Carter again pushes for DOD-commercial tech links

Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, who has been touting a public/private approach to innovation, recently reemphasized the need for closer cooperation between the U.S. commercial sector and Defense Department research agencies as the technology base goes global.

“We at the Pentagon need to think outside the five-sided box,” Carter told the “Wait, What?” technology forum in St. Louis sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. “DOD has to tap into all the streams of innovation,” from commercial startups to large military contractors. “And it has to do so much more quickly.”

The technology flow is running both ways. Carter cited a DARPA project based on so-called “formal methods” to ensure that software used to run the physical systems on, for example, aircraft, is mathematically “unhackable.” The agency has made some changes to the source code openly available for applications that could help provide a foundation for cybersecurity on the Internet of Things—”which it’s going to need,” Carter stressed.

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