This past October, a group of about 100 emerging military leaders, ranging in rank from E-5 to O-7 descended upon the Univeristy of Chicago Booth School of Business for the inaugural Defense Entrepreneurs Forum. All paid their own way for a weekend of TED and StartUp weekend like interactions that was unlike any other Defense related event.
It was wildly successful, and apart from the deep relational networks created that spanned rank, service and talents, some Working Groups emerged.
The one that may be of interest to this audience is the DEF Vertical Dominance Working group. It is an ad hoc collection of military aviation interested personnel, and is informally chaired by a USAF Major getting a PhD from Georgetown, and a retired O-6 USN F/A-18 driver who is also a close personal and intellectual mentor of mine.
We recently introduced two of their proposals to a very high ranking member of the FAA (and retired USAF flag), who was incredibly interested in them.
This group is open to any rank and service affiliation, and is an informal intellectual network that creates actionable proposals. They are tackling everything from UAV's to CAS platforms to more esoteric endeavors related to "Vertical Dominance."
Possible outcomes:
1. If you have an idea for improving the service, even as a junior person, this is a great way to take part, meet incredible people, and potentially have access to senior leaders who will listen outside normal channels
2. DEF2014 will likely feature a multi-thousand dollar military innovation/ideas competition. The Working Groups are the basis for the proposals that will be evaluated.
If you are interested, shoot me a PM or respond to this thread, and I'll get you linked up -- if nothing else, the guys in the group are some of the most interesting and intelligent people I have ever met.
More on DEF: http://defenseentrepreneurs.org/
It was wildly successful, and apart from the deep relational networks created that spanned rank, service and talents, some Working Groups emerged.
The one that may be of interest to this audience is the DEF Vertical Dominance Working group. It is an ad hoc collection of military aviation interested personnel, and is informally chaired by a USAF Major getting a PhD from Georgetown, and a retired O-6 USN F/A-18 driver who is also a close personal and intellectual mentor of mine.
We recently introduced two of their proposals to a very high ranking member of the FAA (and retired USAF flag), who was incredibly interested in them.
This group is open to any rank and service affiliation, and is an informal intellectual network that creates actionable proposals. They are tackling everything from UAV's to CAS platforms to more esoteric endeavors related to "Vertical Dominance."
Possible outcomes:
1. If you have an idea for improving the service, even as a junior person, this is a great way to take part, meet incredible people, and potentially have access to senior leaders who will listen outside normal channels
2. DEF2014 will likely feature a multi-thousand dollar military innovation/ideas competition. The Working Groups are the basis for the proposals that will be evaluated.
If you are interested, shoot me a PM or respond to this thread, and I'll get you linked up -- if nothing else, the guys in the group are some of the most interesting and intelligent people I have ever met.
More on DEF: http://defenseentrepreneurs.org/
