U.S. Department of the Army Secretary and 2024 Wash100 Award winner Christine Wormuth made it clear at this year’s South by Southwest festival in March that the service branch is operating under a software-first directive. She specifically noted that “the Army’s success on future battlefields will depend on [its] ability to rapidly updat...
A mechanical engineer by training, Scott Aken has navigated a fascinating route to his current role as president and CEO of network intelligence provider Axellio. He began his career in the commercial sector during the dot-com boom in the late 1990s, where he worked for the sole domain name company. Cybercriminals who made attempts on...
At the 100th anniversary celebration of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in the fall, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced the establishment of a new enterprise: the Disruptive Capabilities Office. This endeavor is meant to reconfigure and accelerate the research-to-implementation pipeline for new technologies. And not just any technologies,...
In February, the Department of the Air Force announced a massive reoptimization effort to prepare the Air Force and Space Force to navigate the increasingly complex landscape of great power competition. This plan focuses on four main areas – developing people, generating readiness, projecting power and developing capabilities – and the DAF has ...
The benefits of 5G are far reaching, but using spectrum outside the continental United States, or OCONUS, presents a unique set of challenges for military forces. One of these challenges is moving away from what Arthur De Leon, director of strategic spectrum policy for the Department of the Navy’s Office of the Chief Information Officer...
As the wide-open resources of the internet have deepened and expanded over the last nearly three decades, publicly available data has become an increasingly valuable asset for the U.S., as well as its allies and adversaries alike. To name just one example, in early 2022, such intelligence was crucial in informing warnings about Russia’s invasion...
The U.S. Army has released a request for information notice for a potential 10-year multiple award, indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract vehicle estimated to have a ceiling of over $1 billion for software development support. According to the SAM.gov notice from Army Contracting Command – Aberdeen Proving Ground, the New Modern Softwar...
Prior to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, 5G technologies at the U.S. Department of Defense were incubated in its Office of the Under Secretary of Defense Research and Engineering, or OUSD(R&E). Symbolically, however, with the passing of the aforementioned annual budget three years ago, 5G projects were transferred to...
The U.S. Air Force has begun seeking proposals for a potential $5.7 billion follow-on multiple-award contract to provide combat air forces contracted air support services to help protect U.S. assets against advanced airborne threats. CAF CAS II seeks to procure non-personal services for realistic advanced adversary air threats and close air support ...
When Jen Sovada realized she could make more of an impact on the outside of the military looking in, she retired from the U.S. Air Force. Now, her company, the fast-growing startup SandboxAQ, regularly does business with the USAF and Sovada still gets to support the mission, circumnavigating the oft-labyrinthine bureaucracy of the government. Sovada...
