Federal Computer Week covers an Atlantic Council google hangout hosted by the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security on the Department of Defense’s outreach to Silicon Valley:
“Silicon Valley companies try to get an edge on competition, while the Pentagon tries to enforce competition,” O’Reilly, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said May 13 during a discussion of defense innovation hosted by the council. “And these different paradigms result in two clearly distinctive behaviors in technical discourse and the speed of actions.”
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Accelerating the acquisition process may be all the more important because many emerging defense technologies are flourishing outside the Pentagon’s traditional contracting base. 3D printing, cybersecurity and robotics are examples of fields in which the underlying technology is inherently commercial rather than military, Michael Horowitz, an associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, said during the Atlantic Council discussion.