Military Innovation

I know this is not a Central Ohio IT Startup, but I saw this today and it is a cool innovation. I recently retired from the Air Force and Air National Guard with over 23 years of service. I still receive updates on what is going on in the Air Force, and this is where I saw this story.

I think it is great that the Pentagon is holding these contests to spur innovation. Obviously, the final products will go toward making our armed forces more efficient and lethal. Hopefully, there will be civilian uses for the technology that comes out of these contests, too.

The team of DuPont/Smart Fuel Cell has won the Pentagon's $1 million wearable power prize competition, the Department of Defense announced yesterday. Dupont/SFC was chosen from among the 169 entries by designing the lightest wearable system that provided an average of 20 watts of power for more than 96 hours and weighed less than 8.8 pounds, DOD said. DOD's Research and Engineering Directorate launched this competition in July 2007 to spur innovation to help develop a long-endurance, lightweight power pack for warfighters in the field. The batteries that dismounted soldiers, marines, and battlefield airmen carry often amount to the heaviest portion of their combat kits. Lightening that load is a priority across DOD. "The real winners from this competition are our ground warfighters, as these systems show great promise to reduce the weight of batteries they have to carry while performing their critical missions," said William Rees, deputy under secretary for defense laboratories and basic sciences. AMI of Ann Arbor, Mich., won the $500,000 second-place prize, and Jenny 600S of Middleburg, Va., won $250,000 for third place.


Keep up the innovation here in Central Ohio! I want to see some of our local innovators winning awards and making the world a better place!

Thanks, Kevin...