Yet Analytics is bringing its learning and training tech to a Maryland Air Force base

Yet Analytics, the downtown Baltimore-based learning and training data tech company, was recently awarded a contract to implement its platform with the U.S. Air Force at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County.

Partnering with the 18-month-old Joint Base Andrews innovation program SparkX Cell Innovation and Idea Center, the company is implementing its learning experience software as part of an effort to connect Airmen with training and professional development opportunities, both online and on the base.

“Our goal is to help to improve awareness of and access to quality learning and training experiences for the Air Force community and to help commanders understand in real-time how Airmen are making use of professional development resources,” Yet Analytics CEO Shelly Blake-Plock said.

The Phase II Small Business Innovation Research award is through the U.S. Department of Defense. It is sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory and facilitated by AFWERX, the Air Force’s innovation-focused program. The amount of the contract was not disclosed.

Founded in 2014, Yet Analytics developed a platform that is built on xAPI, an elearning specification developed by DoD’s Advanced Distributed Learning initiative that is designed to allow data collection across online and IRL training activities, and sharing of that information across systems.

The company is “both providing products that support that expansion and that modernization as well as constantly building out new capabilities on our platform to support it,” Blake-Plock said.

Blake-Plock now sees xAPI at an “inflection point” as it becomes more formalized, both within the wider community as it goes through a process of becoming a standard, and as it is used by large organizations across government and industry. Historically, he said, these kinds of technologies take time to develop, then become standards. It’s brought there by a community that is working toward creating a new piece of the technology playing field.

“We think of ourselves as part of that global community that is working towards the maturation of the space itself,” Blake-Plock said.

In this process, it’s implementations of that technology — like the work with Joint Base Andrews — that can help bring it to practice and scale. Over the last 18 months, Yet has increasingly worked to provide these technologies for the DoD as it takes on large-scale problems, Blake-Plock said.

“There is a very significant modernization effort going on within the DoD related to learning and training technologies and we are supporting that,” he said.

The company is currently hiring, as Blake-Plock said the team continues to seek “great software talent.”