It’s no secret that service members in the US military are being asked to do more, often with outdated technology and manual processes. Military readiness and the ongoing ‘pacing threat’ to national security are top of mind for Department of Defense leaders, and USAF systems are undergoing a significant cultural shift. 

This “accelerate change or lose'' mindset is one of the reasons MOTAR is gaining such fast traction across the Department of the Air Force (DAF). MOTAR, or Member, Operations, Training, Analytics, and Reports, gives our Warfighters the edge to meet the demands of today’s Multi-Capable Airman (MCA) training requirements. 

“To be successful in the face of modern warfare challenges, senior military leaders argue airmen require not just deep specialization in a career field, but the flexibility to learn on-demand to accomplish tasks outside their core specialty,” shared Krissa Watry, Co-Founder, and CEO of Dynepic. 

With MOTAR already named as a USAF requirement a few months prior, in December 2021, USAF shared its plan around cultivating and deploying MCA through an ‘operational concept’ called Agile Combat Employment (ACE).  Essentially, it was determined that having airmen with a broader set of training competencies was proven to be imperative to accomplishing mission objectives with greater success. 

“MOTAR provides the key infrastructure needed for airmen to train anytime and anywhere, using the most cutting-edge training available, with much of the training delivered on eXtended Reality (XR) headsets, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR),” Watry said. “MOTAR allows airmen the diverse, hands-on experience they need to meet ACE requirements, and facilitates traditional and just-in-time training. Extended Reality (XR) is the future of learning, and the future is now for the USAF!”

While there are many features of MOTAR that empower the Multi-Capable Airman, here are a few we wanted to highlight today: 

• MOTAR Hub: A collection of curated apps, lessons, AI, 3D Models, videos, and other XR assets. The MOTAR course creator can link to the available content found on the Hub. 
• Airman Learning Record (ALR): MOTAR’s ALR encompasses all aspects of an airman’s training, readiness, and duty history. Members have a complete picture of their training record, a listing of all the digital badges they have earned and they can even add education and key skills like hobbies for AI to reason over when matching their skills to mission requirements 
• Unit Training Manager (UTM): The UTM Dashboard provides training managers access to view the training performance and readiness of their unit.
• Leadership Dashboard: Part of MOTAR Insights, the Leadership Dashboard provides critical insights for all the units they are in charge of, rolled up to a high. 
• Mission Planner: Commanders can now create missions, set key requirements for the mission positions, and use AI or MOTAR search of the ALRs to match qualified candidates so they can be rapidly trained to meet mission needs.
• AI Competency Analysis: The MOTAR Mission Planner leverages permission-based AI Plugins to enable leaders to set mission requirements and then use AI competency engines like MANTISTM to reason over the ALRs to match candidates and identify training gaps.

If you have any questions about MOTAR or want to activate your own account, please reach out directly to Christina Padron, VP of Partnerships and Growth. You can also follow us on LinkedIn, where we post news announcements and highlight a new MOTAR feature every Friday. 

The rise of the People’s Republic of China has created enormous ripples in the Department of Defense ever since 2015, the first time the United States lost in the “Red on Blue” war simulation run by Rand Corporation. The simulation created an urgent need to understand exactly what China was doing with its time and resources over the last twenty years. The military learned the Chinese were creating an elaborate defense strategy designed to take on any current American military technology rooted in the intelligence of how the U.S. prosecuted the War on Terror and outright prevent it from operating anywhere near China or the South China Sea. 

General Charles Q. Brown Jr., the Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force, became the standard-bearer for the military in creating a new vision to counter China.  He aptly coined the phrase, “Accelerate change or lose.”  Since that time, the Air Force has been laser-focused on investing in new technologies to ensure the United States deters China from making the decision to militarily take over the South China Sea and Taiwan. 

Unfortunately, the way the government is structured, especially in military acquisitions, has been an extremely difficult path to modernizing the military. Not only are acquisitions decentralized among the Branches of the Armed Services and Combatant Commands (COCOM), but they are also decentralized within the Air Force’s Major Commands (MAJCOMs).  This decentralized execution for a vision requiring unity of effort is hurting the U.S. military’s goal to keep up with its new pacing threat. 

The problems with acquisitions do not stop there. In “The Kill Chain,” Christian Brose talks extensively about how the American military-industrial complex is great at creating large, expensive systems and how those technologies are not enough to defeat or deter China.  We need to move beyond these weapons systems and think outside the box in low-cost, attainable technologies.

What is notably missing from all the current military modernization literature is the importance of high-fidelity training. This is a travesty considering one of the major advantages the U.S. military has over pacing threats is the quality of the Noncommissioned Officer corps. Additionally, as the U.S. military modernizes, it has created the requirement for Multi-Capable Airmen (MCA), exponentially increasing the need for relevant training at the speed of need. 

AF Doctine Note 1-21 by General Brown, Chief of Staff of The Air Force - source

The Multi-Capable Airman construct was farmed out to the Air Forces’ wings to figure out and create requirements and map a path forward to achieving the goal.  This decentralized process was a great way to leverage the experience and ingenuity of the Airmen. However, most of the “best practices” were frozen in place.  Each wing came up with training plans to create qualified MCA. Those programs continue to lie in siloed locations at their respective bases. This is not a new problem for the tactical level leaders.  In my 20 years as an Air Force pilot, training has always been base specific. Even the schoolhouse training materials developed by the top instructors of their weapons system resided at their training bases and never fully spread to the operational wings. 

As an Air Force Reserve C-17 Squadron Commander, I waste a large amount of time reinventing the wheel.  We have been tasked to come up with our own training requirements to operate in contested environments. There is no direction from higher headquarters and each wing came up with something a little different from the other wings. We discussed this at Combat Planning Council and began developing a singular training strategy based on accepted Reserve-wide standards. However, Air Mobility Command was already working on its own standard and AETC had already created a program to introduce aircrew to contested environment operations during initial qualification, pilot check-out program, and instructor programs. None of the training materials created reside in a single location nor has there been an established standard from any of those MAJCOMs. 

On top of creating brand new training requirements and desired learning objectives, each unit is still responsible for tracking and training Airmen to the previous standards. The standards are universal and governed by the respective MAJCOM, but the materials, techniques, and procedures are still siloed in each wing and unit. There are no standard training products, no repository of knowledge, and no easy way to push down a standard of best practices to all wings. Additionally, there is no way to continuously update training at the speed of need and relevance.

Enter: Member-Operations-Training-Analysis-Reports (MOTAR). This new training ecosystem solves the Air Force’s training and tracking needs using future proof capability.  As a squadron commander, I waste enormous amounts of time on readiness and training tracking each month.  My squadron, Operations Group, and Airlift Wing spend numerous hours pulling statistics from various siloed sources to create a “snapshot-in-time” picture of how the wing is doing on training.  This requires a multitude of spreadsheets and manhours to put together products. Couple this current training requirement with creating new programs for MCA and we have exceeded the capability of a wing.

MOTAR solves all these problems!

1. Houses all training (legacy & new) in one platform only needing a CAC to login.  Currently, Air Force units keep training products on iPads, share drives and SharePoint...not viewable by other units or wings.  MOTAR can be the knowledge library AF-wide.
2. Creates the entryway to all new training technologies including extended reality (XR) such as virtual reality and augmented reality.  MOTAR can leverage the entire tech sector and create the unity of effort required to build MCA.
3. Integrates with all legacy, siloed platforms to create a single location to track member readiness and training requirements.
4. Houses Artificial Intelligence that can provide real-time readiness of Airmen. This enables leadership appropriate situational awareness of their wings and creates a capability to provide the right team at the right time for any operation.
5. Future-proof training technology.  Allows vendors, users, and experts continuous access to present the most up-to-date and relevant training at the speed of need.
6. Allows cross-MAJCOM standardization and approval at the speed of need.
7. Wings do not have the manpower or resources to absorb the new training requirements of MCA.  Extended Reality (XR) training is an outstanding tool to reduce stress on wing resources.
8. Adoption of MOTAR across MAJCOMs can spread costs evenly, reducing stress on acquisition finances.
9. MOTAR is IL4-capable (June 2022) and will eventually be IL6+ and house DoD classified information.

Currently, Dynepic is working to cross the “Valley of Death” and senior leaders struggle with how to communicate the MOTAR value proposition.  This essay was written to provide the 40,000-foot perspective of what is happening in the DoD at the strategic and tactical levels, why it is happening, and how important it is to create Multi-Capable Airmen. 

MOTAR is not simply a platform to help AETC training programs, it is the future of all Air Force, and eventually DoD, training programs. It is the technology that will enhance our Airman’s advantage over our pacing threats.  All the new war technologies in the world are useless unless the American service member is appropriately trained.  

The Russians have already proven this theory and we must not make the same mistake.  

“Accelerate change or lose.”

The countdown to #LOA2022 has officially begun, and the first-ever MOTAR Zone is almost ready! 

For those joining us at LOA this year, MOTAR Zone will include both government and ecosystem partners and will allow attendees to physically experience MOTAR’s digital ecosystem and see firsthand how it supports the warfighter, increases access to training, and improves readiness. This is your chance to be immersed in the best XR, training tools, and learning apps on the market, all available on the MOTAR platform. 

MOTAR Zone will be open during show floor hours and we’d love to see you there. If you want to make sure you have time with one of our elite team members to dig into how MOTAR can help your company #LevelUp, please email victoria@dynepic.com to schedule an onsite 1:1. 

And if you’re not able to make it, be sure to follow our stories on Instagram and posts on LinkedIn for behind-the-scenes and live coverage! 

Government Partners:

367 TRSS ‘The Griffin’: The 367th TRSS is comprised of over 75 active-duty and civilian personnel from across the aircraft maintenance, missile maintenance, maintenance management analysis, and cyber systems operations communities. The distinctiveness of this organization’s charge is made evident in the mission statement, “Maintainers delivering needs-based solutions to the Maintenance Community.” The Griffin aims to leverage technology to develop, modernize, and deliver training, one Airman at a time. The Griffin is activated on MOTAR and delivering courses through the platform!

HQ AETC/A9 Det 23: Det 23 explores innovative technologies to bolster AETC initial skills training development. The team serves as a conduit for industry partners to provide solutions to modernize Air Force classrooms without impacting current student throughput requirements in the technical training pipeline. Furthermore, the Detachment ensures that the modernization of AETC training aligns with longstanding Air Force best practices while meeting the directive of Airman Centric, Mission Focused, and Competency Based. Det 23 is a staunch supporter of MOTAR and has funded a multi-year Phase III SBIR effort to continually enhance the platform. 

Ecosystem Partners: 

3D Media: 3D Media is a technology development firm specializing in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality solutions for military, industrial, medical and academic applications. With over 20 years of programming, plant operations, and military experience, their key personnel are equipped to utilize proprietary processes to design, create and deliver tailored, innovative technological solutions to their clients.3D Media will be showcasing their ‘Pocket B-1B’ app and other 3D models on MOTAR Hub to demonstrate effective use of existing assets.

BUNDLAR: BUNDLAR’s award-winning no-code cloud-based platform provides everything needed to create, publish, manage and experience augmented reality. Teams of any size can use their existing audio/video/3D assets and more to produce immersive engagements without any knowledge of coding or 3D models. Post publishing, teams can leverage robust user analytics to optimize their content and experiences to achieve the desired results and scale. The BUNDLAR platform consists of a Content Management System, proprietary API, and App, making it one intuitive platform for all your AR needs.

Design Interactive: Empowering People with Innovative XR Technology, Design Interactive is a women-owned small business specializing in building interconnected and interdependent Extended Reality (XR) ecosystems that allow for plug-and-play of XR enablers, including digital twins, digital phenotypes, and automated human performance capture and assessment to drive a high-level of digital enablement. DI assists organizations in accelerating the adoption of XR. In the MOTAR Zone, DI will highlight IMITATE - a behavior-based performance optimization tool that accelerates skill acquisition in any context by providing adaptive, personalized instruction, standardized assessments, and guided, video-enhanced performance review.

Discovery Machine, Inc.: Discovery Machine® is an AI company that is focused on building operational systems utilizing their patented technology and methodology to deploy captured mental models in situationally aware, goal-directed, voice-enabled cognitive agents that replicate human experts. At the MOTAR Zone, learn how DMI’s AI is leveraged with MOTAR! From VIPER® to MANTIS™, see how their highly acclaimed virtual agents and software can enable modern learners to train like they fight!

Enduvo, Inc.: Enduvo is the leading creator platform for immersive training. It enables anyone to rapidly create and share visually stunning, immersive, and interactive learning experiences and distribute them to PCs, tablets, or VR headsets. Airmen deserve a better way to train than decades-old CBT.  Enduvo’s XR learning platform allows subject experts to quickly create immersive content on any device and share it anywhere across the USAF. 

HTX Labs: HTX Labs is a Houston-based commercial software company on a mission to revolutionize the way critical training is created, deployed, and measured across the Department of Defense. To address a growing demand to deliver safe, engaging, and accessible immersive training, HTX pioneered the EMPACT® Immersive Learning Platform. EMPACT enables users to rapidly develop, create, deploy, and measure realistic, immersive training content anytime, anywhere, on any device. Visit the MOTAR Zone to see how easy it is to create new immersive training right from MOTAR, using EMPACT!

PlaneEnglish: PlaneEnglish is dedicated to bringing to aviation the most effective training tools that enable aviators to train on their own time and at their own pace. The PlaneEnglish Aviation Radio Simulator, ARSim, is an AI-based radio simulator with a built-in training curriculum to train and experience pilots in phraseology, procedures, and callouts. Better comms, more effective training! Visit MOTAR Zone to see how ARSim is integrated into MOTAR!