SHAW AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. — Encouraging innovation within the U.S. Army Central (USARCENT) was the goal behind an event on Monday.
Five people presented to a panel at Shaw Air Force Base, sharing ideas they have been working on to improve the army’s capabilities.
“Innovation is very, very important,” Deputy Director for Task Force 39 Innovation Michael Tinker explains. “Right now our goal is to try to get the most advanced capability in the hands of our warfighters across our formation across the globe.”
To fulfill that mission, USARCENT hosted the Shark Tank-style “Ideas for Innovation'' competition on Shaw Air Force Base. Five presenters showcased their ideas to a panel of judges. Some joined in person, and others virtually from Kuwait.
“That came from you know, their experience downrange and on the battlefield,” Tinker says. “And amongst all of those presenters, they've been looking and staring at this problem for a while and they've come up with an idea on how to tackle that problem.”
Four total ideas were presented, dealing with potential future improvements on everything from limiting the United States’ use of cash in the Middle East to implementing code to monitor when computer systems go down.
“We are open to all types of ideas across different modalities and different problem sets that we have on the battlefield,” Tinker says. “What we found is that the best innovations tend to come from those organizations that are far forward. And they're grappling with new problems and technology on the battlefield. And so absolutely, I think that was on display today.”
Ultimately, a team presentation about using a new system to identify drones won the competition.
The two presenters were awarded $1,000 and will travel to Tampa to compete at the US Central Command level competition.
Tinker says all four ideas, however, will be used as USARCENT continues evolving.
“We're going to support as much as we can those ideas sort of moving forward and continue to allow a cultivation of those ideas and really help implement our CG’s culture of innovation across our formation…” Tinker details. “Really the message is to make sure that all of our soldiers understand that if they've got great ideas, they can bring it to us and we will do our best to help facilitate that being implemented into our organization.”
First Lieutenant Charlson Ro and Chief Warrant Officer Jimmy Martinez will be traveling to Florida next month for the “Innovation Oasis” competition.