It is software worth $10 million.
“The potential is limitless,” Rich Newkirk, CEO of Stonewall Defense.
It was designed by the Department of Defense for military use, but it is now available to local public safety agencies and businesses.
“Imagine any kind of emergency situation. Multiple agencies rush to the scene. Everybody is screaming over the radio. Now you can look down and see what is happening. You can direct what is happening,” said Stonewall President Nicholas Campbell.
It’s called the Android Tactical Assault Kit, or ATAK. It is a high-powered mapping tool "to improve collaboration, planning, and overall situational awareness,” said Campbell.
Stonewall Defense is a military contractor based at the Watervliet Arsenal. It was founded in April by Campbell, formerly an attorney in the Army JAG Corps, and Newkirk, an Air Force veteran with a background in engineering. He helped develop ATAK.
Stonewall has a 20-year license with the DOD to distribute the software at no cost. When they, and other users, update the software, all users benefit.
“If you improve the product, you have to give those products back to the Department of Defense, and that creates this really cool ecosystem within the ATAK that anybody who gets it, makes a change, improves it, and then everybody benefits from that,” said Newkirk.
Right now Stonewall Defense works with several federal agencies along with local public safety departments. Services also include software development, consulting, training, and IT management.
Stonewall is currently a team of four. But the owners hope to expand and bring high-paying tech jobs to the Capital Region.
“If we can do that by providing this technology and developing other technologies, that’s our goal,” said Newkirk.