DoDTechipedia Family of Services

To address these challenges, DoD developed the DoDTechipedia, a suite of services using Web 2.0 tools that harness collective intelligence and enable crowd sourcing as a means to providing the warfighter the best solutions faster than ever before. A cross-agency team with members from the Rapid Reaction Technology Office (RRTO); the Director, Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E); the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC); and the Office of the DoD CIO was formed to establish business processes and develop the suite. The team used innovative approaches to: create widespread situational awareness and visibility into investment areas across DoD; expand the supplier base and access to cutting edge technology; reduce costs and duplication; and address the needs of the next generation workforce that uses and expects Web 2.0 tools. The DoDTechipedia Suite of Services utilizes social media to foster internal collaboration. Externally, the DoDTechipedia Suite of Services supports government and industry collaboration on technology areas. DoDTechipedia also supports innovative procurement approaches outside of the traditional acquisition process that leverage the innovation of industry to address immediate warfighter needs. The DoDTechipedia Suite of Services currently has three components servicing three different network domains:

- DoDTechipedia Limited: is designed to increase communication and collaboration among DoD scientists, engineers, program managers and operational warfighters in a secure environment. It allows DoD and Federal government employees and contractors who register and qualify for access to see what “we’ve already got in the cupboard” in terms of S&T investments. Technology area pages on all key technologies are being created, and then are being linked to S&T programs and DoD Organization pages working on those technologies.

- DoDTechipedia Classified: the classified version, launched on the SIPRNET in April, 2009, is similar to the limited version, but allows for more open discussion of capability gaps.

- DefenseSolutions.gov: “Submit a Solution”—is a public portal through which innovative companies, entrepreneurs, and research organizations can offer potential solutions to theme areas presented on DefenseSolutions.gov. Launched February 2009, the portal uses Other Transactions Authorities to offer a streamlined process to fund promising ideas that may meet DoD needs. Interested solution providers can easily submit their ideas electronically and their intellectual property is protected for five years. This in effect provides a crowdsourced method to quickly fill critical technology and capability needs.

DoDTechipedia Public is planned to be launched in late 2009. This will enable government to industry collaboration around key technology areas. This was planned for an earlier release, but we are still working through the various policy barriers to allow government-industry collaboration using social software tools on Federal websites.