'Swat Team of Nerds' Tackles Tough Tech Challenges

  Oct. 21, 2020 | BY David Vergun , DOD News

The Defense Digital Service is a team of 82 engineers, data scientists and computer scientists, working on some of the hardest problems in the Defense Department.

Brett Goldstein, DDS director, said they're a "swat team of nerds." He spoke remotely today to the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C.

A big advantage of DDS, he said, is that it reports directly to the secretary of defense.

That means the team is able to quickly answer the call if any tech issue arises. He also said that they could work on large projects rapidly when needed.  

DDS has worked on the much-publicized "hack the Pentagon" program, which looks for vulnerabilities in the department's information technology systems and comes up with ways to fix them, as well as to improve software and hardware.

Currently, DDS is partnering with the National Security Agency to cyber-protect Operation Warp Speed's search for a COVID-19 vaccine, he said.

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DDS has also partnered with the medical community to develop COVID-19 symptoms checkers, which DOD personnel and their families can use to figure out if they need to get medical care, he said.

Another important ongoing program is the counter-unmanned aerial systems initiative, which addresses the problem of being attacked by swarms of small, hard-to-detect unmanned aircraft systems. Goldstein said that a rapid response team is on standby to fly out to remote areas should the problem arise.

For example, when the USNS Comfort and Mercy hospital ships were aiding in the COVID-19 effort, DDS personnel were helping to ensure small UAS were not being used to attack them.

DDS is also working with the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center to advance AI and machine learning, he said.

Most DDS employees recruited are civilians coming for two- to four-year terms, from the Silicon Valley world. The selection process is very rigorous, he said, because those who are selected will be working on the hardest problems in the department. 

Goldstein said the team members are given the most "wicked" projects to work on and they're okay with that because "engineers love challenges."

Some advice Goldstein has for information technology leaders in the department: "We need to sometimes talk a little less and execute a little more. Sometimes we'll be dead-on and sometimes we'll fail, learn from the failure and then be okay with the failure and just try again. Like that's the type of environment we need to encourage. Americans are innovative. We need to foster that innovation here."