DIUx, DOD’s outreach to the tech community, has developed ‘commercial solutions opening,’ an OTA mechanism that moves from first contact to final contract in 60 days or less. And DIUx is sharing its guidebook to CSO with the rest of the federal government.


by Mr. Michael Bold W


hen Secretary of Defense Ash Carter started the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) in August 2015 in a bid to re-establish DOD’s once-robust ties to the technology innovation


of Silicon Valley, DIUx needed to find a way to move “at the speed of business.”


Silicon Valley considered the department a bad customer, if it considered DOD at all. Te federal government’s normal con- tracting process, guided by the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), could take six months to a year (and in some cases con- siderably longer). Silicon Valley’s tech companies expect to move from proposal to contract in a couple of months, if not weeks.


When Carter announced a refocused DIUx 2.0 in May 2016 under its new managing partner, U.S. Air Force fighter-pilot- turned-entrepreneur Raj Shah, he also announced that he had requested $30 million to direct toward nontraditional com- panies with technologies—already commercially available or soon to be released—that could be used to meet military needs. (Carter has since opened a DIUx office in Boston and a presence in Austin, Texas.)


ASC.ARMY.MIL 109


CONTRACTING


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