DAU introduced the Innovate to Win initiative earlier this spring to provide three elements to the Pentagon’s workforce: an innovation competencies and skills model, a self-assessment and resulting innovation readiness metric, and curated learning recommendations for each worker.

With those elements, the organization hopes to be able to provide a more accurate look into the innovation readiness level of the DOD workforce, Dr. Marina Theodotou, the head of the program within DAU, said during a recent Daily Scoop podcast interview.

“What we looked at was the big challenge of how do we provide the workforce with the baseline innovation skills they need?” Theodotou said. “Our National Defense Strategy and the [National Defense Authorization Act] are prompting us to always be more innovative. How do I out-innovate the adversary?”

So, DAU began by building the competencies and skills model that was “triangulated” with “academic research, industry practice and DOD innovation cell context to make sure that what we’re recommending is relevant to the DOD,” Theodotou said. That resulted in a model developed around 15 competencies and three domains: thinking innovatively, collaborating innovatively and cultivating innovation.

With that, DAU has given the Pentagon’s workforce a self-assessment to let personnel measure their confidence in those 15 competencies. If there are areas that people score low in, the model will recommend education programs they can access through DAU.

But ultimately, with enough personnel using the model, it is meant to deliver the innovative readiness metric.

“Each individual is for the first time able to gauge their own innovation readiness. And this is powerful,” Theodotou said. “It’s great. It’s a rudimentary tool, but it didn’t exist before. So it’s a good start to give supervisors and team leaders this baseline gauge — where are we today when it comes to workforce innovation readiness? And where do we want to go?”

So far, DAU has taken the pilot program through four iterations and plans to take those learnings, iterate again, and expand the initiative to the wider DOD workforce, hoping to reach 10,000 members starting in October.

“We’re looking forward to having workforce members dive into their own learning journeys through this expansion, and then from there to continue iterating and broadening to more members of the workforce,” Theodotou said.

When used widely enough, the innovation metric could allow DOD leaders — let’s say Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks — to ask the question: “What is our innovation readiness?” she said.

“She can have an answer, provided that members of the workforce have completed their self-assessments,” Theodouto said. “So all that data can scale up to one number, which is quite powerful … We can now make data-driven decisions of how to allocate resources and where so that we can close the gaps that we have. And additionally, we know where our strengths are, when it comes to innovation. Is it collaborating? Is it growth mindset? Is it allyship? Is it networking? So when supervisors are trying to pull together innovation teams, or scale innovation, they can actually look at that metric and know exactly what the strengths of their team are and leverage those to actually push innovation forward.”

She continued: “Traditionally, the narrative within the DOD is, of course, on technology and closing the Valley of Death [in the acquisition system that hinders new capabilities from being fielded]. But it is critical to remember that it’s people that actually are going to choose the right technologies, and they’re going to change the processes to close the Valley of Death. So we are refocusing the effort and the spotlight on the people and making sure that they have the skills, the motivation and the culture so that they can leverage their innovation skills.”

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Dcode spoke with Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology William “Willie” Nelson, about his definition of the infamous “Valley of Death” and his thoughts on resolution.

Nelson argues there are three paths to transition science and technology across the Valley of Death: 1) the traditional approach of integrating new tech into new or existing programs, 2) transitioning tech out to commercial industry or other government programs, and 3) informing and updating Technical Specifications, Requirements, Concepts of Operations, Procedures, etc. Through all three paths being utilized today, our conversation with Nelson outlines multiple ways to improve these methods.

Changing the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset

Department of Defense programs focus on balancing cost, schedule, and performance risks across the acquisition life cycle to deliver programs to the warfighter.  These programs are assessed on their ability to deliver based on well-defined requirements; unfortunately, this does not require innovation and the proposition of new technical solutions outside those requirements. Quantifying success based on delivery may unintentionally incentivize “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality, leading to stagnation in government technical capabilities. Instead, we should work to incentivize Program Managers to accept more risk and experiment with new tech solutions to bring the best to our warfighters. 

To improve the current process, we should empower acquisition professionals to take a chance on technology by working with requirement writers to help define, collaborate, and update requirements rapidly to integrate the latest technical solutions developed by industry and service laboratories. The requirements process should be agile and pace advances in technology.
Nelson suggests that many steps taken by Army Futures Command and the Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology) in this area have a positive impact and will help ensure we field the latest and greatest tech through the acquisition lifecycle. “Think about what that could do for the warfighter,” Nelson comments.

Current acquisition policies ensuring fairness can sometimes cause barriers to entry for emerging tech companies. At Dcode, we suggest leveraging innovative procurement methods like CSOs and OTAs or using creative modular contracting under the FAR. These examples are significant steps in the government’s willingness to modify processes to bring in more innovative tech.

Adopting the “Understand Sooner” mentality

Nelson says that although there are plenty of creative solutions, in many cases, we may not know exactly how this new technology will perform or if it meets the mission’s demands and requirements. So we spend S&T dollars to rapidly build prototypes and experiment, fix, and experiment again with the idea of “Understanding Sooner” if the tech is going to perform and deliver as expected.

Some science and technologies just don’t pan out, and that’s okay, Nelson says. However, the sooner we understand, the sooner we can quickly pivot resources to a different capability or technical solution.

The advantage of experimenting and understanding sooner (also known as ‘failing fast’) is to inform requirements sooner and learn what capabilities can be delivered, rather than spending extra time and dollars on tech that may not deliver as advertised. This method also helps open the trade space for industry to be more creative and innovative in meeting desired outcomes without being overly prescriptive and informing the process along the way.  

Nelson is not alone in this movement to make the government less risk-averse. In a 2021 address, Admiral Michael Gilday, 32nd Chief of Naval Operations, said, “every Navy leader must be ruthlessly honest about how they self-assess and understand their unit’s performance. They have to act boldly and accept professional risk.”

Incentivize creativity at the PM level

Service laboratories and industry are developing cutting-edge technologies that will undoubtedly deliver decisive advantages on the future battlefield. However, integrating these new technologies into new or existing programs can be challenging, especially if the technology is still maturing. Difficulty and sometimes failure in onboarding these new technologies is known as “the Valley of Death.”

As described earlier, Program Managers deliver capability to the warfighter based on well-defined cost, schedule, and technical performance requirements. S&T scientists and engineers have more latitude because it can be difficult to predict exactly when a new technology will meet the performance needs of the program, how it will be manufactured, and what it will cost.
According to Nelson, schedule delivery and technical performance variance in a brand-new technical area can span several years. Therefore, integrating a new S&T technology into a well-structured PM program can add risk and sometimes put the entire program at risk if the S&T tech fails to deliver.

Nelson understands that new tech can be a “radical disruption” to a PM’s program. But we shouldn’t not press forward, Nelson stresses. When an S&T effort integrates into an existing program or establishes a new program, the acquisition process should acknowledge the risks and support the PM. Tightly coupled Program Managers and Lab Directors are essential in managing this risk.

Accepting risk assumes people are engaged, risk factors are well understood, and people make informed decisions. There must be close coordination between PMs, S&T developers, and requirements professionals to begin solving the transition problem. Dcode has helped reframe government offices working on this problem to evaluate innovation barriers and creatively access the best emerging tech. Embracing an innovative mindset will open the door for more flexibility to introduce new technologies to deliver functionalities.

Transition has never been an easy hurdle to overcome. However, Nelson truly believes that the key to our success lies in our ability to understand each program’s problem and risk(s) and then select the best transition path. As mentioned, all these paths (traditional, transfer technology to an external party, and inform/update administrative requirements) are in use today; the difference will be in our ability to deliberately codify our approach and hold stakeholders accountable for seeing the transition plan through.  

Stay tuned for the next article in our series with Rear Adm. Seiko Okano, who is leading the charge to tackle the Valley of Death. She is taking a unique approach that challenges the current status quo.

Meagan Metzger is the CEO and co-founder of Dcode.

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And in 2023, DIU fully expects to build on that momentum, acting Director Mike Madsen told DefenseScoop in conjunction with the report’s release.

“DIU continues to see an uptick in the number of projects and organizations understanding the need to modernize and change. With the increased FY23 appropriations DIU received, we plan to hire more acquisition officers and program managers to meet this need,” he said.

Established by then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter in 2015, DIU was developed to harness the investment and speed of advances in industry-made tech to ultimately help the military more rapidly deploy cutting-edge systems. Since then, the organization has formed outposts in several U.S. tech hubs. 

Madsen — an Air Force veteran, decorated combat pilot and former legislative liaison — was temporarily promoted to serve as acting director of DIU when Mike Brown opted to depart last summer following 4 years steering the organization. Before that, Madsen was DIU’s deputy director and director of strategic engagement. 

In his view, DIU demonstrated value for both its DOD and commercial partners in 2022.

“What we started a few years ago — starting focused Defense and Commercial Engagement Teams — has paid dividends,” Madsen said.

While the Defense Engagement Team focuses on the transition planning at the beginning of the project and coordinates across the services, combatant commands and others on prototypes and transitions, DIU’s Commercial Engagement Team “keeps their fingers on the pulse of commercial technology around the” U.S. and globe, Madsen said. The team also works with commercial partners to ensure they know how to work best with the DOD. 

“Looking back on 2022, which brought the history-making delivery of all strategic reviews in an integrated way — it all points to the need to respond to the rapid pace of innovation,” he told DefenseScoop.

In its 20-page year-in-review on accomplishments in 2022, released publicly on Wednesday, officials note that “a commercial solution transitions when the prototype successfully completes and results in a production or service contract” with a DOD or federal entity — and that such transitions are what enable the department to field and operationalize a capability.

In 2022, 17 commercial solutions transitioned to DOD end-users via DIU, the report states. Madsen noted that that is “up more than 50% from” fiscal 2021.  

Officials posted 36 solicitations on DIU.mil during fiscal 2022 and in response to those received 1,636 commercial proposals — its highest number of annual submissions to date. In total, 81 new prototype other transaction contracts were awarded and the innovation agency obligated $204.8 million in prototype funds.

“DIU provides a framework for the department to innovate at speed and scale — and it has the numbers to prove it,” Madsen said.

Of importance, the unit is also designed with a strategic responsibility to increase the number of first-time and non-traditional vendors the military collaborates with. 

“In FY22, 86% of our awards were non-traditional and 73% were awarded to small businesses, with 33% first-time DOD vendors,” the acting director said.

In the annual review, DIU officials shed light on a number of prototypes and emerging capabilities that were transitioned to Pentagon components via its artificial intelligence, cyber, space, and other portfolios. They also provide details on companies that received previous DIU approvals and have now been leveraged to provide commercial remote sensing, small drones and other technologies to the Ukrainian military. 

“Ukraine has shown the importance of dual-use emerging technologies and the changing nature of warfare,” Madsen said, noting that “this might be the first time a country leader has called companies for help to leverage [and] purchase technologies on the ground and in the sky.” 

“Commercial imagery, autonomous drones, communication tools, and social media are being democratized and used in new ways. Modernization is critical and commercial technology and their ability to scale is something that DIU continues to champion across the department,” he added. 

It’s still early into fiscal 2023, but Madsen repeatedly said his team is already continuing to streamline processes — and with increased funding, officials plan to bring in more acquisition help. 

“Although we focus on awarding contracts in 60 to 90 days, in fiscal year 2022, DIU averaged 142 days from problem identification to solicitation,” he noted.

DIU, according to Madsen, has also had the same level of civilian and military staff since it was founded in 2015. 

“With the increased 2023 appropriations, we plan to increase our acquisition and [project management] functions to meet the current workload demands and help fund any priority projects that will have impact across the DOD that may be facing a delay in transition,” he said. 

The unit’s newest portfolio encompasses energy technologies. So far, 18 prototypes are underway, and Madsen is hopeful some will transition to DOD customers this fiscal year.

“In addition, we just renamed our cyber portfolio to ‘Cyber and Telecommunications,’ so we will be sharing additional information in the coming month,” he told DefenseScoop. 

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The new office is meant to connect companies developing tech in support of national security with organizations that can help fund and sustain their growth long enough to reach wider production.

Often, the innovative technology companies that would be supported by OSC fall into what’s known as the “valley of death” — the phenomenon where the Pentagon’s bureaucratic, often slow-moving acquisition system can stifle successful innovative pilots from moving forward into production because the companies can’t receive funding quickly enough.

“We are in a global competition for leadership in critical technologies, and the Office of Strategic Capital will help us win that competition and build enduring national security advantages,” Austin said in a statement. “By working with the private capital markets and by partnering with our federal colleagues, OSC will address investment gaps and add a new tool to the Department’s investment toolbox.”

The office will be overseen by the secretary of defense and feature an advisory council consisting of the undersecretaries of defense, among others. In specific, OSC will complement the work of the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering and its components in the Defense Innovation Unit and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) by helping to provide their private sector research partners with longer-term vehicles for private capital.

A key goal of the office will also be to deter innovative American companies from seeking capital that may support the work of the United States’ strategic competitors.

“America’s strategic competitors are working to influence U.S. technological innovation to their advantage,” said Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu. “OSC is part of a broader administration-wide effort to ‘crowd-in’ private capital in areas where our efforts can boost our future security and prosperity.”

Shyu said the hope is OSC will “strike its first deals by early next year.”

The Trump administration established a similar office called the Trusted Capital Marketplace, which was created by the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act.

The DOD said in an announcement that this new office differs from existing programs in that it uses “non-acquisition-based tools, such as loans and loan guarantees,” as many other federal agencies do.

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As we discussed in our last article, government and industry both struggle with bridging the “Valley of Death” — getting emerging tech solutions into government systems and then working to ensure they can scale to meet innovation goals. As such, there are a number of Department-wide efforts underway. The Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) program run out of the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) was designed to expeditiously transition technologies — with priority given to those developed by small businesses and/or nontraditional defense contractors — from pilot programs, prototype projects, and research projects into production. Additionally, the DoD Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution (PPBE) Reform is working to identify areas for future reforms that will ultimately improve the DoD’s ability to flexibly and efficiently match resources to strategy.

Dcode asked the same questions to government executives that we did to tech execs to help determine the best ways to work within existing governmental systems to develop and deploy solutions that look nothing like traditional government service. Below are insights from:

• Jen Bird; Director, Innovation Steering Group at Office of the Secretary of Defense. Jen serves on the Innovation Steering Group designed to improve the department’s ability to transition innovative technologies into programs of record.
• Paul Puckett; Director, Army Enterprise Cloud Management Agency. Paul led the effort to elevate the enterprise cloud office to a field operating agency, and currently leads the organization in its mission to deliver a secure, globally-dominant cloud ecosystem, foundational to the Army modernization strategy.

Q: From your view, what were the biggest blockers that prevent technology from being adopted across the organization and scaled?

Jen Bird (JB): I think one is general alignment between the science and technology community and the acquisition community. The department is so big and our science and technology personnel are working really hard at developing new technology, developing new concepts, they’re all across the country at different labs. They’re often working from a science-first perspective and that’s exactly what they should be doing. Meanwhile, the acquisition community is very closed off focused on program requirements and all of the sort cultural issues surrounding acquisition. When R&D comes to acquisitions and says, “here’s a solution to what the warfighter needs,” acquisition frequently has to push back and say, “I see that but it can’t get fielded exactly that way.” If there was earlier and more frequent communication this back and forth could be avoided and the time to field cut dramatically.

Paul Puckett (PP): The first blocker that needs to fall is how we write a requirement. Today we write requirements as if we can predict the future and oftentimes it takes us 5-10 years to validate whether we were right or not. Instead, we need to think that our requirements are really just hypotheses that we need to test as quickly as possible. We need to change a lot of Statements of Work to Statements of Objectives that articulate a domain in which there is a problem to be solved, the objectives we want to achieve and the metrics that help us know we’re on the right path. The second key blocker are our testing processes for security, usability, interoperability, etc. that are so painful to navigate that the thought of doing twice is nearly unbearable. We inadvertently are incentivizing programs to wait to push everything through at the same time because of how cumbersome our processes are. Our test processes need to be redesigned to be quick, painless and useful services so we can test, deploy and get user feedback to improve our next delivery capability.

Q: What should the tech companies and government know about how one another works?

JB: We know that the Department is difficult to work with and one of our priorities is to find ways to improve how we work with industry to get innovation into the field faster. We’re doing a lot of work right now to figure out how we can improve processes and cut through regulations to more rapidly onboard new capabilities. We’re also working to provide new tools to businesses to help them find the right customers within the Department.

PP: When you write a firm fixed price contract thinking you’re de-risking the government from going over budget with a crazy amount of unknowns and external dependencies that will probably make a company look bad if they fail to deliver, you’re just going to get more expensive costs to do the work up front. The same goes for massive contracts awarded to a single vendor who is now going to be forced to hire or sub to a bunch of people they don’t know, who don’t have their culture and who don’t understand how to work as a team yet they’re responsible for major outcomes at immense scale. I also wish the government and industry would align on business models that encourage the right behaviors for adoption and growth of a product. Too often the government does linear math where if we go all in on a software product it looks like it will be too expensive to even start when adoption is not linear. We need a reverse hockey stick graph to get to all-you-can-eat type models for products with mass adoption across the DoD.

Q: Are there short-term solutions the DoD can enact while we wait for policy to change?

JB: One way we’re hoping to improve how DoD works with industry in the short term is by ensuring that the innovation offices within the different services are cooperating on technologies of mutual importance. We’re improving collaboration in a few ways. First, we’re putting together an “innovation analytics” capability to help identify what companies may have technologies that are of use to the Department. Second, we’re meeting more frequently as the DoD “Innovation Community of Interest” to share news, opportunities and lines of effort. Third, we’re putting together a database to help DoD better understand who is doing what within the Department and where we might find synergies on tech pursuits.

PP: Sometimes policy is not the inhibitor. It’s our own skillsets and mindsets that we have to overcome. Writing more objective-based efforts with our Army Capability Managers are starting to really take hold and it is creating space for the PEOs to have more flexibility with how we acquire, design and deliver solutions. We’ve also been working within the Army about a new construct of “IT requirements box” that carves a ceiling of money to address an IT enabled capability of how we conduct the enterprise, business, warfighting, and intelligence mission of the Army. Within that ceiling we tag a portion of money that aligns with a more detailed capability drop that has a tighter window for design and delivery that focuses the work just enough for the program offices and gives the Hill the oversight they need. Human centered design practices can also make a difference. When we historically give the PEOs explicit requirements with specific solutions, user feedback doesn’t really have a place to go because a PEO has to do the thing they were told to do way back when. This can allow our PEOs to move from being requirements-centric to user-centric.

Upcoming articles in this series will feature high-level DoD perspectives on the tech transition problem and how to solve its component challenges.

Riya Patel is the Managing Director, Government at Dcode.

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It’s no secret: The government makes it very difficult for small companies to break into the market. And once they have, they are penalized for growing too fast by having their small business status taken away. Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of the Department of Defense, and others in government realize this is a problem that negatively impacts our ability to stay competitive on a global scale. Fixing it is a complex endeavor, involving multiple aspects of contracting, tech development, and program management.

Building a bridge over the valley of death requires the government to better understand what technology companies need in order to maintain a solvent business, and how traditional government contracting processes work in opposition to those real needs. Conversely, emerging tech companies need to better understand and empathize with the structure of government work.

In this first article, we’ll highlight insights gained when we sat down with executives in industry to discuss how to map out a more realistic journey for small companies that offer the innovative solutions our government needs. Our experts were:

• John Scott — COO, Director Federal & National Security at Ion Channel
• Billy Biggs — Vice President, Public Sector at WalkMe

Q: From your view, what are the biggest blockers that prevent technology from being adopted across the organization and scaled?

John Scott (JS): Probably the biggest problem we’ve run into is services versus products. The government customer may not have the expertise to know why a product is better, faster and cheaper than a manual or custom-built process and the incentives aren’t there for contractors to save time and money with a product. A contractor says, “I can build this” and there is comfort in going with a contractor as there is “one throat to choke”; you can go directly to a developer and say, “Why is this not working?” It’s harder to have that point of contact working directly with a vendor.

Billy Biggs (BB): The government acquisition cycle is so long! Currently, we’re talking to prospects that are budget planning for FY 2024-2025. This is problematic for smaller businesses that need revenue now, not potential revenue two years out. One way to help mitigate this is by working through integrators that have funding on contracts today, where your product increases the value of their overall offering to the government.

Q: What do you think the government should know about how tech companies work?

JS: There needs to be a better process for vetting technologies to show how it could work in a simulated government environment. It needs to be easier to do fast pilots so that the government can learn more about any technology, and the tech company (especially small ones) can learn more about the government without having to immediately deliver against a formal contract and meet requirements like CMMC and RMF. You can’t get the “cool innovative stuff” if you have to wait for them to go through the formal processes.

BB: Especially for publicly traded companies (and even for venture-backed ones), the pressure to deliver on expectations every single quarter. The pace of government and the pace of tech often collide. With the complexity of the Government’s massive ecosystem, it’s often very difficult to forecast the timing of new business and projects up to executive leadership. Yet, that communication to leadership is the most important factor to ensure continued investment required to be successful.

Q: What are the most confusing pieces of working with government?

JS: Security. Government needs to be much, much more explicit about what their security requirements are, and not just throw in compliance, mandates, and 300+ pages of documents like RMF, FedRAMP, NIST, etc. More of these requirements need to be automatable.

BB: It comes back to the pace of procurement and acquisition. It’s not uncommon to demo our tech to the federal government, then have those prospects come back two years later when they have the funding and say, “Hey, is this pricing and proposal still accurate?” It’s hard to revisit two years later and still be completely aligned on the value of what we proposed.

Q: Are there short-term solutions the government should enact while we wait for policy to change?

JS: I think it’s critical that government stakeholders have skin in the game when it comes to implementing, developing and transitioning innovative technologies. Today, small companies have to invest a lot of money to even get considered for government contracts. When I worked at DOD, there was a program called ACTD/JCTD. A capability gap was identified, and then OSD would put in half the funds, the Command would put in a quarter, and then the Services component would put in another quarter. As a result, these organizations put aside their funds the development and transition into service were ultimately successful. Right now, I see a number of “Innovation Factories” where their funding is separated from the actual transition target — these aren’t going to be successful.

BB: I have concerns that some of our adversaries, from a DOD perspective, don’t have the same constraints as our government related to how they go out and procure innovative technology. If I think about the risk from a security perspective, there’s got to be some measure of reform that we’re looking at as a country to allow the government to buy more effectively: quicker, faster, stronger. Whatever you want to call it, they must be more innovative with their approach, because right now there’s a perception the US is fighting some of these battles with one hand behind our back. There are easier ways to pilot tech while the bureaucracy gets carried out, but it’s going to take a lot more people leaning in to help solve this problem.

In our next article, we’ll highlight input from government executives on these same questions and highlight how they are working to build creative ways to meet the needs of both emerging tech companies and the government.

Sarah Abonyi is the Managing Director of Tech Client Services and Product at Dcode.

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Through the Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) pilot program, the DOD aims to push existing innovative projects across the “valley of death” — the phenomenon in which companies win small projects with the DOD that succeed in the prototype phase but fail to scale into production, often due to the time it takes within the budget cycle for a full procurement — and to “deliver war-winning capability earlier than scheduled.”

Ten DOD program offices were given $10 million to procure innovative tech from nontraditional, startup contractors that have received less than $500 million in cumulative revenue from the department.

“APFIT holds great promise to transform the way the Department procures next generations solutions. This pilot program is well positioned to be a key asset as we continue to work to bridge the valley of death,” Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu said in a statement. “The ten companies being funded will fill critical capability gaps. Without APFIT, their innovative technologies could take much longer to reach the hands of our warfighters.”

The APFIT program was mandated by the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act as a mechanism to deliver “innovative and mature technologies and products that can meet warfighter demands but currently lack the necessary funding to transition the capability into the production delivery phase,” per a release from the DOD.

The programs selected were:

• Navy’s Advanced Sensor Package Procurement, awarded to Arete Associates
• Marine Corps’ Anti-Jam Radio-links for Maritime Operations Resiliency, awarded to Pacific Antenna Systems, Titan Systems LLC, and Naval Systems, Inc.
• Marine Corps’ Atmospheric Plasma Coating Removal System, awarded to Atmospheric Plasma Solutions
• Special Operations Command’s Augmented Reality Tactical Assault Kit, awarded to Eolian
• Air Force’s Autonomous Unmanned Aerial System – Vertical-BAT, awarded to Shield AI
• Army’s Drop-Glide Munitions, awarded to Orbital Research
• Missile Defense Agency’s Lightfield Directing Array Secure Production, awarded to Bright Silicon Technologies
• Special Operations Command’s Lightweight Wide Field of View Aviation Goggle, awarded to Aviation Specialties Unlimited
• Defense Innovation Unit’s Rapid Analysis of Threat Exposure, awarded to Philips Healthcare
• Space Force’s Real-Time Sensor Data Transformation, awarded to Meroxa

California Rep. Ken Calvert, the ranking Republican on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, was a cheerleader for the inclusion of APFIT in the 2022 NDAA. Calvert called the funding announcement an “exciting step in overcoming the long-standing challenges with transitioning defense technologies from prototypes to production at scale.”

“The so-called ‘Valley of Death’ has been an obstacle to getting emerging technology and commercially available resources into the hands of our warfighters on the battlefield,” Calvert said. “I pushed for the creation of APFIT to overcome this hurdle and ensure we stay ahead of near-peer adversaries like China in our technological advantage.”

Last week, the heads of 19 national security-focused technology startups and small businesses pressed Congress in a letter to resolve specific hurdles they’re encountering associated with how the Pentagon buys software and other innovative technologies.

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More funding and resources are needed to drive innovation and confront difficulties impacting the military’s research infrastructure, they said Thursday during a House Armed Services cyber, innovative technologies, and information subcommittee hearing on the Pentagon’s science and technology-aligned proposals for fiscal 2023.

“If we expect the department to attract the world’s best and brightest to produce state-of-the-art technologies, we must modernize our laboratory and test ranges,” Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu told legislators in her opening statement.

Tens of thousands of officials are employed by DOD’s labs, which include dozens of facilities spanning more than 20 states. The scientists and engineers involved conduct basic scientific research and work to develop advanced military applications for present and future conflicts.

“Our basic research programs enable the foundational work that will define the technological capabilities of the Army of 2040 and beyond,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Research and Technology William Nelson told lawmakers. “At the center, the Army Research Lab has built a network of regional hubs and labs to give us access to the widest spectrum of scientists in colleges and universities across the country. These talented researchers and academic partners perform cutting-edge research in a variety of critical areas to the Army including quantum science, synthetic biology and artificial intelligence.”

Nelson, who also serves as the Army’s chief scientist, added: “Due to several factors, many research and several test facilities would greatly benefit from revitalization and recapitalization. We’re making slow but steady progress by relying on a spectrum of Congressional authorities to resource and modernize these facilities. Your support to raise the laboratory infrastructure construction cost caps would be greatly appreciated.”

President Biden has repeatedly committed to bolstering America’s R&D pursuits and the public assets, like national labs, that make them possible. However, during the hearing a number of the officials pointed to continuously unfunded requirements amounting to billions of dollars needed to enable military-related lab building projects.

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jim Langevin, D-R.I., said more needs to be done regarding the infrastructure challenges that the DOD is grappling with.

“I have to say that it is shocking that we face a massive backlog in laboratory investment, more than $5.7 billion in the latest report to Congress. These challenges affect not just the pace and breadth of innovation, but also our ability to attract and retain the top-tier talent that we depend on. I’m committed to doing everything in my power to address this issue, and I look forward to hearing just how to put the department on a sustainable path of research facility investment. This could not be more pressing,” he said.

Shyu said a key priority of hers is to help the department land more funding for military construction (MilCon) to improve its labs and testing enterprise.

“There’s about $500 million needed by the Navy’s Electromagnetic and Cyber Countermeasures Laboratory to modernize the lab in order to develop and evaluate emerging threats and to be able to support an increased number of classified processes. This is just one example of a chunk of money that we need,” she said.

Meanwhile, officials see a need to improve technology transition from R&D to procurement.

Air Force Deputy Assistant Secretary for Science, Technology and Engineering Kristen Baldwin noted that officials on her team recently completed a comprehensive study on the topic. In a briefing with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall next month, they plan to recommend increased funding for efforts to help technologies “cross the valley of death.” The DOD acquisition community often uses the term “valley of death” to describe how promising emerging tech often fails to transition from labs and testing facilities to a program of record and get fielded.

“I would say that many of us are frustrated, as you are, with our struggle to keep up with the pace of technology transition and modernization that perhaps some of our peers have achieved,” Baldwin told lawmakers.

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The online portal, www.ctoinnovation.mil, will provide a “one-stop shop” for outside organizations to access the department’s innovation “ecosystem,” according to a press release.

The site “serves as a gateway to the Department’s efforts to bring in new ideas and technology, with a special focus on students, universities, and businesses,” the release said.

“The Innovation Pathways website is one part of our on-going efforts to make it easier for those across the innovation ecosystem, including small businesses, new entrants to the defense markets, universities, and traditional defense suppliers, to find ways to collaborate with the DoD and each other,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks. “For the first time, the Department has a website that puts the range of these different opportunities across the Department in one place.”

One of the pathways will allow students and faculty to search for available internships, grants, scholarships and research opportunities.

Another is intended for companies in the commercial sector seeking business opportunities with the DoD.

“Businesses can also learn about ways to seek specific science, technology, prototyping, and experimentation opportunities,” the release said.

A third pathway is designed for military personnel and DOD civilians seeking to leverage existing projects, participate in workshops, or collaborate.

Users can apply filtering criteria based on their interests to find relevant innovation organizations within the department.

The Pentagon plans to periodically update the website to be responsive to user needs and technology advances.  

The new online portal stemmed from work conducted by the Pentagon’s Innovation Steering Group, which was created by Hicks and chaired by Heidi Shyu, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

“One thing that drove me nuts is talking to small companies, I realized that, you know, the DoD is just a giant fortress. They don’t know where the door is,” Shyu said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by the National Defense Industrial Association.

“One of the key things I wanted to do is create an R&E website so they’re able to go into the R&E website and be able to navigate through this maze,” she said. For example, “we’re linking to each of the services in terms of, if you’re interested in what the Army is doing and the Air Force is doing in terms of innovation opportunities, you can click on a link and it will take you right to the portal. So … hopefully you’re no longer groping in the dark.”

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“Why is software so important? Because the next battles will be fought based on software supremacy. They really will be,” said Schmidt, the former chair of the Defense Innovation Board and a major advocate for the U.S. military’s adoption of modern software practices and AI. “And you understand this — you’ve heard it. But you don’t have it yet.”

Speaking at the Air Force Association’s Warfare Symposium, Schmidt offered direct, blunt criticisms about the DOD’s continued struggle to innovate and adapt to the increasingly digital nature of defense. It’s something the Defense Innovation Board grappled with repeatedly under his leadership, during which time it produced a Software Acquisition and Practices (SWAP) study for the department.

“If I look at the totality of what you’re doing, you’re doing a very good job of making things that you currently have better, over and over and over again,” he said, adding that the DOD and military services often ritualize processes and systems as “God-given” without considering innovative alternatives.

He continued: “If I’ve learned anything in my now 45 years of innovative tech companies, it’s that rules can be changed with focus, with cleverness and with some real buy-in. And I would suggest that if we look at the things that are missing in terms of technological innovation, they’re precisely the things that we need to actually change the system to account for.”

In pockets across the military, though, this is happening, Schmidt said, pointing to the Air Force’s approach in developing the B-21 Raider. And it needs to be applied to “things other than bombers,” he said. “Like let’s try to do the same thing for software” and concepts like Joint All Domain Command and Control and “actually get it in your hands, get it working, get it now.”

But there are several challenges at play across the DOD as the department looks to buy software. The primary issue, Schmidt said, “is you don’t have enough software people. And by software people, I mean people who think the way I do, you come out of a different background, and you just don’t have enough of these.”

On top of that, the military doesn’t yet understand that “software is never done,” he said. “So if you’re a person who accounts for something that has to be done,” as the military tends to think about acquiring weapons systems, “you’re always unhappy. Because software is never done. It’s a process of continuous improvement.” And what that tends to result in is “every time you try to do something in software, one of these strange scavenging groups within the administration takes your money away,” Schmidt said. “It’s insane.”

Schmidt’s points about software are largely in anticipation of the DOD’s need to more rapidly adopt AI.

“AI is a force multiplier like you’ve never seen before,” said Schmidt, who spent several years as chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence. “It sees patterns that no human can see. And all interesting future military decisions will have as part of that an AI assistant.”

Still, the same cultural and resourcing challenges remain, Schmidt said, urging for more attention to this space.

“To be very blunt, you don’t have enough people. You don’t have the right contractors. And you don’t have the right strategy to fill in this,” he said. And while the DOD has fought tough battles to stand up the AI resources it currently has, like the Joint AI Center, that’s not nearly enough. “We need 20, 30, 40 such groups, more and more. And as that transformation happens, the people who work for you, the incredibly courageous people will have so much more powerful tools.”

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