership, led the professionalization and maturation of OSINT in the Army Intelligence and Security Enterprise by directing the creation of an Army OSINT Strategy, reestablishing an active role with the DoD’s American, British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand (ABCANZ) SENSE OSINT Project Team to develop an interoperability report and reports and returns standards, and requiring baseline OSINT training across all military intelligence occupational specialties for enlisted, warrant and commissioned officers. Lt. Gen. Potter effectively advocated for the OSINT practitioner profession within the Army by shepherding the creation of more than 200 military OSINT positions over a five-year program build, and advocated for an Additional Skill Identifier (ASI) for OSINT.

OSINT Foundation President Barbara Alexander said, “It is a great privilege to present Lt. Gen. Potter with the first Markowitz Award on behalf of the Intelligence Community OSINT practitioners. Given the exceedingly high standards for the award, we do not believe it will be awarded often. As the Army G-2, General Potter established a clear vision for OSINT in the Army, recruited new, dynamic OSINT leaders, and provided necessary and tenacious advocacy for the discipline. It is clear the Army Intelligence Enterprise has collectively made great strides toward fulfilling that vision. The award not only reflects great credit upon Lt. Gen. Potter, but also upon the Army’s OSINT leaders at all levels, and the Army’s OSINT practitioners, who embody the ‘Always Out Front’ motto of the Military Intelligence Corps.”

Source: OSINT Foundation

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This definitions document marks the beginning of a long-term effort to establish well-reasoned standards for the OSINT discipline, based on an inclusive and deliberative process, according to the foundation. The foundation also plans to develop a standards document similar to the GEOINT Essential Body of Knowledge, which was established by the United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation. The resulting corpus will serve as the basis for an independent professional certification.

While the focus of the OSINT Foundation is the U.S. Intelligence Community, and the definitions are not binding on those outside of the community, there is nonetheless, great value in the document for non-IC practitioners. The foundation’s document lays out fundamental concepts based on precedent and law, while offering critical insight into the nature of the discipline to establish clear boundaries for what is and is not OSINT. These clear boundaries will help assuage concerns regarding potential violations of civil liberties and civil rights.

Review the OSINT Definitions document.

Source: OSINT Foundation

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Ensuring all producers and consumers of OSINT are prepared for the future is a key priority for the Foundation. It is committed to providing opportunities for OSINT practitioners to grow through forums, continuing education, promulgating OSINT tradecraft best practices, developing professional certification standards, and recognizing performance excellence.

The Foundation is a non-profit, 501 (c)(3) organization. It is led by Barbara Alexander, president, and Dr. Eliot Jardines, director of operations. Alexander established the Department of Homeland Security Open Source Enterprise and was the department’s senior representative to the National Open Source Committee. Dr. Jardines was the inaugural Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Open Source, and promulgated the first Intelligence Community Directive for OSINT.

The foundation’s advisory board is composed of highly respected, former senior members of the Intelligence Community who provide guidance and thought leadership to the foundation. The members of the advisory board are:

• LTG (ret.) Ronald Burgess, Executive Vice President at Auburn University, and former Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
• MG (ret.) Barbara Fast, CEO of BGF Enterprises, LLC and former Deputy Director, Army Capabilities Integration Center and Commanding General, U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca
• Dr. Thomas Fingar, Shorenstein APARC Fellow at Stanford University and first Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis
• Dr. Eric Haseltine, Chairman of the Board of the US Technology Leadership Council and former Associate Director of National Intelligence for Science and Technology
• Sharon Houy, former Chief of Staff and Associate Deputy Director at the Defense Intelligence Agency
• Patrick Neary, former Chief of Analytic Integrity and Standards for the Intelligence Community and Associate Deputy Undersecretary for Research at the Department of Homeland Security

Alexander said, “OSINT plays a critical role in Intelligence and National Security, and we are excited to launch an organization connecting OSINT practitioners across the IC. We will work to promulgate common standards for this important intelligence discipline and we are dedicated to maturing the open source workforce.”

Source: OSINT Foundation

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