Top 6 Ideas Will Be Funded $50K Each for Prototype Development
SOFWERX, in collaboration with the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) and Joint Improvised-threat Defeat Organization (JIDO), will conduct a Rapid Prototyping Event (RPE). This is a 60-day short fuse response designed to rapidly identify and build innovative, low cost prototyped solutions for current, specifically passive, long wave infrared (IR) problem sets.
11 January: All submitters will be invited to attend, and those selected for reimbursement will be notified as well. Everyone will receive a finalized agenda and RSVP confirmation on 11 January. In the interim, please make plans to attend the Ideation & Experimentation Session kick off at 12 PM on 16 January in Tampa, FL.
16-19 January: SOFWERX will conduct an initial ideation and experimentation session for four days, which will allow participants to better understand the problem set and the capabilities & limitations of proposed solutions.
22-26 January: Teams will be encouraged to return to their home locations and conduct further explorations/experiments to determine if they could further develop potential solutions.
28-29 January: Potential solutions will be pitched to SOFWERX, USSOCOM, JIDO, and respective Warfighters to determine the top six ideas.
30 January – 28 February: The Top 6 idea submitters will each receive sub awards for $50,000 to develop their prototypes over the next 2-4 weeks.
1-8 March: Those prototypes, once developed, will undergo limited user testing (LUT) at SOFWERX, and forward deployed for further military user assessment (MUAS) to determine their efficacy.
