How the Army uses prize competitions to boost its small business innovation program
"The xTech program — that's our prize competition portfolio — is really designed for companies that have never worked with the Army," said Matthew Willis.
Prize competitions have grown in popularity. They help agencies find needed new technologies and potential suppliers at low cost, and they introduce new companies to federal business. The Army has had a lot of success with prize competitions. For an update, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke to the Director of the Office of Army Prize Competitions, Matthew Willis.
Interview transcript:
Matthew Willis The xTech program — that’s our prize competition portfolio — is really designed for companies that have never worked with the Army. They might not understand their value proposition, their return on investment, and it’s really designed to demystify the process. So I’d say companies that have never worked with the government before or the Army in particular utilizing xTech as a way to sort of get their foot in the door, do customer discovery, understand technical applications for their capabilities, is really the design for the prize competition portfolio.
Tom Temin And that’s called xTech, then. That’s the prize competition. What kind of outreach do you have to do to make sure you’re identifying who’s out there? Because there could be companies you’re overlooking.
Matthew Willis Absolutely. Tremendous amount of outreach. So a significant portion of the program is really focused on how we can inform companies that we exist, that the Army invests in technologies beyond just the traditional defense industries. We’re investing in artificial intelligence. We’re investing in clean energy. We’re investing in autonomy and other things that have commercial sector applications that then the Army is trying to use so we can field the greatest technologies to our soldiers.
Tom Temin Now, you have two competitions going at the moment. Describe those and what it is you’re looking for.
Matthew Willis So one of the competitions is the xTech Scalable AI II competition. So this specifically focuses on artificial intelligence capabilities that are going to be used to support Project Linchpin. So Project Linchpin, for the listeners out there, is the program that provides the underpinning for how the Army is going to integrate artificial intelligence across all of the different Army platforms that are in the field. And so this competition in particular is bringing in new small businesses, at least 50% or 60% of which have never work with the Army. And we are specifically investing in AI companies to support Project Linchpin.
Tom Temin And so how does it work? Because they have a — what happens, they submit an idea and then you down select and they get a …
Matthew Willis Yeah, so it’s really designed to be like a zero barrier to entry. Go into the zero entry kiddie pool. So companies submit a short whitepaper, we do a down select and we provide cash prizes which are intended to offset engagement costs. So rather than the traditional model where a company might have to do a lot of market research, go and talk to Army customers all over the place, go to industry events – that all costs something. So the xTech competition is designed to provide cash prizes to companies to basically offset that participation cost, so their return on investment, at the end, they potentially might get an [Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)] prototyping contract, but it’s not like they get to the end and they have outlaid all these expenses, but they aren’t recompensed at all. So this is really again designed to change the value proposition for companies for working with the Army.
Tom Temin So it’s a two stage idea. You get all the ideas, then you down select and there’s a second phase and then some winner is selected.
Matthew Willis Yeah, I mean, it depends. So with this particular competition, it opened earlier this year. There was an initial down select based on the whitepaper. Companies came in and gave pitches and we did another down select to 20 companies which are here this week at AUSA. We are comping both space for them, which is expensive.
Tom Temin Yes indeed. It takes 20 union electricians to set up a booth and plug a light bulb in.
Matthew Willis Exactly. So one company is going to win $100,000 in cash prizes and be eligible for a follow-on prototyping award of up to $2 million.
Tom Temin And can the prototyping award be either an other transaction authority or a SBIR deal?
Matthew Willis It can really be anything. I mean, prize competitions themselves are very flexible. This particular competition is aligned with the SBIR program, so these will be SBIR contracts.
Tom Temin We’re speaking with Dr. Matthew Willis, director of the Office of Army Prize Competitions. And the second one going, we talked about Scalable AI II; what else do you have cooking?
Matthew Willis So there is, well, a few other competitions ongoing. I think over the next year we’re going to have…
Tom Temin I just looked at your website, I saw two.
Matthew Willis We have at least ten competitions that are going to be executed in FY25. It’s very exciting. Many of them are tied to Project Linchpin. We also have our annual flagship Open Topic competition. And so this is an opportunity, xTech search companies can submit any technology. And so this, again, has been a flagship competition. We’ve run it every year. This will actually be our ninth competition. So we’re definitely excited as a mechanism, again, to bring in new ideas and continue to continually generate innovation across our Army ecosystem.
Tom Temin And so the things that could be brought in by new companies in open topic don’t necessarily have to be digital. Could it be some new metallurgy way? Or some new platform that flies?
Matthew Willis Absolutely, yes. I think that what a lot of folks don’t understand about the Army is we invest in a huge, huge, huge spectrum of technology from A to Z. We’re focused. We have platforms, anything the soldier touches on a day to day basis, we are investing R&D in. And so there’s a huge customer base for for the Army.
Tom Temin And what are some of the projects that stand out in your mind that have productized, let’s say, from the years of competitions?
Matthew Willis Yeah. So there’s been a few very interesting ones. There is one specific firm, for instance, that they were really focused on the commercial sector, so they were developing capabilities for autonomous vehicle mapping and they never saw the Army as a potential customer. They didn’t necessarily realize that we were investing in robotic combat vehicles or that their capability could be used in a place where we maybe don’t have a GPS signal. And so this company was able to take this product that they were developing for autonomous vehicles, driving through neighborhoods and pivot to support the Army as a potential customer. And they’ve been able to progress that capability pretty far. And they were actually one of the companies that received one of our inaugural SBIR Catalyst Awards, which actually allows R&D contracts up to $15 million. So they’re going to leverage those funds to develop a more robust capability that has a high potential for transition.
Tom Temin And do you also get demand signals from within the Army? Say, can you find us somebody that can do X, Y, Z?
Matthew Willis Absolutely. And so I think that’s actually a big shift from the way the Army has leveraged the xTech program and the SBIR program in the last few years. Whereas previously we had lots of projects that focused on a spectrum of technologies, now we are actually working directly with our customers across the Army to identify what that demand signal is. So what do they need from a technical technology standpoint? When do they need it? And notionally, how can we get there utilizing mechanisms like xTech or like the SBIR program? They’re very, very flexible programs. And the Army, the [assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology (ASA ALT)] in general has really been doubling down on how we can leverage these mechanisms to get small businesses into the pipeline to support Army programs.
Tom Temin And do they ever get married up, say, with large companies, once they’re through, that could scale production, for example, that the small company may not have the capacity for.
Matthew Willis It’s like I fed you these questions. Yes.
Tom Temin I’ve been following this a long time.
Matthew Willis Yes, so through the catalyst program, actually that requires a partnership between a small business, an Army transition partner and a prime or an integrator. So we really see these larger businesses as we vehicles to help companies deal with scaling challenges, deal with manufacturing issues deal with it with other challenges. We also had an xTech competition, xTech prime, which required again, partnership.
Tom Temin So so it’s a new form of almost mentor protege, if you will. In other words, if someone came up with a better MRE — and probably that’s in the pipeline somewhere — you would say at the end, great. But we need 20 million of them.
Matthew Willis Yes, I think we’re trying to provide that conduit or that mechanism, like you said, to go from one prototype to, the Army needs 10,000 end items. And so how can we give resources to small businesses so we can still tap into innovation that’s happening there while also being able to scale to a level where the Army needs.
Tom Temin And a final question, do you help the winners, and then once they get partnered with an integrator or a large manufacturer, manage the intellectual property questions that probably inevitably come up?
Matthew Willis Absolutely. And so in the xTech program, the Army takes zero interest in intellectual property that’s developed through that mechanism.
Tom Temin I meant more between the company and the larger mentor.
Matthew Willis We do provide resources. So through the Army we have an intellectual property cadre who can provide resources directly to small businesses to help them negotiate that pathway. Absolutely.
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Tom Temin
Tom Temin is host of the Federal Drive and has been providing insight on federal technology and management issues for more than 30 years.
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