The
fourth and final line of effort in the 2026 National Defense Strategy
calls for the supercharging of the defense industrial base; and within
that effort is a call to grow nontraditional vendors.
To
that end, the War Department's Office of the Assistant Secretary of War
for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict will host a
one-day "accelerator" event, July 24, in the national capital region, in
which representatives from more than a dozen companies will
have the opportunity to pitch innovative solutions across nine areas
related to the military's special operations community.
The
event comes as the office is seeking ways to rapidly
innovate technologies and get them into the hands of warfighters
quicker than the traditional acquisition avenues.
"Traditionally,
in acquisition, there's a lot of work and energy around the government
figuring out what it needs and then telling industry to just build what
it thinks it needs; and this is flipping the script on
that," explained Bonnie Evangelista, the office's acquisition
director for the Secretariat for Special Operations.
Rather,
she said, the office is working to identify what the mission needs and
then identify what industry-driven solutions already exist on the market
that can meet that.
"That
is a complete 180 from [a traditional] acquisition
perspective," Evangelista said, noting that the state of battlefield
technology is rapidly changing in a matter of hours and days rather than
years and decades as in the past.
The
method the office incorporates into fielding these new technologies is
likened to a "critical triangle," wherein warfighters are put in direct
contact with private-sector innovators, as well as acquisition industry
experts who understand the fiscal and contractual aspect of getting the
new technology into the field.
"We
are doing this accelerator event specifically to highlight the might of
that triangle coming together to leverage, and kind of put pen to paper
on what [Secretary of War Pete Hegseth] is talking about [regarding]
empowering the warfighter [and] creating faster spirals to get
technology into the field — and doing that in a very, very short time
frame," said Carmella Teeter, deputy assistant secretary of war for
special operations analysis, resources and capabilities.
Whereas
many traditional acquisition processes can take three or more years to
get from awarding of a contract to putting the new technology into the
field, the goal for getting any innovative approach or
capability that the office selects for acquisition into the field is six
months or less, with contracts being awarded the day of the event.
To
get participants for the accelerator event, the team called for short
proposal submissions, asking each applicant for a two-page white paper
proposal on how they would address certain challenges.
Soon,
the office received nearly 700 applications, which were eventually
narrowed down to 15 organizations being invited to the July 24 event.
During
the day of the event, participants will give an initial presentation
consisting of an oral presentation, technical brief and government
question-and-answer session.
Any
project selected during the first phase — or gate — will be awarded an
initial $10,000, with the eligibility to be invited to the second gate
of the event and potentially be awarded an additional $50,000 if the
technology meets government mission requirements.
Those
companies that pass the second gate will then proceed to the third
gate, which is prototype delivery, followed by the final
gate of production.
"[The
accelerator] is very focused on trying to break down those barriers to
entry that we see in particular with small businesses and the startups,"
Teeter said, adding that the goal is to cut bureaucracy and create
synergy by way of the aforementioned critical triangle.
Teeter
said that what ultimately drives projects like the upcoming accelerator
event is the necessity to remember that the warfighters deserve to have
the best technology at their disposal, and as quickly as possible.
"We
owe that to these people that are going to be asked to solve the
impossible problems," she said. "We owe them unfair advantage on the
battlefield, and that's what this is all designed to do: to give our
warfighters unfair advantage by making sure that we remember from all
the way up to the senior levels here in the [War Department] that their
voice and their comfort level with that technology is the thing that we
care about most; and we want to empower them to have a say in their
future with that."
If
the upcoming event ultimately proves successful, Teeter said she could
envision similar events also permeating throughout the department.
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