Nichols Martin
The U.S. Air Force's AFWERX organization has selected the more than 350 teams worldwide to participate in an open showcase and present ideas on how the service branch can innovate installations.
Companies, research laboratories and academic institutions from around the globe will take part in the Base of the Future challenge, AFWERX said Friday.
The competition will be part of the three-day AFWERX Fusion 2020 virtual event that is scheduled to kick off Tuesday and revolve around the areas of base security, installation resilience, operational effectiveness, reverse engineering and additive manufacturing, airman and family well-being and innovative culture.
"Our goal is to select the best solutions and guide the teams through future contracting, funding and prototyping to further develop their concept into real-word implementation to benefit the Air Force, our warfighters, the Department of Defense and allied partners worldwide," said Mark Rowland, innovation actualizer at AFWERX.
AFWERX seeks to help restore Tyndall AF Base, which suffered significant damage from Hurricane Michael in 2018, and modernize other bases. Congress authorized a $3B budget to rebuild Tyndall AFB.
The branch chose proposals from a pool of 1,500 submissions.
Representatives from the DoD, Google, Friday Pulse, MGM Resorts International and Duke University will attend the event.
