Adapting today's networks for tomorrow's needs

The naturally evolving nature of warfare makes it the responsibility of the United States Armed Forces to lead the advance by teaching tomorrow's military leaders the tenets of creativity and innovation as they apply to products and processes.

In order to foster these capabilities, the Center of Innovation (CoI) merges leadingedge private industry research with Federal Government demands, and places cadets in front-line research to foster the next generation of DoD capabilities. The CoI then utilizes leading-edge private industry technologies and the cadets' web 2.0 skill sets in the Rare Event Games, where novel technologies are field tested in a social collaboration experiment.

The CoI's Rare Event Games, simply put, are social collaboration experiments run on test networks. Rare Event Game participants from service academies utilize social collaboration concepts to predict and prevent a 'rare event', such as 9/11 or the Fort Hood massacre. Lack of information sharing and collaboration has been widely identified as a weakness in our nation's defense capability. In the wake of the Detroit terrorist incident on 25 December, President Obama expressed his concern that our intelligence agencies are not properly "Connecting the Dots" to predict future terrorist attacks. Addressing this capability gap, the CoI is persistently driving toward a solution by harnessing the power of the social networking cadet generation, and using that power in new and creative operating processes. The Rare Event Game will also field test innovative technologies still in Intel Corp and Cisco R&D to create a novel computer network, the Mission Fabric Network. Described as a system of systems, the Mission Fabric Network is designed to utilize social network paradigms to place intelligence at the nodelevel to enhance distributed collaboration and ad hoc group action to create a single complex adaptive system.

The CoI has aggressively pursued relationships with the most innovative private enterprise organizations to provide unprecedented educational opportunities to cadets and notable innovations to the Federal Government. In the spring of 2009, Intel Corporation signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which allows the CoI and the Federal Government to view, for the first time, the 171 projects in Intel's $6.2 Billion R&D portfolio. With the positive cascading effects this agreement has elicited, the Center of Innovation has secured an NDA with Cisco Systems, and commenced relationships with the National University of Ireland's Innovation Value Institute (IVI) and IBM's Watson Center.

"The CoI firmly believes that today's cadets are the key to championing innovations for tomorrow's challenges," Dr. Terry Pierce states. "To foster an innovative culture, the CoI actively seeks out leading-edge innovative researchers who will mentor cadets on their research projects. For example, having a cadet conduct research with Intel Corporation researchers on Intel's advanced 48-core chip was a first for both Intel Corporation and USAFA. These unique opportunities are critical in cultivating an innovative culture among tomorrow's Air Force leaders."

Cadet involvement is a prerequisite for every CoI relationship, enabling cadets to enjoy unprecedented opportunities by conducting research with the R&D departments of private industry's most innovative companies. During the summer of 2010, two cadets worked alongside Intel Researchers in Hillsboro Oregon as part of the Cadet Summer Research Program (CSRP). C1C David Ryan participated in research and assisted in the design of the next generation of Intel Corporation's microprocessor chip,

the Single-chip Cloud Computer, which will not be available commercially for another five years. C1C Kyle Warner (USCGA exchange cadet) assisted researchers in creating paraverse, a way to use GPS information to link physical movement in the real world to an avatar's movement at the same location in the virtual world. This capability is critical to access real world positioning and incorporate that data into the virtual world. Both cadets continued their research efforts back at the academies during the 2010/2011 academic year.

Cadet involvement is a prerequisite for every CoI relationship, enabling cadets to enjoy unprecedented opportunities by conducting research with the R&D departments of private industry's most innovative companies. During the summer of 2010, two cadets worked alongside Intel Researchers in Hillsboro Oregon as part of the Cadet Summer Research Program (CSRP). C1C David Ryan participated in research and assisted in the design of the next generation of Intel Corporation's microprocessor chip, the Single-chip Cloud Computer, which will not be available commercially for another five years. C1C Kyle Warner (USCGA exchange cadet) assisted researchers in creating paraverse, a way to use GPS information to link physical movement in the real world to an avatar's movement at the same location in the virtual world. This capability is critical to access real world positioning and incorporate that data into the virtual world. Both cadets continued their research efforts back at the academies during the 2010/2011 academic year.

The Center of Innovation does more than simply place cadets in applied research, however. It also utilizes ongoing relationships to place cadets in innovative organizations such as the Innovation Value Institute (IVI). During the 2010 academic year, three cadets from the class of 2010 worked closely with IVI, a Maynooth, Ireland-based consortium including 50+ organizations such as the National University of Ireland, Intel Corporation, and Boston Consulting Group. After receiving instruction in Ireland, the cadets helped develop the Intellectual Capital Management (ICM) method which enables companies to better recognize, classify, generate, maintain, register, deploy, and protect intellectual assets. ICM is part of IVI's IT Capability Maturity Framework, which assists companies (or government agencies) in building a business case for innovation in Information Technology. In the summer of 2010, the CoI sponsored a Political Science/Legal Studies major to work directly with one of IVI's executive staff, to initiate a case study on the politics of innovation, and apply this study to federal government use. The Center of Innovation also hosts several Independent Study cadets during the academic year who receive innovation instruction from CoI Director, Dr. Pierce, and represent USAFA in the Rare Event Game. These independent study cadets also help frame the future by conducting research, such as visiting the Harvard Center for Decision Analysis and researching Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies for their applicability to warfighter and first-responder use.