No source untapped: Innovation center will draw from civilians’ ideas to streamline process of problem solving for Air Force

A crew member on a B-25 Mitchell bomber takes a flag down prior to take off during the 2014 Aviation Nation open house at Nellis Air Force Base Sunday, Nov. 9, 2014.

Click to enlarge photo

Maj. Gen. Peter Gersten, commander of the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base, discusses AFwerX, which aims to strip away bureaucratic red tape in service to innovation. The first AFwerX location will be near UNLV.

“We are mavericks, mavens, warriors, scientists and engineers who see our world as a hyper-connected community able to quickly and creatively solve problems.”

The next line on the Defensewerx website names its clients: “our warfighters,” better known as the U.S. Department of Defense. Acting as both counselor and connector in helping the military innovate its way forward, the nonprofit organization was established in 2012 in Fort Walton Beach, Fla. And in early November, an offshoot known as AFwerX-Vegas signed a lease on a space that will become an innovation center serving the Air Force.

“Our purpose is to serve the warfighter, the operators on the ground who need solutions fast,” said Bobby Mack, marketing and events manager for AFwerX-Vegas. He explained that the planned facility — at the Hughes Center just off the Strip — would include a 10,000-square-foot fabrication lab and a 15,000-square-foot collaboration arena for “innovators, government, students and the community to come together to try and solve some of the Air Force’s toughest issues today.”

During a visit to Nellis Air Force Base on July 21, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson announced the creation of AFwerX to open the door to collaborations that could push the Air Force to “move faster and be smarter” without a lot of money or bureaucracy. Wilson said the first location would be near UNLV so the campus and greater community could easily engage with the Air Force and present solutions to specific problems.

“We’re changing the way we do business with innovators,” Wilson said in a release from her public affairs team. “Bringing an AFwerX storefront to Vegas allows us to take advantage of Nevada’s emerging idea marketplace.”

Mack said Defensewerx (formerly the Doolittle Institute, which rebranded this summer), was contracted to help establish AFwerX-Vegas. He pointed to Defensewerx’s success with U.S. Special Operations Command and its Sofwerx storefront in Tampa, Fla., a physical/online space for connecting innovators to operators.

The mission of this new nonprofit is to quickly and efficiently answer calls for tech-based solutions when issues are presented by the Air Force, the Air Force Research Laboratory or even a specific base.

“For example, (central processing units) on A-10 (jets) that need to be updated and need to be able to have faster processing skills,” Mack said of a challenge to improve the jet’s computer system. “Then we can see what kind of CPU we can put in there that can be cost-effective to get that fixed in weeks, instead of that process potentially taking years to accomplish if it were to go directly through the Air Force.”

Maj. Gen. Peter Gersten, commander of the Warfare Center at Nellis, said in an internal news report that the Air Force had made great gains in working with outside entities through industrial partnerships.

“Working with these companies, we’ve slayed speed, stealth, cyber and space challenges on a level that the world is envious of,” Gersten said. “But what we’ve also found is that 80 percent of the U.S. population has no idea how to enter into the Department of Defense’s domain for new programs.”

AFwerX-Vegas promises to answer that by blocking off “open to the public” hours and inviting individuals and groups to come in and present ideas. Mack said it would create internships for students and stage tech accelerators and prototyping events to bring in experts on various topics so their brain power can be maximized. Such activities will be open to innovators from all walks of life, designed to bring a diverse spectrum of potential Air Force contractors to the fore.

“Students, government workers or maybe somebody who is working over at Lucky Mart — (maybe) they have an idea and want to come to our space and work through that in our innovation center. We want more opportunities to solve these problems. ‘Crowdsourcing,’ if you will,” Mack said of the Air Force’s own innovative approach through AFwerX.

In the news report out of Nellis, Gersten acknowledged how “formidable” military acquisitions and testing can seem to outsiders. But the Air Force recognizes that great ideas can come from tinkerers and hackers as well as from engineers and scientists.

“The more people we are able to reach with these problem sets,” Mack said, “the more likely we are to be able to get this accomplished.”

The benefit can go both ways. Mack explained that generators of useful ideas — even if they’re rough — stand to profit from the application of their intellectual property through an extensive process of review and technology transfer.

“We’ve had events where students have the creative mindset to lay out a possible solution that might not have been spot on,” he said of accelerators hosted by Defensewerx. “That’s when other experts can come in and work with them and say, ‘Hey, actually you can do this, this and this and work with your idea, as this is the best solution. We just need to tweak it a little bit.’ ”

AFwerX-Vegas is set to serve as a central hub for such interactions and the model for subsequent locations. Their staffs will talk through challenges with Air Force experts, then solicit new solutions from their surrounding communities. Once analysis is presented to the Air Force, it can make decisions about where to invest, whether the innovation is in software or materials.

Mack said the flagship space at the Hughes Center was undergoing demolition and construction in its first phase. A planned ribbon cutting in January (featuring Secretary Wilson) will be followed by two more phases of development.

The first floor will be the fabrication lab, where 3-D printers, shop bots, laser cutters and other tools can be used to design and prototype concepts that address particular problem sets.

“The first floor is kind of the tech rise,” Mack said. “Some of these ideas will come to fruition.”

The collaboration arena will be equipped to seat more than 100 people, with smaller breakout rooms — some requiring special access, so government and military personnel can collaborate with AFwerX on sensitive projects.

Representatives have met with UNLV and area community colleges to plan out their internship offerings, ranging from tech-related fields to marketing and hospitality.

“We want to bring in some of the best and brightest to learn and contribute through internships for credit,” Mack said. “Those students who want some hands-on experience, who are truly interested in the fields they are studying and need to work with some of those tools more in a real-life setting, can do so.”

When AFwerX-Vegas is fully operational, the Air Force envisions the staff as a mix of active-service members, academic fellows and cadets from local universities with the drive to achieve Wilson’s aim of looking in every corner for the next big breakthrough.

“If we’re not reaching these segments of our population who are coming up with some fantastic ideas, then we’re not tapping into the full capabilities that our country affords us,” Gersten said.

Business

Share