challenges to a nontraditional audience of more than 300,000 solvers from more than 200 countries. Trough InnoCentive’s strategic partnerships with organizations such as Te Economist, Nature Pub- lishing Group and Scientific American magazine, challenges posted have the potential to reach more than 13 million individuals worldwide. Tis diverse body of potential solvers from across many different disciplines enabled NVESD to inject orthogonal thinking from outside of the traditional military development com- munities into their organization.
InnoCentive documented and provided to NVESD more than 82 solutions in response to the challenge posting, with five of the solutions awarded prizes rang- ing from $2,000 to $7,000. Awarded ideas came from as far as New Zealand and India. Tese ideas provided NVESD with completely new sensor approaches to explore, such as a fast-pulse, high energy X-rays coupled with gamma-ray LIDAR [light detection and ranging] for faster detection of explosives hazards at stand- off, as well as new ideas for using fractal analysis algorithm techniques for identifi- cation of man-made objects from natural, organic backgrounds.
Te final lesson, a willingness to change, can be seen in how NVESD is embracing a culture of exploration and introduc- ing the Army to even larger numbers of nontraditional sources of technical excel- lence. Te use of prize-based challenges is just one part of their larger strategic approach, which includes other initiatives such as technology wargaming, hori- zon scanning and new in-house efforts designed to promote discovery events for new hires who are bringing fresh eyes to old challenges. Tese help to inject new thinking and innovation opportunities into an organization with a history of excellence in developing advanced sensors
CACHE AND CARRY
OEF and OIF have encouraged the acquisition community to embrace the philosophy of adapting and changing; both are necessary to ensure the future success of Soldiers against hybrid and asymmetric threats. (U.S. Army photo)
and technologies in support of some of the Army’s hardest challenges.
CONCLUSION In order to continue to provide world-class capabilities in 2025 and beyond, the Army must be open to new approaches while still maintaining the core technical competen- cies that are foundational to the military overmatch relied on today.
Te lessons learned from OEF and OIF are helping CERDEC NVESD and the Army at large to embrace innovation, be open to change and to take a fresh look at the best technical approach to long-term challenges. Following years of expensive conflict overseas, the U.S. military needs its own innovators, like Elon Musk, that can help find creative, cost-effective solu- tions to the asymmetrical challenges still remaining and shape the direction for S&T investments into the future. Orga- nizations like CERDEC NVESD are working to instill these lessons learned to create the environment in which new
ideas can be explored, matured and tran- sitioned into formal acquisition programs for strategic land power dominance into 2025 and beyond.
For more information, contact CERDEC Public Affairs at 443-861-7566 or usarmy.
apg.cerdec.mail.cerdec@
mail.mil.
DR. RICHARD NABORS is the deputy director of the Operations Division at NVESD at Fort Belvoir, VA. He holds a doctor of management in organizational leadership from the University of Phoenix, an M.S. in management from the Florida Institute of Technology and a B.A. in his- tory from Old Dominion University. He is Level I certified in program management.
MR. NATHAN BURKHOLDER is a stra- tegic analyst supporting the NVESD. He holds a B.S. in engineering from Messiah College.
ASC.ARMY.MIL
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SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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