Kentucky agribusiness team among first units to use new Web tool overseas

By Capt. Joseph Fontanez

CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind. (11/28/12) - Members of Kentucky’s fifth agribusiness development team participated in XCapture training and development in November in preparation for deployment to Afghanistan.

XCapture is a Web-based tool that will help ADT 5 document and share experiences and lessons learned while conducting missions overseas.  These unclassified mission reports will be accessible to personnel who would like to learn more about what ADTs are doing during their deployment.

Although XCapture is still in the research and development stage, ADT 5 has been actively participating with XCapture developers to enhance the software user experience and mission information collection process. The feedback and suggestions provided will make this a tool that ADTs from other states can use to view unclassified agribusiness project data, mission story boards, and lessons learned from any computer connected to the internet.

“Our agribusiness development team is very excited about the opportunity to be on the front-end of the XCapture project," said Lt. Col. Dallas Kratzer, ADT 5 executive officer.  "We have the right mix of tech-savvy and agribusiness professionals who are giving outstanding feedback to the XCapture development team, and they are in turn designing the application to meet our specs.”

In addition to inputting data into a Web-based interface, ADT 5 will also be assisting the developers with a mobile version of XCapture that can be used on Android-based tablets.  This added capability will allow team members to create field-expedient reports with pictures and audio clips that can be transferred to the XCapture web interface upon return to the forward operating base.

Heather Hodgin, project manager for XCapture, explained how ADT 5 has been helping with the research and development of the project.

“Although the system has already been deployed as an in-theater pilot to gain initial feedback about user needs in Afghanistan, the Beta deployment of the system with Ky ADT 5 marks a landmark for the project," Hodgin said.  "This will be the first time the system is used for capturing data with the intent of operationally sharing it not only with other ADTs operating in Afghanistan and teams preparing for deployment, but also with stability operations organizations with a need for ADTs' valuable lessons learned and methods.”