This document summarizes the mission and activities of SOFWERX, a Title 15 Partnership Intermediary Agreement between SOCOM, government agencies, industry partners, academics, and hackers to accelerate delivery of innovative capabilities to special operations forces. SOFWERX facilitates collaboration through events like hackathons and rapid prototyping, with the goal of refining technologies and assessing solutions to challenges. It operates using flexible, non-traditional business processes and has experienced success engaging non-traditional partners through its open ecosystem model.
2. Under a Title 15 Partnership Intermediary Agreement (PIA):
• SOCOM
• Inter Agency Partners
• Industry Partners/Fellows
• FFRDC’s/Labs
• Academics/Interns
• Hackers/Makers
“Big Tent” philosophy which includes:
+ =ERDCDoolittle
NPS CFIC MGM
3. A platform designed and
operated to help solve
challenging Warfighter
problems through increased
collaboration and innovation.
I. Create and maintain a platform to accelerate
delivery of innovative capabilities to USSOCOM
II. Facilitate capability refinement thru
exploration, experimentation and assessment
of promising technology
CHARTER
5. Metrics Matter
Nominations Activity Impact
41 x Collab.
Project
Orders
198 x
Projects
8 x Rapid
Prototyping
Events
72 x
Collaboration
Events
6 x
Hackathons
1 x Combat
Evaluation
(CV)
31 x
Assessment
Events
25 x Prize
Challenges
8 x Tech
Expos
28 x Tech
Talks
354 x Knowledge Transfers
166 Validations
51 Consignments
18 Transitions
18 Awaiting Award
62 x Component
36 x J-Code
249 x SOF AT&L
60 x SOFWERX
80 x Warfighter
6. Lessons Learned
Adoption Profile
Psychographic
Social Technographic
2.5% 13.5% 34% 16%34%
16%
Social ProofScarcity
Innovators
Technologists
Creators
Early
Adopters
Visionaries
Early
Majority
Pragmatists
Late
Majority
Conservatives
Joiners &
Spectators
Late Mass
Skeptics
Inactive
The Tipping
Point
13.5% 34% 34%2.5%
Critics &
Collectors
• Never lose momentum.
• Pivot quickly when it doesn’t work.
• You can’t force adoption; the best idea
doesn’t always win.
• Find products for your customers, not
customers for your products.
• Own the numbers and don’t do
innovation theater.
• Execute fiercely and demand excellence.
• Build a team of committed stress
reducers.
7. How Are We Different?
Consequence
NegativePayoff
Little Great
Likelihood
HighSpeed
SlowFast
• Flexible, non-FAR business
methodologies and processes
• ~90% of submissions come from the
SOFWERX non-traditional ecosystem.
~10% come from Sam.Gov.
• Neutral facilitation and ideation
• Easy to access & reduced barriers
Under Title 15 (Congressional Language) SOFWERX was stood up over 5 years ago under a Partnership Intermediary Agreement between USSOCOM and DEFENSEWERX
We are a 501c3, non-profit funded entirely by USSOCOM. We are given a ~5M operating budget a year to keep lights on and salaries paid. All events and initiatives are free.
DEFENSEWERX: Our corporate head located in Niceville, FL. They hold the PIAS for several other hubs including Doolittle, ERDCWERX, MGMWERX, and ARCYBER
USSOCOM began looking at innovation trends and realized that 1) The innovation base was moving more quickly than Gov and 2) Most of the Innovation base found the Gov slow and did not want to collaborate with them as a whole
SOFWERX was the answer to these problems. We create a bridge between Gov and Non-traditional in a mission to equip the Warfighter with best-of-breed capapbilities
Because we are non-FAR based, we worked with a “Big Tent” philosophy with our partners. These include the following…
We get the most questions regarding hackers. We do work with ethical hackers on several of our projects. Some have even presented at Assessment events – though they used the name Luke Skywalker
SOFWERX is a neutral platform
Think about our world today. The worlds largest cab company owns no cabs (Uber). The worlds largest hotel company owns no hotels (Airbnb). They serve as platforms.
SOFWERX sets up coffee dates between Government and Industry. They collaborate within our neutral space, then it is up to the two separate entities to decide if they want to continue the relationship
Under our charter, SOFWERX focuses on proof of theory, proof of concept, and rapid prototyping. You will never see SOFWERX mass produce or sell any technology as that would make us a competitor.
It is also crucial to understand that SOFWERX does not hold Intellectual Property and we do not take any piece of a company if/when a contract has been awarded by the Gov.
- This is a 30,000 foot view of how day-to-day life goes a SOFWERX
Everything starts with a nomination. Before we begin any challenge we have to know 3 things: 1) What short term and long term success looks like 2) Are we curing the symptom or the disease 3) There has to be an acquisition strategy tied to the challenge
Once we have the green light from USSOCOM, we then apply some kind of SOFWERX mechanism (event pathways)
This opportunity is sent out to our ecosystem via email blast. Note that this is only reserved for business opportunities to USSOCOM.
The ecosystem has 30 days to submit their technologies
USSOCOM then has 10 business days to downselect. (Ex: If 50 companies submitted, they decide who they want to see demonstrate the tech) It is crucial that Government conducts the downselects and not SOFWERX, again, helping us remain neutral.
Once downselects are complete, selectees are invited to come to SOFWERX (currently virtual) to meet 1-on-1 with stakeholders and end users.
The grey dotted line represents the hand-off from SOFWERX to USSOCOM
There are really 4 pathways a project can go. 1) No path forward “Thank you for your interest in national defense” 2) CPO – SOFWERX enters into a B2B agreement with a company to help raise the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of a capability that USSOCOM is interested in 3) Consignment/CRADA: Low dollar projects that are a solution to a problem, but does not have to formally transition to a program of record 4) Transitions to PoR via contract with the Gov
At SOFWERX, we believe that metrics matter. After 5 years what have we done to help the Warfighter
Under Nominations, you can see who is actually bringing us the Warfighter challenges
Activity is the mechanism applied
The impacts should be seen more like a bullseye target. Outer ring is Knowledge Transfers: Any new information we are able to give to USSOCOM. Next ring, Validations: Think less about validating technologies and more about coming up with a coalition of the willing to kickstart the project. Next is consignments which we have discussed before: low dollar projects that are a solution to a Warfighter challenge. Bullseye is the Transition to PoR.
Additionally, the awaiting award category are projects that are ready to transition, they just need contracting approval from USSOCOM.
This slide shows a few lessons learned within the innovation space. Some highlights include 1) You can’t force adoption (IAMS board is a good example – Hover board brought by Franky Zapatta “Our most successful failure” by the end of the project it could do everything we wanted and more, but USSOCOM was not ready to transition an autonomous capability) 2) The best idea doesn’t always win – It’s the best idea that the project can afford
The graph is the Law of Diffusion of Innovation. This states that only 2.5% of the population are true innovators and 13.5% are early adopters. SOFWERX brings these groups together early and often to ensure the best capabilities are making it to the End User.
Based on the audience, I sometimes bring up different levels of Innovation 1) Incremental: small increases in a technology 2) Adjacent: Doing what you do best in new markets 3) Transformational: More advanced technologies (Great time to bring up Tech Tuesday)
40/30/30 rule: We spend 40% of our time on Incremental, 30% on adjacent, and 30% on transformational
Right side of the screen
SOFWERX assesses risk on a 4D matrix as opposed to Gov risk matrix. Instead of just taking likelihood and consequence into consideration, we also look at payoff and speed, which gives you more of a footprint visual.
Left side of the Screen
We are a Non-Far based business
We ran analytics for a few of our events and 90% of the submissions came in from our non-traditional ecosystem
Neutral facility, safe place for people to ideate and collaborate
We are not like USSOCOM, because we are completely UNCLASSIFIED we are able to be transparent with our events and projects.
The ask at the end of every presentation is for people to get involved. Join the ecosystem, check out our events, follow us on social media.