No one wants to stand up in front of the entire Department of Air Force leadership team and own up to being personally responsible for cutting vital communications lines in a war zone, but Tech. Sgt. Raymond Zgoda turned that error into a winning point ...
As the Defense Department engages commercial entities to speed innovation, cultural and structural differences between government and the private sector continue to be the biggest hurdle to rapidly deploying new technology, the head of Air Force Futures told the influential Defense Innovation Board at a ...
After several years of analysis, experiments, and contract awards, the Air Force’s work with electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft initiative is poised to transition to more field testing in 2023. Since April 2020, the service has been looking at eVTOL aircraft, including fixed-wing ...
Dave Harden, CEO of Outpost, led a discussion on "The Art of the Startup: Creating Something From Nothing" with Col. Nathan P. Diller of AFWERX, Lt. Col. Walter McMillan of SpaceWERX, Trevor Smith of Atomic-6, and Diem Salmon of Anduril at AFA's Air, Space & ...
The Department of the Air Force’s self-described “innovation arm” AFWERX plans to begin interviewing military spouses to permanently telework for many of its civilian job openings. If the hiring strategy works, it could serve as a pilot “that has the potential to grow into other ...
Small businesses teaming up with nonprofit research institutions have a head start at proposing concepts for mitigating orbital debris and other aspects of on-orbit servicing, assembly, and manufacturing. SpaceWERX director Lt. Col. Walter McMillan said SpaceWERX consulted fellow government entities, academic institutions, startups, small businesses, ...
Air Education and Training Command has validated a new platform to keep track of disparate augmented and virtual reality training programs across the command with the goal of speeding up the training pipeline and creating a digital training record that will follow Airmen throughout their ...
Master Sgt. Jason Yunker literally scribbled his hot-pit refueling idea on the back of a bar napkin. As of Oct. 11, it became part of the Air Force's new operational concept of agile combat employment while promising to save his command more than $1 million ...
The Air Force is trying out a new tool to help implement its zero trust information technology architecture through an AFWERX research contract with Silicon Valley startup Illumio. The company is working with the Department of the Air Force Zero Trust Task Force to identify ...
The Air Force's technology innovation hub has asked technology companies, industry partners, academia, and others to "revolutionize" flight line operations. The effort—a “sequel” to AFWERX's 2020 base of the future initiative—is aimed at addressing challenges such as airfield maintenance and repair; aircraft maintenance operations; and ...
Blue Force Technologies expects a contract in the next month authorizing it to proceed with development of a stealthy, unmanned aerial system for Air Force fifth-generation fighters to train against. The company expects to build four aircraft for a demonstration program, with first flight in ...
Recent Department of the Air Force Small Business Innovation Research contracts include technology research and development projects ranging from artificial intelligence to edge computing to augmented reality. "We have bolstered our relationship with nontraditional industry since partnering AFWERX with our Small Business Innovation Research Center ...