Our products started as a research project in 2003 at the University of Southern California’s Information Sciences Institute under funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

DARPA Program Manager Dr. Ralph Chatham was inspired to support the project after listening to one of the first soldiers who went into Afghanistan in 2002. The captain told how he and his comrades reluctantly rode on tiny ponies into a town, totally relying on their Northern Alliance escorts who only spoke Pashto and some broken Russian and Arabic while the U.S. soldiers only spoke English and some broken Russian and Arabic. When the town’s people came out on the streets the soldiers did not know if they were friendly or hostile from their gestures, demeanor and words.

Dr. Chatham explains, “I wanted to ensure that no American soldier or Marine would again ride blind into a foreign culture. I challenged the research community to create a training tool that would teach the brain behind every trigger finger and behind every steering wheel a bit of the gestures, culture and mission-oriented vocabulary of the land they were in. I also told the researchers that they had to perform the training with only two discontinuous weeks of contact time with the students.”

In 2004 we transitioned the project from the lab into field use by the U.S. Armed Services. In 2005 the project’s lead researchers at USC started our company to further develop and commercialize the products in both defense and non-defense markets. We serve our defense and national security customers worldwide through our wholly owned subsidiary Alelo TLT, LLC.

Our team

We employ professionals in instructional design and development (pedagogy, curriculum development, educational psychology, adult learning), linguistics and foreign languages, natural language processing and computational linguistics, automated speech recognition, computer science (artificial intelligence, software engineering, modeling, simulation), human-computer interaction, videogames, graphics arts and animation, and media production.
» Careers at Alelo

W. LEWIS JOHNSON, PH.D. | Co-founder, President,Chief Scientist
Dr. Johnson co-founded our company while he was director of the Center for Advanced Research in Technology for Education (CARTE) at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California, where he was the principal investigator of the Tactical Language project that resulted in our products. He left USC ISI in 2007 to join us full time, but continues to be active in research focusing on the successful adoption of interactive learning environments. His work on Tactical Language won DARPA's Significant Technical Achievement Award in 2005. Dr. Johnson was program co-chair of the International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces in 2003, past president of the International Artificial Intelligence in Education Society, and past chair of the ACM Special Interest Group for Artificial Intelligence. He holds a B.A. in linguistics from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in computer science from Yale University. He is fluent in English, French, German, Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic; and has a working knowledge of Portuguese, Japanese, Dutch, Malay, Pashto, Greek, Dari, and Cherokee. » More

ANDRE VALENTE, PH.D. M.B.A. | Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer,
Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Valente co-founded our company while he was deputy leader of the Tactical Language project at the Information Sciences Institute of the University of Southern California. He joined our company full time in 2006. He has over 20 years of experience in management, technology development, and research in knowledge-based systems, ontologies, and intelligent teaching systems. Previously, Dr. Valente co-started and was vice-president of operations for Coordinated Software Systems, another spin-off from the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute. His career includes managing numerous engineering and operations teams for manufacturing, media, aerospace and e-business companies. Dr. Valente holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Amsterdam and an M.B.A. from the University of Southern California. He is fluent in Portuguese and English; and has a working knowledge of Dutch, French, Italian, and Spanish.

MICHAEL EMONTS | Director of Government Programs
Mr. Emonts has 14 years of experience in language teaching and in directing technology research.  From 2001 to 2006, he served as Director of Language Technology at the Defense Language Institute where he coordinated DoD-wide language technology efforts and established the Language Data Development Center to manage large-scale data collection efforts in support of language technology development.  During his government service, Mr. Emonts directed several evaluation efforts of language translation devices and language learning software for senior DoD leadership (e.g. Whitehouse, 4-star generals) based on US government standards.  He has also served on various DoD committees to further DoD technological capabilities, and has served as Primary Investigator in four DARPA research programs (Babylon, CAST, TransTac, and GALE).  From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Emonts performed speech recognition and artificial intelligence research for Sony Electronics in their entertainment robots division.  He has published research in the areas of speech recognition, machine translation, and language pedagogy, and has authored four patents in the areas of Chinese speech recognition and natural language processing.  He is fluent in English and Chinese (Cantonese & Mandarin dialects), and holds a BS degree in Computer Science, a BA degree in Asian Studies, an MA degree in Language Acquisition, and an MA degree in Linguistics from Brigham Young University. » More

KEVIN PERRY | Director of Production and Engineering
Kevin Perry is a 15-year veteran of the game industry, specializing in the management of people and processes. He has worked for both industry leaders (EA, THQ) as well as smaller companies that became industry leaders (Pandemic, Red Storm), and helped these companies through critical growth stages and milestones. His career includes stints as a designer and creative director on several projects, plus work as both internal and external producer and executive producer; the last several years he has focused on studio management and growth. Kevin is also involved in game industry educational outreach, speaking at and working with area institutions including the University of Southern California, Santa Monica College, and the Art Institute of Los Angeles, as well as the Game Developers Conference and the International Game Developers Association. He received a BA in Linguistics from Northwestern University.

JACKIE YORK | Controller
Ms. York has over 15 years of government contracting experience.  Jackie has specialized in helping businesses to develop systems, processes, policies and implementing compliant job cost accounting systems in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 31 and the Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA) Contract Audit Manual (CAM).  She is responsible for DCAA audit preparation and support, development, assisting in strategic business planning and processes, indirect rate strategy and development, incurred cost submissions, proposal support, government contract compliance, contract and subcontract administration and supervision of the day-to-day financial operations.