WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Less than a month after his Defense Innovation Board had its first public meeting, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter is moving on a trio of suggestions on how to drive innovation forward for the Pentagon\u00a0\u2014\u00a0including the creation of a new chief innovation officer position.
The suggestion was first raised by the Defense Innovation Board at an Oct. 5 public meeting. At the time, Cass Sunstein, a professor at Harvard Law School who has served in various government positions, described the sharing of best practices around the DoD as currently “less than ideal” and noted that the position could act as the umbrella from which funding for low-level projects could flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to the creation of that spot, Carter said the Pentagon will launch targeted recruiting initiatives to increase recruitment of computer scientists and software engineers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“We\u2019ll do this through targeted recruiting initiatives ranging from our Reserve Officer Training Corps to our civilian Scholarship For Service program that\u2019s intended to help build the next generation of DoD science and technology leaders, with the goal of making computer science a core competency of the Department of Defense,” Carter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carter later added that the Pentagon needs to do a better job\u00a0directly\u00a0recruiting on college campuses, noting that may require changes to hiring statutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
College students “don’t want to live a career that\u2019s an escalator where you get on the bottom stair and you wait and it takes you up to the top,” Carter said. “They want a jungle gym where they can get higher by climbing around. We need to recognize that\u2019s the way many people see their lives.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Carter did not go as far as to endorse the “digital ROTC” idea put forth from the board\u2019s public meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, the department is going to invest broadly in machine learning, including the creation of a “virtual center of excellence” that Carter said “establishes stretch goals and incentivizes academy and commercial technology companies [that] have been making significant strides.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That center of excellence was a direct suggestion from the board, which emphasized, as Carter has in the past, that machine learning will be key to all technologies going forward. Interestingly, the lead here will be taken by Carter\u2019s Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) group, which will sponsor an initial prize challenge for machine learning issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Carter has made innovation a key part of his tenure, and of his legacy in the position. He has also tied those groups closely to his office, which some have speculated could be a problem when a new secretary comes in\u00a0\u2014\u00a0an idea Carter dismissed in his speech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Going forward, I\u2019m confident that the logic behind everything I\u2019m talking about today\u00a0will be self-evident to future defense secretaries, as will the value of these efforts\u00a0\u2014\u00a0but they also\u00a0need to have the momentum and institutional foundation to keep going under their own steam\u00a0and continue to thrive,” he said. “We must ensure they can keep leading the way and keep disrupting, challenging and inspiring the rest of the Defense Department to change for the better.”<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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