Closing the Innovation Gap at SOCOM

Abstract

Doing business with the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) can be difficult. There are a number of physical and regulatory hoops to jump through: getting on MacDill Air Force Base, getting into the SOCOM compound, and the prohibition of electronic devices on the compound, just to name a few. Not to mention the intricacies of the federal acquisition process, which could take more than a year from Broad Area Announcement (BAA) to contract award. To address these hurdles in a rapidly changing technological environment, SOCOM, in conjunction with the Doolittle Institute (now DEFENSEWERX), created SOFWERX: An unclassified facility where Special Operations operators can bring their requirements and be tested out and rapidly prototyped (https://www.sofwerx.org/). Once down selected, they can then move into a SOCOM Program of Record and be fast-tracked into the acquisition process. This compression of the Concept Development to Prototype phases vastly increases the time to product deployment.