1. NASA Headquarters (HQ)
Innovation Ecosystem
Information Technology and
Communications Directorate (ITCD)
February 2012

2. Agenda
 What is Innovation?
 Assessment Approach
 Components of Innovation Ecosystem
– (In)novations
– Curated Relationships
– innovate.nasa.gov
– Technology Focus Areas
– Governance
 Future Development Activities
 Q&A
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3. Agenda
 What is Innovation?
 Assessment Approach
 Components of Innovation Ecosystem
– (In)novations
– Curated Relationships
– innovate.nasa.gov
– Technology Focus Areas
– Governance
 Future Development Activities
 Q&A
2

4. The word “Innovation” has been used extensively by leadership as
a way to promote unique thinking and new ideas across the
scientific community…
“We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the
world…The first step in winning the future is encouraging American
innovation.” – President Barack Obama
"We need to change our mindset and the way we work
together to have our people start thinking of NASA not just
as a collection of incredible missions but as a developer of
the innovative technology that helps drive our nation‟s
economy…” – Mr. Charles Bolden, NASA Administrator
“The tenets of quality, safety, and program execution are often at odds with the
very nature of disruptive innovation. Yet, failure to seek the sweet spot for this
innovation will ultimately lead to organizational demise” – Ms. Linda Cureton,
NASA’s Chief Information Officer
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5. …but what does the word “Innovation” mean within NASA?
 There have been hundreds of books published on innovation, resulting in a
myriad of perspectives on what innovation is to Industry and the Federal
Government
 For purposes of this briefing we define the term „technology innovation‟ as:
“Using existing technology in new ways or highlighting emerging
and/or cutting-edge technology to facilitate mission success”
 To successfully achieve the above requires mechanisms for enabling NASA to best encourage,
share and collaborate together for solutions to drive innovation across the Agency and it‟s
partners
 NASA HQ ITCD determined that an assessment of the Agency‟s ability to innovate was
required in order to determine the most effective approach for positioning NASA to achieve
holistic technology innovation
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6. Agenda
 What is Innovation?
 Assessment Approach
 Components of Innovation Ecosystem
– (In)novations
– Curated Relationships
– innovate.nasa.gov
– Technology Focus Areas
– Governance
 Future Development Activities
 Q&A
5

7. Innovation at NASA is often a product of collaboration across a
vast network of formal and informal relationships between the
Private Sector, Government, interest groups and Universities
 Though a 2009 GAO Report indicated that NASA had implemented internal procedures and
governing practices to mitigate duplication of technology development, anecdotal evidence
suggested that collaboration is still very much dependent upon individual intervention
With many of these relationships cultivated
and managed by a singular NASA employee,
the complexity of defining NASA‟s
relationships becomes even more challenging
to define and leverage to drive innovation
Private Sector Public Sector Interest Groups R&D and Universities
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8. As a result of stakeholder interviews, ITCD concluded that NASA’s
focus on missions created stovepipes that impacted the Agency’s
ability to share and collaborate regarding innovation and emerging
technologies
 Over 25 stakeholder interviews were conducted with leadership and personnel across the
NASA HQ organization to determine the extent of NASA‟s current methods of innovation
management and collaboration
 Interview comments indicated that there were
opportunities for synergy across functional disciplines
that could promulgate innovation
 Interview data suggests that relationships within
NASA are primarily established through contracts and
missions, where the short-term “partnership” between
two individuals is tactically-based and tailored for a
specific purpose
 The primary issue regarding relationship building is
based on the differences between individual and
institution relationships, where individual-to-individual
are more clearly defined than organization-to-
organization
Interview count per NASA Agency Directorate – November 2010
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9. Further analysis indicated that while there are existing processes
for supporting idea generation and collaboration, these processes
were not integrated in a way that provided transparency and easy,
open information sharing
 Using interview data and best practices from industry, ITCD modeled an “Innovation Lifecycle”
architecture that depicts the process of innovating at NASA
NASA Innovation Lifecycle
Incubation and Scaling and Integration and
Ideation Collaboration
Prototyping Optimization Implementation
Where ideas are Where synergies Where the tech is Where the tech is Where the tech is
formed… are identified… further developed… optimized for injected into the
NASA… Missions…
 While the processes of technology incubation through implementation are well defined,
integrated and actively managed by OCT, CTO and the OCIO communities, existing
processes across the “Ideation” and “Collaboration” phases of the NASA Innovation Lifecycle
lack integration
 The following are a few examples of the types of existing processes within NASA that support
the above two phases of the Innovation Lifecycle…
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10. The following are a small subset of the types of existing processes
that support the “Ideation” and “Collaboration” phases of the
lifecycle…
NASA Innovation Lifecycle
Incubation and Scaling and Integration and
Ideation Collaboration
Prototyping Optimization Implementation
Technology
NASA @ Work  These existing processes are effective at
Mission
Executive Communities
Initiative Technology performing their function and independently
NASA Formal
Directorate
Councils Research
Working facilitate innovative ideas
Needs Grants
Groups
 To drive holistic innovation, NASA requires a
NASA way to collectively leverage these processes
External Centennial together to efficiently:
Informal
SBIR/STTR Challenges
Committees Working
Prizes
Groups • Manage NASA‟s innovation pipeline growth
NASA
Enterprise NASA
InnoCentive • Bring together the most appropriate subject
Communities
Architecture Communities of
Challenge matter experts from across NASA at the right
of Excellence Professional
Center Innovations Practice
Results time to drive early adoption
Findings
Societies
Funds
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11. ITCD hypothesized that transforming this informal relationship
network and supporting processes into a more transparent,
interactive and collaborative structure would better facilitate the
process of innovation at NASA
Internal-NASA Innovation Sources Develop an Opportunities for Innovation
interactive, collaborative
platform… Leveraging and cultivating
1 existing relationships between
NASA and external partners
Identify opportunities for re-use
2 across technologies beyond
original functional design or intent
Connect scientists and
External Sources of Innovation 3 technologists together that is
agnostic of geography, function or
Private Public organization
Sector Sector
Involve scientists and technologist
…for bringing together 4 dynamically to actively submit,
technologists and discuss and collaborate on new
Interest R&D and innovators to drive ideas
Groups Universities
innovation across NASA
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12. Based on this hypothesis, ITCD initiated the development of an
end-to-end immersive approach to innovation through the
development of an Innovation "Ecosystem"
(In)novations
Showcase
1
Curated
Governance 5 2
NASA Innovation Relationships
Ecosystem
4 3
Technology innovate.nasa.gov
Focus Areas
The NASA Innovation Ecosystem is not one singular solution, but a composite of several transformational
components that collectively support innovation across NASA with a focus on cross-cutting technology and
advanced cross-cutting information technology supporting infrastructure
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13. Agenda
 What is Innovation?
 Assessment Approach
 Components of Innovation Ecosystem
– (In)novations
– Curated Relationships
– innovate.nasa.gov
– Technology Focus Areas
– Governance
 Future Development Activities
 Q&A
12

14. The most visible aspect of the Ecosystem, (In)novations provides a
tangible demonstration of emerging technologies that can prompt
new dialogue and interaction
 (In)novations is a physical area at NASA HQ for display of emerging
technologies and an area for collaboration
 The showcase enables innovation at NASA by providing a tangible
demonstration of how innovation and technology injection at NASA can
work and interact with stakeholders
(In)novations Capabilities
Touch All displays in the space touch-enabled
Gesturetek ScreenFX enabling
Gesture interaction with NASA content from
passerby's
Augmented Overlay data about technology in the
Reality showcase via iPad
Automated content delivery; twitter,
QR Codes
email
(In)novations provides a means to interact with emerging technology, discuss technologies on display
with colleagues and others, and spark the imagination for uses beyond the original intent
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15. To-date, vendors from across the country have participated in the
(In)novations Showcase, demonstrating their technologies and
becoming apart of NASA’s curated relationships portfolio
 Vendors now have an single point of entry to demo,
discuss, receive feedback and expand the use of their SansEC
developed technologies within NASA beyond both Uses magnetic fields to induce
their core customers and even the perceived uses of power and make determinations
the technologies…at virtually no cost to NASA about the conditions being
monitored without using
Emotive EPOC electrical connections
A neuroheadset based Infrascanner
on the latest in neuro- A hand-held, non-
technologies invasive, near-infrared (NIR)
based mobile imaging
device to detect brain
Performance Status Monitoring hematoma at the site of
injury
A sensor system that tracks a user‟s
vital statistics such as heart rate, EKG, Briefcam
breathing rate, surface body A video analytics
temperature, activity level, posture, and technology designed to
exertion levels and then streams the mitigate the amount of
data in real-time time required to review
recordings
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16. The NASA HQ (In)novations is the first in a series of showcases
across the NASA centers, comprising a network that highlights
mission technologies, prototypes and concepts
 Centers are encouraged to build their own showcases
Benefits of Technology and
to expand the reach of technology sharing
Innovation Network
 Pilot between NASA HQ and Booz Allen underway to  As additional Technology
determine repeatable approach for expanding the Showcases are established the
network across NASA and other external organizations network expands allowing further
(e.g. DARPA) collaboration between Centers
and missions
Example of Potential Agency Example of Inter-Organizational
Technology Exchange Network Technology Exchange Network
 The Network will act as a library
allowing for internetwork loans of
physical technology
Technology
& Innovation
 Space reserved to display NASA
Network
technology innovation award
winners and innovative results of
STEM partnerships
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17. As a companion to the Innovation Showcase, innovate.nasa.gov
was developed to virtualize the Technology Showcase and provide
a means for online collaboration and discussion
 innovate.nasa.gov augments the information
available to visitors in the physical showcase and
serves as a virtual information sharing and
collaboration platform
 The platform is open to all innovation
partners…including NASA employees,
educational institutions, other Government
agencies and Industry
Innovation and Technology Facilitation
Enterprise 2.0 Capabilities
(In)novations (In)novation Partners
Collaboration and Technology Focus
Networking Areas
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18. While the Platform provides an avenue for viewing and discussing
new technologies, active participation by technology communities
will be critical to driving innovation within the Ecosystem
NASA Technology Focus Area  Technology Focus Areas (TFAs) will form the basis for determining the
opportunities, relevance, application and interest in emerging
Framework
technologies introduced within innovate.nasa.gov and the
(In)novations showcase
 Utilizing existing communities of interest within the Agency and the
Office of the Chief Technologists (OCT) Space Technology Roadmap
(2011) taxonomy, approximately 16 mission-technology driven TFAs
OCT Space Technology Roadmap
will be established within the Innovation Ecosystem
Taxonomy Listing
Technology Focus Area Examples
Robotics Enabling Nanotechnology Landing
Information Systems
Technology
Active participation by the Technology Focus Areas is a critical success factor to the overall health of the
Innovation Ecosystem, to be facilitated by engaging with stakeholders in the following ways…
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19. Finally, underpinning the success of the Ecosystem is to actively
engage stakeholders within and external to NASA using an
overarching governance plan
The establishment of an overarching governance process is essential towards
bringing together NASA and external stakeholders, engaging them the criticality of
innovation across mission technology, and sustaining the Innovation Ecosystem
Internally Stakeholder Engagement Externally
Focused Focused
NASA Stakeholder Engagement NASA Innovation Partners
Maintaining engaged Identifying, managing and
stakeholders and leadership sustaining and evolving
who are actively participating, critical technology
influencing and sustaining the relationships outside of
innovation pipeline NASA
The above supports NASA‟s overarching innovation governance, which can be leveraged for facilitating
interactions, requesting directed research to further a specific field, teaming on missions, and discovering
innovation early in its lifecycle
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20. Agenda
 What is Innovation?
 Assessment Approach
 Components of Innovation Ecosystem
– (In)novations
– Curated Relationships
– innovate.nasa.gov
– Technology Focus Areas
– Governance
 Future Development Activities
 Q&A
19

21. In conclusion, there is a great amount of excitement, buy-in and
success stories already generated through the development of the
Innovation Ecosystem…and more is on it’s way
Major milestones of the Innovation Ecosystem reached to date include…
(In)novations (In)novations Showcase is under
Showcase Design construction at NASA HQ
Completed
Vendors Secured for Initial set of technology vendors are on
display at the NASA PM Challenge
Showcase Launch temporary showcase
innovate.nasa.gov innovate.nasa.gov website has been
developed and will be deploying in early
Website Developed 2012
…next steps include the first refresh of technologies within the (In)novations
Showcase and innovate.nasa.gov website, and expansion of the Showcase network
across other Agencies and organizations
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22. As part of the NASA PM Challenge, ITCD is providing a
demonstration of the (In)novations Showcase and platform…
…we encourage participants to interact with the (In)novation
Showcase and innovate.nasa.gov website and provide feedback as
to how these tools can continue to support the Agency
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23. For more information about the NASA HQ Innovation Ecosystem
Program, please contact the following…
National Aeronautics and National Aeronautics and
Space Administration Space Administration
Victor Thompson Brady Decker
Deputy Chief Information Officer Chief Technology Officer
Information Technology and Communications Information Technology and Communications
Directorate (ITCD) Directorate (ITCD)
NASA Headquarters NASA Headquarters
300 E Street SW 300 E Street SW
Washington, DC 20546-0001 Washington, DC 20546-0001
202.358.7220 www.nasa.gov 202.358.2520 www.nasa.gov
victor.thompson-1@nasa.gov brady.w.decker@nasa.gov
Jill A.C. Hardash Richard Summers
Senior Associate Associate
Booz Allen & Hamilton Inc. Booz Allen & Hamilton Inc.
Pacific Concourse Drive Pacific Concourse Drive
Los Angeles, CA Los Angeles, CA
Tel (310) 297 1827 Tel (310) 297 5539
hardash_jill@bah.com summers_richard@bah.com
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24. Agenda
 Overview of NASA HQ Innovation Ecosystem
 Assessment Approach
 Components of Innovation Ecosystem
– (In)novations
– Curated Relationships
– innovate.nasa.gov
– Technology Focus Areas
– Stakeholder Engagement
 Future Development Activities
 Q&A
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25. Questions?
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