Air Force Strategic Development Planning & Experimentation (SDPE): Strategy Interchange Meetings (SIMs) Solicitation Number: AFRL-XPPD-19-XXXX Agency: Department of Air Force Office: Air Force Research Laboratory Location: AFRL/XPPD - WPAFB Please Mark Your Calendars! The Air Force intends to sponsor the Strategic Development Planning & Experimentation (SDPE) Strategy Interchange Meetings, as a four-day event, and is slated for the week of 19-22 February 2019. The venue will be at the General Jacob E. Smart Conference Center, Joint Base Andrews, MD. Directions will be provided in subsequent updates, with additional instructions. In May 2016, Air Force stood up the SDPE office, as a key component focused on future Air Force multi-domain capabilities. In its deliberate planning, the SDPE leadership continues to be deeply engaged in a campaign across DoD and Industry. This strategy-focused dialogue planned for next February (2019) follows SDPE's presentations at Dayton Defense's Wright Dialogue with Industry in July 2018 in Dayton, Ohio, and the AF Life Cycle Management Center's Industry Days in September 2018. This event in February 2019 is intended to inform industry of the Air Force strategic direction, priorities, and challenges in many technical areas relevant to current and future Air Force Capabilities, technology roadmaps, and future acquisition funding streams. Restrictions: This event is planned to be CLASSIFIED at the Collateral Secret level, and is open to U.S. Defense companies only. In order to attend, you must be either a DoD employee or DoD contractor with a valid DD form 2345, Military Critical Technical Data Agreement. Session Overview: The February event will be structured to provide Industry with additional information about on going Capability Development Activities and SDPE Experimentation Campaigns as well as proposed experimentation pathfinders and watch-list efforts. Emphasis during these discussions will be placed on pathfinders and watch list activities due to their significant potential to be impacted through industry engagement. The pathfinders are efforts that are already receiving experimentation funding to develop fully refined experimentation campaigns, while watch-list efforts are strategic areas of interest receiving development planning resources to determine appropriate way forward. Specifically, this engagement offers the opportunity to discuss with Industry opportunities for future restructured Industry-Government partnerships, processes, and relationships in support of both Industry and Government needs. The structure will likely include individual Face-to-Face Sessions, a series of briefings, and panel discussions during the event on specific topic areas. Topic Areas: The Strategy Interchange Meeting is anticipated to include the following topic areas of significant interest, which will provide a mix of status updates, out briefs, dialogues with industry on the following topics. The specific topics may be subject to change, depending on the availability of relevant data for each respective domain. - Air Force Capability Development Updates (Enterprise Capability Collaboration Teams & Design Teams and/or Air Force Weapons Integration Capabilities Updates) - SDPE Experimentation Campaigns: a. Directed Energy Weapons Experimentation Campaign b. Hawkeye Experimentation Campaign c. Global Lightning (Commercial Space Internet) Campaign - Pathfinder Activities a. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Experiment - how can AI and machine learning be utilized in an operational condition to improve autonomy efforts and increase mission effectiveness. b. Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Experiments - exploring open PNT architectures, complimentary technologies utility, and increasing cockpit situational awareness c. Personnel Recovery Experiment - exploring the ability to support personnel recovery in contested environment - Watch List Items a. Adaptive Basing b. Communications - (C4I Design Team) c. Counter-Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) d. Light ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance)/Attack e. Electronic Warfare/Electromagnetic Spectrum (EW/EMS) Experimentation Who Should Attend: This event will include discussion on the strategic direction of the Air Force, and both the technical and non-technical challenges facing the Air Force today which could result in impact to Air Force future investments, Industry Corporate Investment Strategies, IR&D Technology Roadmaps, and new or revised approaches to collaborating and partnering with industry. For this reason, it is highly encouraged that Industry participants be innovative, strategic thinkers or senior planners who have wide insight into their corporate technology portfolios and processes and who are familiar with both long-term and short term strategic planning. **Please note, it is possible that the event may limit industry teams to two participants per company. Final determination is dependent on Industry response and venue capacity. Face-to-Face Sessions: Companies will be encouraged to sign up for face-to-face interactions with teams of Government Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) on specific areas of interest after hearing the challenges and interest areas of the Government. The intent of these Face-to-Face sessions are to allow industry with the opportunity to speak directly with the Government SMEs at a Collateral Secret Level about the Government's areas of interest. Topic areas for these Face-to-Face sessions will focus on, but will not be limited to: - Pathfinder Activities: o Artificial Intelligence o Position Navigation and Timing (PNT) o Personnel Recovery - Watch List Items o Adaptive Basing o Communications - (AFWIC C4I Design Team) o Counter-Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) o Light ISR/Attack o EW/EMS Experimentation o Blue Horizons o Innovation Pipeline We anticipate onsite registration for these private Q&A meeting with Air Force SMEs will be available during the morning of Day One. The duration of these meetings will likely be approximately 45 minutes each, and the sign-up will be first-come first- serve, until all of the blocks are booked. While Face-to-Face Sessions will not be scheduled until the event, if your company is interested in participating in a Face-to-Face, please identify the top 2 topics listed above which you are most interested in. This will allow the government the ability to schedule SME teams and reallocate the total number of Face-to-Face sessions to make these sessions most beneficial to both Industry and Government. Please include this information when sending your notification of interest. Preparation: If you intend to attend the event, please have the following documents/information ready: - Attendees POC information - JPAS point of contact - DD2345 If you are interested in participating: Information regarding the event agenda should be available during the coming weeks. If you are interested in attending this event, please send your expression of interest NLT December 14, 2018, to:
contact@example.gov. An e-mail containing an invitation link will only be sent to interested participants. ** Please note: You should receive an e-mail confirmation of your interest within one week. In the event that you do not receive an e-mail confirmation from the AF IR&D team, please follow-up and send another e-mail right away. Future Updates: Please note, after this FedBizOpps announcement, all subsequent updates will be posted only to the Defense Innovation Marketplace SDPE SIMs webpage, https://defenseinnovationmarketplace.dtic.mil/technology-interchange-meetings/sdpe/, along with instructions on expressing interest and key documents important to this dialogue with industry. Disclaimers: The government is not obligated to enter into a contract with Industry as result of IR&D collaborations from our dialogue. Data exchanges as a result of these dialogue activities follow restrictions of No Foreign Nationals (NOFORN) and International Traffic Arms Regulations (ITAR). Some information we intend to share may be classified or unclassified and can only be released as Distribution C, D, or F material. Please recognize dates and locations listed are subject to change. Refer other requests for these documents and data using the email
contact@example.gov
