Daily Management Review

Boeing, Harvard And Apple Join Hands With Pentagon In The Development Of FlexTech


08/31/2015


The new phase of defense tech will be created in collaboration with private tech communities.



In a joint venture, Harvard, Apple, Pentagon, Boeing and other peers venture out to “develop high-tech sensory gear” which will be made flexible enough so that it can be either worn by the customers or moulded on “the outside of a jet”. Thanks to the rapid growth of technology, Pentagon has ben forced to team up with “private sector” instead of developing own defence technology. On Friday, the secretary of defence, Ash Carter mentioned in a report that”

"I've been pushing the Pentagon to think outside our five-sided box and invest in innovation here in Silicon Valley and in tech communities across the country”.

"Now we’re taking another step forward."
 
The plan of action is that the new technologies will be devised through “high-end printing technologies” enabling the electronics to have a stretchable quality whereby it would easier for fitting a sensor on it and to be put on soldiers. In fact, the aim is to ultimately place the devices on warplanes and ship which will allow “real-time monitoring of their structural integrity”.
 
The government of the United States has granted an amount of “$75 million over five years” for this project along with companies that are managed by the “U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory” will pump in an additional “$90 million” while the local government will fill in the gap to attribute to a total amount of “$171 million”.
 
According to Carter, the alliance for the “FlexTech” included “162 companies, universities and other groups” which ranged from Harvard, Boeing, Apple to “Advantest Akron Polymer Systems and Kalamazoo Valley Community College”. Moreover, Reuters writes:
“He (Carter) was due to announce the award formally in a speech on Friday at Moffett Federal Airfield, which is operated by NASA's Ames Research Center near Mountain View, in Silicon Valley”.
 
He came to California “four months ago” in order to kick start the process of FlexTech whereby to establish an outreach office for the same which will bring together “tech community” members. The Chief of Defence has plans on arranging a rendez-vous with “the Defense Science Board” which will unfurl a brief outline of the studies conducted by the former department “on the level of autonomy that military drones and robots should have in future”.
 
This venture, named the “Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Hub” will be the seventh out of nine such organisation that the government under Obama plans to launch in order to “revitalize several U.S. manufacturing sectors” although many amongst them are “defense-related”.
 
 
Source(s): Reuters.com