VA Insight Software Pte Ltd
Expedite Operational Intelligence with VA Insight

The journey of VA Insight began in 2018 when government agencies approached them seeking help in meeting the upgrade demands of mission-critical intelligence capabilities installed on their agency computers. During this time, the term client-server architecture became synonymous with old and risky, given the continuous patching and upgrades needed at various endpoints to keep the capability functioning. Besides, the industry was witnessing a surge in the use of data. It had become the world’s fastest-growing commodity which brought forth several challenges. The large quantity of data consumed by these agencies for analysis was essentially choking in the network pipe between the server and the client, and they were struggling to gain actionable intelligence from increasing amounts of data in a time-efficient and effective manner. To migrate the legacy data to new systems was risky, time-consuming, and expensive. With that in mind, the executives and development engineers of VA Insight posed the following question to government agencies: “If you could leave your enriched data where it was and still perform the intelligence processes you currently undertake and do it through a web client, would this help, save you money and be a lower risk option than moving your data?

The answer was a resounding “Yes!”

Based on these discussions, VA Insight Software Pte Ltd was formed and officially opened its doors in December 2019. “Though we are a young startup, the foundation of the company has always been strong, which is built on years of industry and subject matter expertise, practitioner experience and technology innovation,” states Sam Erskine, Chief Executive at VA.

Headquartered in Singapore, VA Insight has brought together a team of developers, technical consultants, and strategists to address the two primary challenges hindering the government intelligence arena. In simple words, what government agencies need is Insight: The capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding.

To achieve this feat, the company developed the robust VA Insight Portal™, a browser-based, modern three-tier architecture solution for investigators and field operators that streamlines data collection and provides tactical visualization to expedite the intelligence cycle and easily extend critical information to operational users on the go. VA Insight Portal™ helps achieve two main objectives: leave the clients’ data in place and support the government’s strategic initiative to migrate to a full browser-based (3-tier) stack for application delivery. “The transition to the web (browser) layer was crucial, as there had been an ongoing trend across many nations for governments to support a transformation to cloud computing and pushing the limit to have all applications supporting a 3-tier architecture,” says Erskine. For instance, GovTech in Singapore has ambitious targets that at least 70 per cent of eligible Government systems will operate on the commercial cloud by 2023.

Unlike client-server or 2 tier technology, the VA Insight Portal™ is built from the ground up to be light on infrastructure and very cloud friendly. With an easy to deploy framework and a solid market-tested technology stack, the company also has added enhanced capabilities that allowed users to connect and read and write to data sources and deliver powerful, intuitive analysis via a browser. The users can easily create records, conduct a simple search of records within the repository, and build queries to identify complex links. They can also gain insights from the database with customized visuals Along with document sharing, auditing and reporting are also simplified.

Most importantly, VA Insight invests heavily in its people to build a strong workforce. The company has a highly skilled software development team in Singapore, Batam Indonesia and a network of partners across the globe. All of them contribute their diverse first-hand experience and expertise to an innovative, robust platform that “Wows” clients and accelerates their time to decision making.

All-in-all, VA Insight simplifies the maintenance of intelligence analysis by allowing users to access their data wherever they have an internet/ intranet connection via Firefox, Chrome or Edge and perform their requirements in the intelligence cycle. Although the government intelligence arena is witnessing a rise in advanced technologies like AI and ML, VA Insight believes that the involvement of humans still plays a pivotal role. “Humans are the X factor. I have read many papers, attended conferences and forums, discussed with Deputy Commissioners, CIO’s about small, medium and big data. I understand that there is a place for AI and ML, but in the end what these systems output still requires a human to make a decision,” explains Erskine. This is where the VA Insight Portal™ comes into play to put the tools into the hands of the intelligence and investigations operative. It allows them to look at a result from an AI or ML algorithm that was ingested into the VA Insight database and see what it means. “The intelligence cycle that all agencies in varying forms adhere to, requires a human in the loop with a set of tools. VA Insight is that tool,” concludes Erskine.