‘HACQING’ FOR DEFENSE
wherever they felt comfortable. Tere were seven conference rooms, one of which was equipped with a massage chair. Tere were also three noiseproof telephone booths with USB ports and wall outlets. Te setup was totally different from a typical federal office—high-tech, and more like something you’d see at a startup company.
Within a half-hour of my arrival, I received a sleek MacBook Air and a Common Access Card activated for secure entrance through the DIU’s doors. Tat was one of the fastest in-processing times I’ve ever seen!
VITAL SIGNS OF POTENTIAL
I was then introduced to the acquisition pathways director, Maj. David Rothzeid, who had interviewed me for this assign- ment, and his team. I asked what the normal office hours were. Flexible, he said, depending on the workload. If there were deadlines to meet, people usually worked until late in the evening and on the week- end, too. I was really taken aback when he said that for today, because it might have been a long day for me so far, I could leave and go settle in at my apartment.
JUST THE FIRST WEEK DIU uses a web application called Asana to organize, track and manage the tasks. Te app also featured a list of training sessions to familiarize us with the way DIU functions, which is totally different from other federal agencies. DIU uses web applications for day-to-day activities, like Asana, Google Hangout, Google Drive and Google Docs. What I found partic- ularly interesting, however, was that DIU uses other-transaction authority rather than contracts based on the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) to award contracts at commercial speed.
One of the biggest differences I noticed in the office was that military employees didn’t wear uniforms, except at all-hands
Research psychologist Lt. Jenna Jewell and research physiologist Lt. Travis Doggett monitor aircrew vital signs during flight patterns in the Fluctuating Altitude Simulation Technology system in January 2019 at the Navy Experimental Diving Unit in Panama City, Florida. Development of prototypes for a physiological monitor was one of the DIU projects the author was involved in during her assignment. (Photo by Anthony Powers, Naval Surface Warfare Center Panama City Division)
meetings. Later, I found out that, in the earlier days of the organization, vendors couldn’t make out the rank from the uniform and were afraid to use the wrong rank. Tis same philosophy—“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”—serves to lower the barrier to entry and to invite innovative, nontraditional companies to work with DOD.
In my first week at DIU, David provided training on the fundamentals of other- transaction authority, program manager best practices, commercial solutions open- ings and statements of work. Tat same week, we also had an opportunity to go to Stanford University in Palo Alto to listen to pitches from students involved in the Hacking for Defense (H4D) program. H4D is an initiative by the National Security Innovation Network to present research universities with military prob- lems for professors, veterans and students to work on. During the pitch session,
professors grilled the students to identify ideas with potential for a prototype.
A PRESCIENT PROPOSAL Right before starting my assignment, I’d submitted a project proposal on using artificial intelligence for predictive main- tenance of medical devices, in response to a request from Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC) National Mission Initia- tives. As the workshop was to be held in Virginia, just a week after I arrived at DIU, I participated by teleconference.
However, David had introduced me to the product managers of the artificial intel- ligence and machine learning portfolio, who were going to be at the JAIC follow- on workshop. I talked with them about my project, and they introduced me to another DIU colleague, a data scientist working on predictive maintenance for Air Force aircraft. We talked at length, and his questions helped me learn more
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Army AL&T Magazine
Spring 2020
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