Tuesday, May 12, 2020

Department of Defense Announces Winners of the Fiscal Year 19 Nunn-Perry Award, Recognizing Excellence in the DOD Mentor Protégé Program



The Department of Defense (DOD) announced the fiscal year 2019 Nunn-Perry Awards winners today, recognizing excellence in the DOD Mentor Protégé Program.

DOD Mentor Protégé Program participants deliver capabilities across major defense programs in support of the warfighter. Recipients of the Nunn-Perry Award excel in protégé growth and development.

The DOD Mentor Protégé Program was established Nov. 5, 1990, in response to concerns raised by DOD prime contractors regarding their inability to meet Small Disadvantaged Business (SDB) subcontracting goals. At the time, many SDBs lacked the technical capabilities to meet DOD subcontract requirements.

Mr. Shannon Jackson, Deputy Director of the Office of Small Business Programs within the Office of Industrial Policy, congratulated the winners and discussed the important collaborative roles that mentors, protégés, and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) play in our nation’s small business economy and the defense industrial base.

''The Department of Defense and the American economy succeed because of the innovations borne from small companies like those in the DOD Mentor Protégé Program," said Jackson. "Within the defense industrial base these companies work to deliver cutting edge technologies and services that challenge the status quo and have the capacity to shape the future of their respective industries. In order to create these capabilities to support the warfighter, their companies have to deliver more than technology or services."

The program looks forward to celebrating the accomplishments of the winners, listed below, at the 2020 Mentor Protégé Training Week. The award is named for the contributions of Senator Sam Nunn and former Secretary of Defense William Perry, who both played critical roles in the implementation of the DOD Mentor Protégé Program.

"The DOD Mentor Protégé Program helps innovators grow as companies to meet the growing and shifting demands of the warfighter and the Department. The Nunn-Perry Award pauses to highlight the companies that have navigated that challenging transition from capability to company above and beyond their peers. Congratulations to this year's award recipients,'' said Jackson.

Award Recipients:

  • Air Force: IBM, Steel Point Solutions, Morgan State University
  • Air Force: Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Marvin Engineering, University of Texas at El Paso
  • Army: System Studies & Simulation, R2C, J.F. Drake State Community & Technical College and Oakwood University
  • DIA: Global Resource Solutions, Advanced Decision Vectors, A&M College of Business and Southern University
  • MDA, Parsons Government Services, Mb Solutions, Alabama State University
  • MDA, Raytheon Company, Kord Technologies, Bethune-Cookman University and Oakwood University

DOD Awards $24 Million for the 2020 Class of the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship



The Department of Defense has selected eight distinguished faculty scientists and engineers and provided $24 million in fellowship funds as part of the 2020 Class of the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellows. Click here for a complete list of this year’s winners.

For the fiscal year 2020 competition, the Department received more than 200 white papers, from which several panels of experts invited 35 full proposals for review, leading to the selection of the final eight fellows. Each fellow will receive up to $3 million over the 5-year fellowship term to pursue cutting-edge fundamental research projects.

The Basic Research Office, part of the Directorate of Defense Research and Engineering for Research and Technology (DDRE(R&T)) within the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, sponsors the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship. The Office of Naval Research manages the grants.

“The Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship program is a shining example of why the Department values exploratory basic research,” said Dr. JihFen Lei, acting director of DDRE(R&T). “Not only has this high-risk, `blue sky’ academic research resulted in extraordinary scientific discoveries in multiple disciplines, but it is also opening entirely new fields of research that will sustain the scientific leadership of the Nation. The Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellows also represent a unique pool of scientific talent that the Department can rely upon for advice, as well as an exceptional resource for developing future scientists and engineers for the defense workforce.”

The highly-competitive fellowship, named in honor of Dr. Vannevar Bush, the director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development after World War II, is the Department’s flagship single-investigator award for basic research. In line with Dr. Bush’s vision, the fellowship aims to advance transformative, university-based fundamental research.

The 2020 class will join a cadre of 56 current fellows who conduct basic research in areas of importance to DOD, ranging from materials science and cognitive neuroscience to quantum information sciences and applied mathematics. In addition to pursuing their research projects, fellows engage directly with the DOD enterprise to collaborate with defense laboratories and to share insights with Department leadership and the broader national security community.

For more information on the Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, click here.

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering is responsible for research, development, and prototyping activities across DOD and fosters technological dominance across the DOD enterprise to ensure the advantage of the American Warfighter. Learn more at www.cto.mil/ or follow us on Twitter: @DoDCTO.

DOD Awards $138 Million Contract, Enabling Prefilled Syringes for Future COVID-19 Vaccine May 12, 2020



Statement attributed to Lt. Col. Mike Andrews, Department of Defense spokesman:

"Today the Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announce a $138 million contract with ApiJect Systems America for “Project Jumpstart” and “RAPID USA,” which together will dramatically expand U.S. production capability for domestically manufactured, medical-grade injection devices starting by October 2020.

Spearheaded by the DOD’s Joint Acquisition Task Force (JATF), in coordination with the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, the contract will support “Jumpstart” to create a U.S.-based, high-speed supply chain for prefilled syringes beginning later this year by using well-established Blow-Fill-Seal (BFS) aseptic plastics manufacturing technology, suitable for combatting COVID-19 when a safe and proven vaccine becomes available.

By immediately upgrading a sufficient number of existing domestic BFS facilities with installations of filling-line and technical improvements, “Jumpstart” will enable the manufacture of more than 100 million prefilled syringes for distribution across the United States by year-end 2020.

The contract also enables ApiJect Systems America to accelerate the launch of RAPID USA manufactured in new and permanent U.S.-based BFS facilities with the ultimate production goal of over 500 million prefilled syringes (doses) in 2021. This effort will be executed initially in Connecticut, South Carolina and Illinois, with potential expansion to other U.S.-based locations. RAPID will provide increased lifesaving capability against future national health emergencies that require population-scale vaccine administration on an urgent basis.

RAPID’s permanent fill-finish production capability will help significantly decrease the United States’ dependence on offshore supply chains and its reliance on older technologies with much longer production lead times. These supplies can be used if a successful SARS-COV-2 vaccine is oral or intranasal rather than injectable."