¶ Highlands Group
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The Highlands Group is an international consulting network based in Bethesda, Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Carmel Highlands, California.[1]
¶ History
Richard O'Neill founded the group in 1994. It was formed as an “[i]nformal cross-disciplinary network established to explore information revolution issues” and “conflict in an information age” to assist the United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the United States Government in general.[2]
¶ Highlands Forum
The first Highlands Forum was sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), held in Carmel Highlands in February 1995 with “about a dozen people” in attendance. The Forum's co-chairs at the time were O'Neill, Andrew Marshall of the Department of Defense, and Anthony Tether of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) (formerly vice president of SAIC’s Advanced Technology Sector).[3]
The focus of the first set of Highlands meetings was information warfare, spurring the creation of strategy and policy documents on “information operations.” This resulted in “a variety of institutions that were formed in order to carry all that out.”
In addition to the Highlands Forum, since 9/11 the Group runs the ‘Island Forum,’ an international event held in association with the Ministry of Defence of Singapore, which O’Neill oversees as “lead consultant.”[3:1]
According to the Pentagon’s 1997 Annual Report to the President and the Congress under a section titled ‘Information Operations,’ (IO) the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) had authorized the “establishment of the Highlands Group of key DoD, industry, and academic IO experts” to coordinate IO across federal military intelligence agencies.
The following year’s DoD annual report reiterated the Forum’s centrality to information operations: “To examine IO issues, DoD sponsors the Highlands Forum, which brings together government, industry, and academic professionals from various fields.”
¶ President’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection
The Highlands Group participated in the creation and activities of the President's Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection (PCCIP), as well as Joint Vision 2020.
¶ Activities
The Highlands Group hosts the Highlands Forum, Singaporean Island Forum, the St. Michaels Forum, and the Information Engagement Forum.[1:1]
¶ Forum Participants
| Name | Affiliation(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| David Ackley | - | - |
| James Adams | - | - |
| John Arquilla | - | - |
| Oscar Bartoli | - | - |
| David Brin | - | Author of The Transparent Society |
| John Seely Brown | Institute for Research on Learning, Deloitte Center for the Edge | - |
| Arnaud de Borchgrave | United Press International, Washington Times, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Langley Intelligence Group Network (LIGNET) | - |
| Bill Cheswick | Internet Mapping Project, AT&T Labs, Lucent Technologies, Lumeta | - |
| Lui Pao Chuen | Singapore Space and Technology Association, Ministry of National Development (MND), Management Development Institute of Singapore (MDIS), Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Temasek Defence Systems Institute | - |
| John Clippinger | MIT Media Lab | - |
| Esther Dyson | EDventure Holdings | - |
| Judy Estrin | Cisco, Walt Disney Company, FedEx, Sun Microsystems, Packet Design | - |
| Nik Gowing | British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Atlantic Storm | - |
| William Haseltine | Human Genome Sciences | - |
| Danny Hillis | Long Now Foundation, Thinking Machines, Applied Minds, Walt Disney Company | Pioneer of parallel computers and their use in artificial intelligence |
| Bill Joy | Sun Microsystems | - |
| Kevin Kelly | Wired | - |
| William McNeil | - | Author of The Rise of the West, Plagues and Peoples, Pursuit of Power, and more |
| William Owens | Joint Chiefs of Staff, Teledesic | Author of Lifting the Fog of War |
| Kristofer Pister | University of California, Berkeley | Inventor of smart dust |
| David Ronfeldt | - | - |
| Paul Saffo | Institute for the Future | - |
| Peter Schwartz | Global Business Network | Author of The Art of the Long View |
| Richard Smalley | - | Discoverer of carbon nanotubes |
| Bruce Sterling | - | Science fiction author |
| Michelle Van Cleave | National Security Institute (NSI), Jack Kemp Foundation | - |
| Rosemary Wenchel | United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) | - |
| Steve White | IBM | Developed a “digital immune system” for IBM |
¶ Organization
The Highlands Group is partnered with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).
¶ Personnel
| Name | Position | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Richard O'Neill | Founder and President[1:2][2:1] | United States Department of Defense, United States Navy |
| Deborah O'Neill | Co-Founder[4] | National Naval Medical Center, Potomac Electric Power Company (Pepco), Swarovski |
| Linton Wells | Chair[5] | National Security Agency (NSA) |
| Julie Caverly | Chief Financial Officer[4:1] | Bank of America |
| Thea Lehming Brandt | Photographer, Graphic Designer, Webmaster[4:2] | - |
| Michele Ledgerwood | Senior Analyst[4:3] | - |
| Bob Wallyn | Forum Host[4:4] | - |
| Carol Wallyn | Forum Host[4:5] | - |
| Ben Gross | Research Staff[4:6] | University of California, Berkeley School of Information, Google |
| Luma Khatib | Research Staff[4:7] | Ogilvy, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer |
| Paul Kretkowski | Research Staff[4:8] | Beacon, New York Times Magazine, Mother Jones, Wired, American Thunder, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Magazine |
| Gary Santaniello | Research Staff[4:9] | Iona College Department of Mass Communication |
| Clay Shirky | Research Staff[4:10] | New York University (NYU), Global Business Network (GBN), Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) |
| Mitch Waldrop | Research Staff[4:11] | National Science Foundation (NSF), MMW Communications |
| Nicholas Bauer | Research Assistant[6] | United States Army |
The Highlands Group's website additionally acknowledged the contributions of Peter Schwartz of the Global Business Network, Paul Saffo of the Institute for the Future, Esther Dyson of EDventure Holdings, Andrew Marshall of the United States Department of Defense, Judy Estrin of Packet Design, Arnaud de Borchgrave of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and George Poste of the BioDesign Institute, as well as Robert Axelrod, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Hal Varian and Carl Shapiro.[4:12]
¶ Clients
Clients of the Highlands Group include:[7]
- Assistant Secretary of Defense for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence (C3I)
- Global Business Network (GBN)
- Rendon Group
- United Press International (UPI)
- United States Department of State
¶ External links
About. Highlands Group. Retrieved June 13, 2008, from https://web.archive.org/web/20080613131735/http://www.highlandsgroup.net/about.php?ID=1 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
O’Neill, R. P. (2001). The Highlands Forum Process. Program on Information Resources Policy. https://web.archive.org/web/20230214081302/http://www.pirp.harvard.edu/pubs_pdf/o'neill/o'neill-i01-3.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎
Ahmed, N. (2015, January 22). How the CIA made Google. Medium; INSURGE intelligence. http://archive.today/2022.09.20-101600/https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-google-e836451a959e ↩︎ ↩︎
Highlands Group Team. Highlands Group. Retrieved June 13, 2008, from https://web.archive.org/web/20080613153353/http://www.highlandsgroup.net/about.php?ID=7 ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Friel, B. (2006, May 15). Start Your Idea Engines. Government Executive. http://archive.today/2022.05.08-000634/https://www.govexec.com/magazine/features/2006/05/start-your-idea-engines/21898/ ↩︎
Highlands Group Team. Highlands Group. Retrieved February 12, 2011, from https://web.archive.org/web/20110212032739/http://highlandsgroup.net/about.php?ID=7 ↩︎
Our clients. The Highlands Group. Retrieved February 20, 2001, from https://web.archive.org/web/20010220162639/http://www.highlandsgroup.net/static/clients.html ↩︎