WORKFORCE
‘HACQing’ for Defense
An acquisition professional recounts her eye-opening four-month assignment at the Defense Innovation Unit in California’s Silicon Valley.
by Rajal Ganatra O
ne morning in December 2018, an email arrived in my inbox with the subject, “Applications Now Open: Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) – Hacking Acquisition (HACQer) Program.” Te
four-month developmental assignment sounded interesting, but as soon as I saw the location—Mountain View, California—I closed the email. I work in the Warfighter Deployed Medical Systems Project Management Office of the U.S. Army Medical Materiel Development Activity (USAMMDA), at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and have a family.
Tat evening, I told my husband about the developmental opportunity. He looked up DIU, was struck by its focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning, and said it seemed to be an awesome assignment. “It’s in California,” I said. Still, he was supportive.
After a day or two, I opened the email again. Te deadline was in two weeks, so I started writing my letter of intent. By the weekend, I had a first draft. Meanwhile, I sent an email to my supervisor, telling her that I was interested in applying for this temporary duty assignment, and asked if she would ask my senior rater to write an endorsement letter for me.
When DIU extended the application deadline—and offered an option to submit a project proposal or problem statement—I put together a project proposal for a medical device that’s not only an Army requirement but a joint service requirement. Finally, I felt my application was ready, and submitted it after the Christmas holiday. I was nervous, excited and relieved that it was done.
THE SPEED OF RELEVANCE Even the selection for this assignment went at commercial speed: Less than a week after the application period closed, I received an email that DIU wanted to arrange a telephone interview the following week. As I prepared for the interview, I noticed that DIU used LinkedIn quite a bit to post articles on its portfolios, other-transaction authority and other topics, as well as to post current solicitations—which is unusual for a defense agency.
My interview was lively and interactive, and our conversation lasted for almost an hour. In less than a week, I received the email saying I’d been selected. I almost jumped out of my chair! I read it over and over again before I finally forwarded it to my husband.
I flew out early on Monday, April 14, to the San Jose, Cali- fornia, airport. Te DIU office is in a small building owned by the Army Reserve Office and right next to NASA’s Ames Research Center.
Denzil Tomas, a fellow within the cohort, escorted me to the office, which had three conference rooms—”Arpanet,” “GPS” and “Duct Tape”—equipped with full video teleconferencing capability and used primarily for vendor visits, pitches and demonstrations. After that, Denzil took me through the second secured door to where the DIU staff sits.
Te office setup was an open floor plan, no cubes. Tere was only one dedicated office, for the DIU director; everyone else found an open space around one of the tables, booths or sofas,
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