The Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) has partnered with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation (CoECI) to develop new technology solutions through crowdsourced prize competitions.
Both crowdsourcing and incentive prizes have proven highly successful in encouraging the creation of advanced technologies, such asbetter data analytics and autonomous vehicles. The partnership between NASA and the DHS S&T is meant to solicit more innovations like these.
“This is a different way to do business. We are a research and development organization, and constantly need innovative ideas for the solutions to our ever-changing challenges,” said DHS Under Secretary for Science and Technology, Dr. Reginald Brothers. “We’re creating opportunities for everyone from companies to college students to bring their passion to bear in service of national security.”
Driven by the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science (COMPETES) Reauthorization Act of 2010, The purpose of the DHS S&T prize program is to inspire new and innovative approaches to solve current homeland security issues. It challenges entrepreneurs, students, and others in the private sector to create solutions in response to well-formed problem statements.
The program also gives DHS a way to reach those who do not normally participate in government contracts and announcements.
NASA initially formed CoECI in 2011 at the request of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in an effort to assist other federal agencies in using crowdsourced challenges to solve challenging, mission-critical problems as well as mature the overall crowdsourcing strategy.
S&T’s partnership with NASA’s CoECI will provide access to end-to-end solutions on all aspects of implementing challenge-based prize competitions from problem definition to challenge design and administration.
For more information about DHS S&T’s prize competitions program visit http://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/prize-competitions.
