Bruce Altmann

Don’t miss Capital Factory Founder & CEO Joshua Baer as he shares his reasons for creating this event, what it means for the innovation ecosystem in Texas and beyond, and what you can expect to experience during the next two days.

To help us kick off Fed Supernova, we’ve invited leaders from Texas’ premier universities to speak about their vision for Texas as the best state for defense innovation. As centers for national security research and development, Texas’ universities pave the way for innovators to drive critical defense solutions. How do academic institutions bridge the gap between industry and defense? More importantly -- which bridges can we begin to build now?

Joining Joshua Baer onstage are TAMU Chancellor, John Sharp, UT Dallas President, Dr. Richard Benson, and UTSA President, Dr. Taylor Eighmy, who will spotlight the power of Texas universities to align efforts and advance research toward the national interest.

Welcome to AFWERX, the U.S. Air Force's team of innovators who encourage and facilitate connections across industry, academia, and military to create transformative opportunities and foster a culture of innovation. 

Learn how you can engage with AFWERX's mission, vision, and scope for increasing partnerships during Fed Supernova 2021, and hear a special message from Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Gen. David W. Allvin.

The novel ideas that drove the high-tech revolution — and that helped the United States build strength as a nation — were grounded in a close, mutually-beneficial relationship between the military and the commercial world. Today, those same partnerships are critical to protecting the intellectual property of American businesses and helping the country protect itself from foreign threats.

As the U.S. Air Force Deputy Assistant Secretary for Contracting, Maj. Gen. Cameron Holt is helping the service reinvigorate those partnerships at the strategic level by pushing the envelope of government acquisitions and building a culture of critical thinking among the Air Force contracting community. Find out what he’s doing and why he is optimistic about the path ahead.

Private capital firms have been leery of investing in companies that focus on federal government work, due in part to conventional funding timelines and concerns about translating military technology to the commercial market. But that trend is shifting. In the past 5 years, companies tagged “gov tech” on Crunchbase raised nearly $2B in investment, indicating major growth — and major opportunities — in the government market.

Join AFVentures, the commercial investment arm of the Air Force, to learn how they are helping drive this shift by transforming the Air Force and Space Force into a premier early-stage “investor." By speeding timelines and offering non-dilutive funding to match private capital, AFWERX is attracting more companies as partners and accelerating commercialization of technologies that support national security.

Catch your breath, grab a coffee, and chat with changemakers. Get energized and inspired by the world-class professionals in the room and expand your network to the next level.

Artificial intelligence pushes the limits of known possibility. Yet, AI creates unique challenges for public servants as much as philosophers. While countries like China push forward with AI in military applications, democracies like the U.S. are working to balance the game-changing capabilities that AI provides with public concerns about when, how, and why AI-enabled tools are used for the country’s defense.

U.S. leaders are taking these concerns seriously and working diligently to address them. Learn how DIU and others are helping apply the DoD's Ethical Principles for AI to accelerate the adoption of AI for national security while ensuring responsible, lawful use of this promising technology.

Building software is hard. Doing it in the DoD is even harder. How have the Army, Navy, and Air Force figured out how to deliver outcomes in their software development organizations? The answers will surprise you. Join this session to learn more!

At the National Security Innovation Network (NSIN), community is our core strength. Our team builds networks among innovators who generate new solutions to giant problems. By combining problem-solvers from different kinds of communities, NSIN creates powerful and unexpected effects in the service of national security. The question is: Where do YOU fit in? 

Find out from Matt Merighi, NSIN’s Acting Director of Operations, as he explains the work of bringing together defense, academic, and entrepreneurial innovators to solve national security problems in new ways. He’ll share more about NSIN’s programs as well as how you can engage with their mission, vision, and scope during Fed Supernova. 

Attention innovators! Here’s your chance to get to know NavalX, the workforce "super-connector" for the U.S. Navy. Formally announced in February 2019, this organization focuses on lowering barriers to make it easier for companies to work with the Navy and arming them with a variety of tools so they can move boldly and quickly forward.

In this overview session, NavalX Director CAPT Ben Van Buskirk will share more about Naval Agility and explain how NavalX connects experts and solutions across an ecosystem of potential opportunities. From investment to experimentation to technology transfer, find out how NavalX is evolving the Navy's innovation landscape — and how you can get involved.  

Stay tuned for more information about the nuclear impact of the Navy's chief modernizer, Rear Adm. Lorin Selby, on Fed Supernova 2021.

U.S. companies are facing an unprecedented set of challenges — economic uncertainty, decline of critical markets and suppliers, global competition, loss of vital skills in the workforce, and more. In fact, there are 250+ areas where the country’s industrial base and supply chain face critical risks, and these challenges have a direct impact on our national security.

During this panel, you will have the chance to dive deeper into the threats facing the U.S. industrial base during global competition. Members of the Foreign Investment Tiger Team, CIFIUS, NCIS, the Office of Naval Research, OSD’s Trusted Capital Marketplace, and the Defense Investment Network will discuss how they are working to mitigate these threats with carrots and sticks.

Join us for a presentation on how the Department of Navy SBIR program is mobilizing to transition technology faster than ever before.

Curious about what the NavalX Tech Bridges are? We've got just the session for you! The NavalX Tech Bridges are a connected network that enhances collaboration between Naval Labs, industry, academia, and other military branches. Join the Tech Bridges Director at NavalX for an overview of how to utilize the Tech Bridges ecosystems and tap into opportunities.

Catch your breath, grab a coffee, and chat with changemakers. Get energized and inspired by the world-class professionals in the room and expand your network to the next level.

Maintenance and sustainment are not glamorous concepts — at least, they didn’t used to be. Now, however, the military is incorporating Industry 5.0-style technology to make sure the systems used on the front line are safe, efficient, and optimized to guard taxpayer dollars and keep the men and women who need them safe. 

From mixed reality training to predictive maintenance to robotics, learn more about NESTT’s role in bringing innovative solutions to the Navy’s maintenance and sustainment challenges. Steve McKee will discuss how he and his team are connecting end users in Maintenance Depots across services to critical commercial technology through the SBIR program and beyond.

The mission of the Program Executive Office, Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS) is to develop, deliver and sustain operationally dominant combat systems for Sailors. How? And what's next? Join this session to learn just that and also how NESTT is adapting its model to take advantage of commercial capabilities.

Much like commercial industry, the U.S. military is increasing its use of unmanned and anonymous systems to perform tasks that humans can’t — or shouldn’t — do. Far beyond aerial drones, these mobile-guided vehicles also operate on land, in water, or in space to reduce costs, save lives, and advance our society into a safer, smarter future. 

That’s exactly why the U.S Navy and Marine Corps have prioritized unmanned systems as key enablers for their missions. This panel brings together stakeholders from across the Department of the Navy to articulate their current challenges, explain how the Navy is adapting to overcome them, and share how they are partnering with innovative companies to adopt new capabilities in this space.

Catch your breath, grab a coffee, and chat with changemakers. Get energized and inspired by the world-class professionals in the room and expand your network to the next level.