Sergio Gallucci

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.

Throughout human history, we’ve yearned to discover what lies beyond the horizon. The drive to explore our surroundings and understand the Earth is deeply ingrained in our DNA. At NGA, their mission is to answer those fundamental questions today — so they can help show the way to a better tomorrow.

Learn more about NGA’s goal to deliver world-class geospatial intelligence that provides a decisive advantage to policymakers, warfighters, intelligence professionals, and first responders in this session, presented by NGA Lead Innovation Outreach Officer, David Grover.

NGA's satellites aren't just in space. Earlier this year, NGA introduced Moonshot Labs as a software development facility where tech startups, academics, and others from industry can collaborate while using geospatial data to innovate and grow. It’s just one part of the agency’s strategy to develop critical partnerships that are only limited by imagination and a willingness to create meaningful connections.

Join Phil Chudoba, NGA’s Associate Director for Capabilities, to learn more about what’s happening with Moonshot Labs, why this space aligns with NGA's mission imperatives, and how you can get involved in the unprecedented collaborative environment to come.

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.

Businesses — both big and small — play an important role in NGA's ability to monitor and analyze global hot spots and provide timely warnings to national decision-makers by reporting what it finds. Industry partnerships are a necessity for NGA to achieve its mission.

How can you accelerate through the NGA industry pipeline? That’s one of the reasons Rick Myllenbeck, an Apple alumnus and now Industry Engagement Advisor at NGA, shows up to work every day. Rick will brief you on the need-to-knows of working with NGA and share how he’s helping the agency connect with technical solution providers from across the country using a range of creative programs.

Established in 2017 by the Secretary of the Air Force, AFWERX connects innovators across government, industry, and academia to accelerate commercial technologies that can solve military problems. By harnessing the ingenuity of internal talent and creating novel programs to help small businesses, AFWERX is spearheading a new normal for military-civilian partnerships.

Join Col. Nathan Diller and Lt. Col. Rock McMillan to learn more about AFWERX and SpaceWERX, its Space Force affiliated arm, as well what these new approaches mean for the nation’s economy, for its defense, and for you.

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.

Small business is a big priority for the federal government — including the Department of Defense. Not only is there economic value in helping U.S. startups and entrepreneurs succeed, but the DoD is working hard to up its technology game by diversifying its industrial base with new ideas, new technologies, and new partners. 

With nearly 50% of major DoD awards still concentrated within the same five companies, find out how NGA is doing its part to make it easier for small businesses to work with the government. Dale Rainey will brief you on how he ensures these companies — especially women- and minority-owned businesses — are provided an equitable opportunity for prime and subcontracting opportunities.

End-user feedback is an essential part of product and software development for most companies. After all, no one knows how a tool actually performs (or should perform) better than the people who use it every day. That’s why DODx organizations are finding creative ways to bring service members directly into the military R&D process — partnering men and women in uniform with commercial innovators to solve tactical-level problems as a team.

Learn how AFWERX is driving these collaborations through its grassroots innovation program, Spark, by connecting Air Force and Space Force intrapreneurs with top problem-solvers from industry, academia, and government. With a decentralized global network, Spark is growing the Air Force’s culture of innovation while turning locally generated ideas and projects into real-world applications.

The NGA Accelerator is a first-of-its-kind partnership with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and Capital Innovators designed to fund, mentor, and accelerate the growth of next-generation geospatial-intelligence technologies. The program is built for best-in-breed businesses that are developing novel dual-use technologies — products that have both commercial and military uses — and aims to increase the number of geospatial solutions available to NGA and its customers. 

Join Christine Woodard, NGA’s St. Louis Ecosystem Engagement Lead, to learn more about the NGA Accelerator program and what’s coming in the future. She will share details on the types of technologies that most interest NGA as well as exciting highlights of the momentum that’s building in the geospatial innovation ecosystem.

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.

Software gets the attention but hardware is still key. Join NSIC, NSIN and AWS for a discussion on how hardware startups uniquely benefit from government funding. Don't miss out on understanding how non-dilutive capital can actually surpass the value of private investment when driving national security innovation.

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.

This is a MUST ATTEND. Get an update and briefing on the returns on investment on current STRATFIs of the Air Forces big collaborative opportunities. Learn more about the upcoming opportunities and how you can take advantage of these as well! You won't want to miss out on this one!

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!

Agility Prime, the Air Force Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) program, is a giant leap forward in military thinking on new competitive markets. Through unprecedented commercial partnerships, we are leveling the playing field to support this emerging market in the U.S. But it will not be the last program of its type. Space debris remediation, quieter supersonic travel, and other frontier industries are just a few that are poised to be next. 

Come hear more about the AFWERX Prime Division's mission and vision for identifying and accelerating dual-use technologies for commercial success and defense utility. We’ll share successes of the past year, detail the road to fielding an eVTOL capability by 2023, and explain how AFWERX is "franchising" the Agility Prime framework to accelerate and transition dual-use technology related to the space domain.  

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) provide additional capabilities on the battlefield to do things humans can't and help keep service members safe from harm. These devices have become invaluable to the U.S. military — which is why DIU developed the Blue UAS project. 

In this session, DIU staff and other experts from across the services will share details about the Blue UAS project and how they are using this project to build a robust, trusted UAS domestic industrial base amid cyber security and global supply chain challenges.

Continuous Delivery (CD) is the ability to get software into production — or into the hands of users — safely, quickly, and in a sustainable way. This engineering approach is critical to driving outcomes in software development organizations and in making sure they deliver software solutions rather than just promises. 

Learn how adopting CD has allowed DoD software development organizations across the Air Force, Army, and beyond to deliver real outcomes rather than more innovation theater.

By natural extension of its collaborative culture and inspired by the call to action underlying the 2030 S&T Strategy, the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate (AFRL/RI) has intensified its pursuit of new academic and industry partners with complementary capabilities to enable rapid performance cycles to meet the urgent demand for artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML), cyber, quantum, and unmanned aerial systems (UAS) solutions that enhance the United States’ national security and economic competitiveness. With support from all levels of local, regional, state, and federal government, AFRL/RI has, in parallel to advancing new partnerships, led the development of a state-of-the-art open innovation environment just “over the fence” to expand the Lab’s reach into academic, industry, and startup partners who have vastly extended the Lab’s own capabilities, leveraging diverse computing systems, chip fabrication facilities, novel university technologies, and other federal programs and venture capital investments.

This panel will explore the new Innovare Advancement Center in Rome, NY, it’s aggressive five year strategy to establish 100 new technical partners, 100 new entrepreneurial ventures, and elevate the community’s intellectual leadership in its core technical areas. The panelists represent various members of the Innovare community, to include AFRL and the Griffiss Institute and will discuss opportunities to engage in these critical National Defense areas.

Catch your breath from taking notes on all the opportunities for the future with Lt Col McMillan as he provides final comments after an exciting day of panels, networking, and discussions.

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. 

Deloitte plays a huge part in the NSIN track for Fed Supernova 2021. Tune in to hear how Deloitte's support is making Fed Supernova 2021 go from not just possible, but absolutely epic. 

The academic community and the Department of Defense may, at first, seem strange bedfellows. But with each facing the need to adapt and move forward in ways that support their own missions (as well as the greater good), collaboration could be the golden ticket. 

Join us for a conversation among university faculty and defense change-makers on the mutual benefits of an academia X DoD alliance. We’ll explore the future potential of this relationship as well as a few examples of how universities are finding value in national security projects while lending their thinking and research facilities to keep the nation safe.

Where do we go from here? Take the next step with us as we hear from key leaders how joint solutions activate the full potential of defense innovation possibilities.

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.