Photo By Richard Blumenstein | Airmen, government civilians, and industry partners pose for a photo during the annual...... read more read more
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MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. -- Nearly 100 Airmen, government civilians, and industry partners participated in the annual J-Hack 26-1 coding event here, Jan. 27-30, 2026, to solve some of the Air Force Distributed Common Ground System's most pressing challenges.
The event is designed to rapidly develop software solutions for command and control, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operational needs by connecting intelligence tool users and developers.
“The event is a fantastic way for those of us who don't often get to speak to our users to interface with them directly,” said Andre Koka, a577th Software Engineering Squadron electronics engineer, who teams with the Department of the Air Force Portfolio Acquisition Executive forCommand, Control, Communications and Battle Management’s C2ISR division. “We get to see how they go about doing things and see how we can help them.”
DCGS refers to the AN/GSQ-272 SENTINEL weapon system that is operated by active duty and Air National Guard personnel and is the Air Force’s ISR analysis and exploitation weapon system.The J-Hack event serves to bridge the gap between the end-users of intelligence systems and the technical experts who build and manage their deployments.
“It's a four-day coding marathon where our Airmen team up to create new tools and solve problems they face in their daily work," said Dustin Adcock, the C2ISR division’s mission data services DCGS section chief. “The main goal is to get the tech experts and the people who actually use the intelligence tools in the same room. The event helps Airmen to learn to code and share their skills with others, and builds practical solutions to quickly grow tech talent within the Air Force.”
During the Hackathon, teams worked to create functional prototypes, or minimum viable products, that address real-world operational needs and can be considered for further development. C3BM’s C2ISR division sent a team of government and contractor personnel from Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, to actively participate, embedding them with the operators on the ground floor. A highlight of the event was the team’s successful development of an MVP picked for further development after the event.
"By working together, we created an MVP, a working solution to help solve a real-world problem," Adcock said.
The team was able to develop a dashboard that provides dots on a map indicating potential changes based on imagery that is processed using automated target recognition models, according to Koka.
“We created a tool that receives data in order to look at specific geographics,” Koka said. “The tool has the capability to compare and track changes from previous reporting.”
The resulting MVP will be presented to decision-makers, potentially paving the way for new, officially integrated solutions that enhance the capabilities of the intelligence community and support the DAF BATTLE NETWORK. The DAF BATTLE NETWORK is managed by C3BM. The network is the integrated system-of-systems connecting sensor, effector, and logistics systems enabling better situational awareness, faster operational decisions, and decisive direction to the force.
| Date Taken: | 04.06.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 04.07.2026 08:59 |
| Story ID: | 562147 |
| Location: | MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, KANSAS, US |
| Web Views: | 17 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Coding event sparks innovation, delivers C2ISR solutions, by Richard Blumenstein, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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