Synopsis for a SOURCES SOUGHT ANNOUNCEMENT (SSA)--not a solicitation for bid.

The Product Director (PD) Machine Foreign Language Translation System (MFLTS), Fort Belvoir, VA, is conducting market research to identify industry experience and state of the art technology in the availability of software architecture to be used for development of MFLTS products for speech and text translation.

This effort provides support services for MFLTS. MFLTS shall mitigate linguistic shortfalls in the Joint Force by expanding the number of languages supported within the Department of Defense (DoD) today and by increasing the number of language translation points of presence to meet the speech and text translation requirements for current, impending, and unforeseen operations. MFLTS shall complement linguists and enable non-linguists regardless of domain; however, MFLTS shall be focused primarily on low-level linguistic tasks.

This RFI is for planning purposes only; this is not a request for Quotations or Proposals. No solicitation document exists and a formal solicitation may or may not be issued by the Government as a result of the responses to this RFI. The Government will not be liable for payment of any response preparation expenses. Interested parties are responsible for adequately marking proprietary or competition sensitive information contained in their response.

Vendors expressing an interest should provide appropriate capability statements that include the following: Name and address, Point of Contact, identification number, description of the organization's experience and past performance in executing the same or similar efforts.

Further more detailed information on this RFI can be found at the Federal Business Opportunities website.

See Also

• Machine translation is used by the U.S. Army in warzones to communicate with local populations
  Machine Translation in itself is not good enough if you require a translation of publishable quality.
• Machine Foreign Language Translation Systems bridge gap between Soldiers, locals
  Obtaining information, providing assistance and forging relationships are very tough things to do when first meeting people, but it is even tougher when you are in a combat environment and don't speak the language.