SOF Innovation Cell

I Spent today at the SOF (Special Operations Forces) Innovation Cell (it's not named that but that is a good description). Neat place, it is an old warehouse downtown with not even the place's name on the building, but inside there are many different sized rooms each with multiple 90 in TVs that can display your computer or split-screen and show two computers side by side, you can write on everything (walls, door, table,..) and lots of markers, pens, stick notes, printers, scanners... even play doh. There are several large rooms that can be configured for nearly any type of meeting. 95% of the place is unclassified, as that is its purpose - innovation. What happens is the SOF forces need to do X. The cell then puts out to academia and inventors to compete to fulfill this need. Prizes are usually about 250K, but the solution must work in the field and be repeatable (production) quickly. Typically it is three months from the need to fielding with SOF forces. Some take much longer with even larger prizes. I come here for some conferences, and you can always see the engineering grad student interns working on something new. I love playing with new drones a lot. They want to see an average human would use the thing rather than an engineer.  I also like dropping their new invention on them.  That is what will happen in the field.

So overall, a good day. I felt like my old self and normal.