Development of Dari Speech to Spech (S2S) Language Pack (LP)

REQUEST FOR INFORMATION: THIS IS NOT A SOLICITATION: No award will be made as a result of this request. This Request for Information (RFI) is for informational purposes only; this is not a Request for Proposals (RFP), or Request for Quotations (RFQ). No solicitation document exists and formal solicitation may or may not be issued by the Government as a result of the responses to this RFI. The Government will not be liable for payment of any response preparation expenses and is in no way obligated by the information received. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in their response. NOTE: The use of a RFI Number W909MY-18-R-A004 is for tracking purposes only. BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION: Army Contracting Command-Aberdeen Proving Ground-Fort Belvoir (ACC-APG-Belvoir) is conducting market research on behalf of Program Executive Office Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors (PEO IEW&S), Product Director, Machine Foreign Language Translation System (PD, MFLTS) in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 10. MFLTS consists of open architecture software and language component software. MFLTS is a software only capability that provides an automated foreign speech and text translation capability in order to augment and complement limited human linguistic resources across all Army echelons in all environments. The MFLTS software application resides on portable, mobile and web-enabled host hardware. Initial MFLTS capability supports translation of two spoken languages (Pashto, Iraqi Arabic), one written language (Modern Standard Arabic), and two language domains (Checkpoint Operations & Base Security). In the future MFLTS will continue to be improved with new languages, additional language domains, and technical improvements throughout the product's Total Life Cycle. REQUIREMENT: MFLTS requires development capability, given off-the-shelf linguistic resources (speech translations in the defined domain and/or existing language component) and language data collection, in order to deliver a militarily useful translation capability to meet operational needs. This RFI seeks to identify sources having an interest and capability to develop a Dari Speech to Speech (S2S) translation language pack within the Government owned MFLTS open software architecture, implemented for portable configuration (i.e., standalone, Android based hand held computing device with no network connectivity) and supporting designated language domains. Vendors should refer to the following MFLTS software architecture documentation, which is available upon vendor request: 1. MFLTS Technical Requirements Document Volume 1: Architecture Specification; 2. MFLTS Technical Requirements Document Volume 2: CILABL Application and Language Component Development Guide; 3. MFLTS Software Development Kit (SDK) and Sample Language Components (LCs). 4. MLTS Data Corpora Guidelines Requests for MFLTS software architecture documentation must be sent via e-mail to Wanda Harner, Contract Specialist, at wanda.n.harner.civ@mail.mil, cc Rosetta Wisdom-Russell, Contracting Officer, at rosetta.wisdom-russell.civ@mail.mil, and George Smith, Technical POC, at george.w.smith306.civ@mail.mil. No requests via telephone will be accepted. Include RFI number W909MY-18-R-A004 in the subject line and the following information: 1. Vendor Name: 2. Address: 3. CAGE Code: 4. POC Name, Phone # and email: RESPONSES: All responsible sources are requested to identify their interest and capabilities by submitting a White Paper response. White Papers must be no longer than five (5) pages and must be in a Microsoft Word compatible format or Portable Document Format (PDF), with the following parameters: 1. Font: Arial (All Text) 2. Font Size (Narrative): 12-point 3. Font Size (Figures & Tables): no less than 8-point 4. Font Color: Automatic (Body Text & Headings) 5. Line Spacing (minimum): Single (1.0) 6. Page Size: 8.5" x 11" 7. Page Margin (Word): 1" Left, right, top, bottom 8. Page Number Location: Bottom Center White Paper responses MUST include the following: Provide the following information about your company. If submitting a team response, please include the requested information for all companies on the team. a) Company Name b) Point of Contact, Phone Number, Email Address c) Company Address d) Website (if available) e) Contact Phone Number f) Business Type (e.g., Large Business, Small Business, Small Disadvantaged Business, 8(a), HUBZone, Woman-owned Small Business, Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business, Veteran Owned Small Business) g) NAICS code(s) and business size h) Cage Code and DUNS Number Note: Please identify your company's small business size standard based on the primary North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) code of 541930 and 1 secondary NAICS code of 334220. The Small Business Size Standards for these NAICS codes are $7.5 million and 1,250 respectively. For more information, refer to http://www.sba.gov/content/table-small-business-size-standards. 1. Brief summary of the company, of no more than 3 paragraphs. 2. If you identify your company as a Small Business or any of the SB subcategories as stipulated in above, then is your company interested in a prime contract for the above requirements? 3. Under the current SB recertification regulations, do you anticipate your company remaining a small business, under primary NAICS 334220? If you are a SB answer questions 3A & B. All others skip to Question #4. a) If your company is awarded the contract, will you be able to perform at least 50% (percent) of the work? b) If you are a small business, can you go without a payment for 90 days? 4. Does your firm possess an approved Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) accounting system? 5. Does your company possess the capabilities to provide the entire range of services called for in the above requirements? ______ YES _______ NO 6. If you answered YES to Question # 5, please provide specific capabilities and examples for how your company can provide these services. 7. If you answered NO to Question # 5, please list what services in the above requirements your company can provide? Please provide specific capabilities and examples. 8. Is your company planning on business arrangements with other companies, please list the process used in selecting the members? 9. Please provide details regarding proposed joint ventures, teaming arrangements, strategic alliances, or other business arrangements to satisfy the above requirements. Offerors are encouraged to identify teams, indicating each team member's size based upon the NAICS code of the work that the team member may be doing. 10. Is your company currently providing similar services to another government agency (you may also include contract #s for government) or other non-government customer? If so, please identify the agency or non-government customer. If you are unwilling to share your customer's identity, please address whether your company offers the same or similar services commercially. 11. Has your Company performed this type of effort or similar type effort (to include size and complexity) in the past, if so provide Contract Number, Point of Contact (POC), e-mail address, phone number, and a brief description of your direct support of the effort? 12. What are the core competencies of your employees that would support the above requirements? Also, provide the total number of individuals currently employed by your company that are capable of supporting the above requirements. 13. Existing Government Contracts: Indicate if vendor is currently on any Federal Supply Schedules, Government wide acquisition contracts, multi-agency contracts, and any other procurement instruments intended for use by multiple agencies. If yes, provide contract name(s) and number(s). 14. Discussion of vendor's approach to providing a Dari two way S2S translation language pack for MFLTS. In this section the vendor should address the following: 15.a. Identify and describe any pre-existing Dari language data the vendor possesses. 15.b. Identify and describe any previously vendor developed Dari two way S2S language application(s). 15.c. Describe the technical concept and provide the estimated schedule and Rough Order of Magnitude (ROM) cost for collecting additional language data (see note 1), developing the S2S language pack, integrating into the MFLTS software architecture, and providing one year of post-delivery software maintenance. The technical concept section should address, at a minimum, the following: 1) overview of planned data collection efforts, to include the total number of hours of general speech data, number of hours of domain-specific speech data per domain to be collected, and the total number of hours of speech data for ASR training (along with the target number of distinct voices to be used); 2) description of the proposed S2S language pack, to include the Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Machine Translation (MT), and Speech Synthesis (also referred to as text-to-speech) components; and 3) summary of the approach to develop and integrate the language pack. The schedule must include, at a minimum, the timeframes (in weeks) for: 1) language data collection; 2) S2S language pack development; and 3) integration into the MFLTS baseline. The ROM must, at a minimum, provide a breakdown by: 1) language data collection; 2) S2S language pack development and integration; 3) one year of software maintenance; and 4) any applicable software licensing fees. 15.d. Vendor's proposed Government data rights for language data and language pack software (see note 3) delivered under this effort. Note 1: The Government will provide documentation in the form of task lists and scenarios for the vendor to use in collecting the domain-specific language data. Note 2: All proposed vendor solutions must be capable of being implemented within the MFLTS software architecture for portable configuration (i.e., standalone, Android based hand held computing device with no network connectivity). Note 3: The Government requires Unlimited Rights for all language data collected using Government funding. The vendor will provide copies of all language data collected using Government funding, to include annotation, transcriptions, and translations, separated by domain where applicable, to the Government. The Government requests Government Purpose Rights for language pack software. NO TELEPHONIC INQUIRIES WILL BE HONORED. White Papers shall be submitted via email to Wanda Harner, Contract Specialist, at wanda.n.harner.civ@mail.mil, cc Rosetta Wisdom-Russell, Contracting Officer, at rosetta.wisdom-russell.civ@mail.mil, and George Smith, Technical POC, at george.w.smith306.civ@mail.mil within 14 calendar days of the date of this notice. Include RFI number W909MY-18-R-A004 in the subject line. SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL: Vendors may submit supplemental material, in the form of briefings, product descriptions, data sheets, information papers, etc. as desired. Supplemental material is not subject to page limitations or format restrictions. Supplemental material shall be submitted through one of the following: 1. In writing by e-mail to Wanda Harner, Contract Specialist, at wanda.n.harner.civ@mail.mil, cc Rosetta Wisdom-Russell, Contracting Officer, at rosetta.wisdom-russell.civ@mail.mil, and George Smith, Technical POC, at george.w.smith306.civ@mail.mil. Include RFI number W909MY-18-R-A004 in the subject line. 2. U.S. mail to ACC-APG - Washington, ATTN: Rosetta Wisdom-Russell, 10205 Burbeck Road, Fort Belvoir, VA 22060-5863; or 3. Facsimile to the attention of Rosetta Wisdom-Russell at 703-704-0800. Include RFI number W909MY-18-R-A004 in the subject line. All requests for additional information must be made in writing via e-mail to Wanda Harner, Contract Specialist, at wanda.n.harner.civ@mail.mil and Rosetta Wisdom-Russell, Contracting Officer, at rosetta.wisdom-russell.civ@mail.mil. Include RFI number W909MY-18-R-A004 in the subject line.