Join our DC chapter for its June informal meet-up/happy hour. Member Brian Slattery will lead a discussion on the Index of U.S. Military Strength. We hope you’ll drop by for drinks and discussions with friends old and new.
Time: Tuesday, 23 June 5:30-8:30pm
Place: Bistro d’OC (Upstairs)
518 10th St NW
Washington, DC
All are welcome – RSVPs not required, but appreciated: director@cimsec.org
On January 28th, the Athena Project and the U.S. Navy’s Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Command Pacific (SSC PAC) [ed. Who doesn’t love nested acronyms?] will host the first-ever athenaTHINK event. The day will include a design-thinking workshop to encourage collaboration between Sailors and scientists and teach structured brainstorming tools. Open to all Sailors, you can sign up here. Over at our Athena Project site, Dr. Benjamin Migliori, a Navy researcher at SSC PAC, has more on the event:
Last year, we hosted warfighters from the USS Benfold at SSC PAC to foster better innovation, more inspired projects, and a better interface between Sailors and Scientists. [Thursday], we’ll be doing that again. Our purpose is to give warfighters and technologists a chance to work together in a design-thinking framework, and to open up the possibility of meaningful collaboration.
We’ll be giving Sailors an opportunity to see some of the bleeding edge work that we do here at SSC PAC, and giving the scientists a chance to hear real concerns from actual warfighters, rather than simply reading about them in briefs and training manuals. We’ll be introducing the ideas of design-thinking for military applications, and showing that the civilian entrepreneurs don’t get to have all the fun. We’ll be competing for a best project award – which could turn into much more and be the seed for a new initiative.
The Athena Project is an innovation-fueled initiative focused on providing a platform for Sailors to connect their great ideas with the scientists, engineers and academics that can help turn their visions into reality. Founded aboard USS BENFOLD (DDG 65) in early 2013, The Athena Project has hosted six Waterfront events in the San Diego area, as well as events in the Hampton Roads area and the Pacific Northwest. The basic premise is simple: Idea generation. Sailors take a day off from their traditional duties to develop ideas to make the Navy or their command better – to scratch the creative itch and make solutions to their everyday challenges.
On pitch day, Sailors are given have five minutes to present their concepts to an audience of their peers as well as innovation leaders in industry, government and academia. Following each presentation and question-and-answer session, the crowd votes on projects based on idea quality, actionability and presentation. At the end, the Admiral Sims Award for Intellectual Courage is presented to the highest score and the winner is granted command backing for a small functional team to develop their idea over the next quarter. Previous winners have ranged anywhere from high-tech creative systems to low-tech solutions to common problems to innovative programs to make the Navy better.
The environment is casual and open, and sometimes takes the feeling of Shark Tank-meets-TED Talks, focused on building the creative confidence of the Fleet’s leaders of tomorrow. The vision of the project has always been to build a generation of Sailors that think differently, solve problems in unique ways and have the intellectual courage to stand up and do something about it.
As for the next pitch event, Waterfront Athena Seven? Well, that’ll be coming to a venue in San Diego in Late February. If you’re interested in presenting your big idea, connect with The Athena Project on Facebook or Twitter (@AthenaNavy) or just send an e-mail to athenanavy@gmail.com. If you’re interested in bringing an Athena Project event to your area, connect with the team!
You’re invited to the first annual CIMSEC Forum for Authors and Readers: CFAR 2015
On 26 February CIMSEC will host the first annual CIMSEC Forum for Authors and Readers (CFAR), an event for our readers and the public to engage our contributors on their work and topics of interest. Thanks to the generous support of the U.S. Naval Institute and Steptoe % Johnson LLP we are pleased to offer a professional workshop on a range of maritime security issues over light refreshments.
LCDR BJ Armstrong, author of 21st Century Mahan and the forthcoming 21st Century Sims, will deliver a keynote talk on professional writing and personal study. The rest of the evening will provide a chance to engage your favorite CIMSEC contributors on their work over the preceding year, hear their thoughts on how their pieces have held up, and explore predictions for the coming year.
Who will these speakers at CFAR 2015 be? That’s for you to decide. The public is able to nominate specific articles and their authors for discussion at CFAR (nominate articles and authors here). Voting on the nominees will begin on 02 February. Voting on the nominees will begin on 02 February. The only criteria is that the article nominated must have appeared on the site on or after 01 January, 2014. Those top vote-getters unable to attend CFAR will be invited to follow up their work on the NextWar blog.
RSVP here to join us on 26 February.
Questions? Please contact William Yale at operations@cimsec.org.
Details:
Location: Steptoe & Johnson, LLP, 1330 Connecticut Avenue NW, Washington, DC. Nearest Metro: Dupont Circle.
Schedule:
– 5:00 – 5:30 Registration with light refreshments
– 5:30 – 6:00 Keynote and Q+A
– 6:00 – 7:30 CIMSEC contributor presentations and engagement sessions
The U.S. Navy looks set to lead a bit of joint maritime innovation experimentation in February. According to the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS)’s Joint Interagency Field Experimentation (JIFX) Program website, the latest interagency field experimentation , set to run 9-13 February, will have a maritime setting and focus. NPS will host “JIFX 15-2” at the Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration Facility in Alameda, CA, in a port facility and aboard a military cargo ship. Per the primary request for information from NPS, people wanting to conduct experiments on “any and all technologies relevant to the maritime domain” were encouraged to apply. While the initial deadline for such applicants has past, those looking to attend as an observant can still do so here until 04 February.
One of the many specific areas of interest for this JIFX includes (e) Deployable Infrastructure, Power & Water:
This post was originally published on the Blue Value Facilities Engineering Blog and was re-published by permission.
