ISSUED BY: GCIS Communications Command Center
SOURCE: AFCEA
21March2011 8:00amEST
GCIS INTELLIGENCE UPDATE: A unique process for identifying, certifying and fielding technologies for homeland defense has captured White House attention and could be implemented across other departments, according to Thomas Cellucci, the government’s only chief commercialization officer.
The one-of-a-kind Commercialization Office, which resides within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate, doesn’t buy a thing. In fact, the office has shunned the traditional time- and resource-consuming acquisition process of releasing requests for proposals and requirements documents and holding a competition. Under the auspices of the System Efficacy through Commercialization, Utilization, Relevance and Evaluation (SECURE) program, the office places detailed requirements on its website, along with an estimate of the available market.
Companies then reply with a one-page summary of their solutions and sign a page-and-a-half cooperative agreement to continue developing their technologies. At the end of the process, the company provides objective operational test and evaluation data from an independent third party, and the Commercialization Office certifies the technology meets the department’s requirements.
That certification is pure gold for companies seeking to sell their homeland security wares. “This is not a procurement activity. We guarantee no sales. We don’t guarantee the size of the markets. But think about all the money the private sector spends on application development, business development, marketing intelligence,” Cellucci says. “DHS has huge potential available markets. We’re not going to give the commercial sector on a silver platter what they spend a lot of time and money trying to figure out; we’re going to give it to them on a golden platter.” (read full report)
