Pentagon’s Push to Build Up Technology Talent ‘Insufficient,’ DIU Boss Says
Oct. 21, 2021 | By Greg Hadley
The Pentagon’s current efforts to add science and technology talent to its workforce are “insufficient,” especially as the U.S. seeks to counter China’s gains in the field, the director of the Defense Innovation Unit said Oct. 21.
Speaking during a virtual panel organized by the Center for a New American Security, Michael Brown said the Defense Department has a number of programs that bring in the people necessary to bolster its tech efforts, such as the Technology and National Security Fellowship and the Defense Digital Service. But those success stories “are too small relative to what we need for the challenge going forward,” Brown cautioned.
In particular, Brown said, the DOD has a tendency to staff key technology efforts with military officers who may not know the topic as well as civilian experts. At the DIU, which focuses on taking commercial technology and applying it in the military at speed, the goal is “to combine both the military officers that … we really select one by one, along with commercial technology executives,” Brown said. It’s a model he wants the department to follow in other key areas.
“We need to have more blended workforces in the areas of DOD that require that,” Brown said.
https://www.airforcemag.com/military-technology-talent-insufficient/
