Repost with added
REBELLION DEFENSE / DEFENSE INNOVATION UNIT
Any thoughts on this contract between rebellion defense and AF?
Contract was "solicited" 8/24/2019
description
"COVID-19 DIB Automation for Air Force Intelligence: Delivering User-Centered Artificial Intelligence for Air Force Special Operations Command"
https://www.fpds.gov/common/jsp/LaunchWebPage.jsp?command=execute&requestid=113583800&version=1.5
questions
If the date of solicitation is pre Covid, that raises some questions
if the description was added after the solicitation date, why include Covid 19 in description?
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New notes
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If the early list of advisers is any indication, the administration of President-elect Joe Biden will be heavily influenced by technology experts who spent time in government as part of an Obama-era program that remained through the Trump administration: the U.S. Digital Service.
Victor Garcia of Rebellion Defense worked with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services while on the USDS team. He will be advising on the DOD review team.
Lisa Wiswell Coe will also be on the DOD team. She served with the Defense Digital Service and helped establish the Hack the Pentagon program. Coe is employed with OtherSide Consulting.
https://www.nextgov.com/it-modernization/2020/11/biden-review-teams-include-many-former-tech-officials-and-digital-service-members/169977/
DEFENSE INNOVATION UNIT (needs digs, seems nefarious in creation.)
Eric Schmidt, the former chief executive officer of Google, will head a new Pentagon advisory board aimed at bringing Silicon Valley innovation and best practices to the U.S. military, defense Secretary Ash Carter said on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON, March 4, 2016 -
Five tech organizations pitched their technologies to Defense Secretary Ash Carter this week during a technology showcase hosted by DoD's six-month-old forward operating unit, the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental in Silicon Valley.
So far, the unit has identified 22 pilot projects with tech companies and start-ups that have never before worked with the Pentagon. Five projects are being executed, and 17 others are in various acquisition phases, diux officials said in a statement.
Carter visited diux as part of a trip to Silicon Valley – his third as defense secretary – and to Seattle to discuss technology and cybersecurity initiatives with officials at some of the region's top tech companies.
The technologies range from cyber and intelligence analysis to drones and new ways to bring DoD and Silicon Valley together, diux Director George Duchak said.
Technology Outpost
In San Francisco this week, Carter spoke with Ted Schlein, a general partner at Menlo Park venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which focuses on early stage tech companies in enterprise software and infrastructure markets.
https:// www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/686507/carter-reviews-new-technologies-from-dods-silicon-valley-unit/
William McRaven, former head of U.S. Special Operations Command, left the defense innovation Board (DIB) on Aug. 20, Lt. Col. Michelle Baldanza, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09/16/retired-admiral-who-criticized-trump-leaves-pentagon-board.html
PROJECT MAVEN
Mr. Schmidt soon got caught up in another issue between Google and the military. Google had signed a contract in 2017 to help the Pentagon build systems to automatically analyze drone footage to identify particular objects like buildings, vehicles and people.
Mr. Schmidt was a proponent of the effort, called project maven. He said he encouraged the Pentagon to pursue it and testified in Congress about the project's merits, but was not involved in the agency's selection of Google.
But the effort blew up in 2018 when Google employees protested and said they did not want their work to lead to lethal strikes. More than 3,000 workers signed a letter to Mr. Pichai, saying the contract would undermine the public's trust in the company.
A month after leaving Google, Mr. Schmidt invested in Rebellion Defense, a software start-up founded by former Defense Department employees that analyzes video gathered via drone. His venture firm later put more money into the company, and Mr. Schmidt joined its board.
https://reportglobalnews.com/2020/05/i-could-solve-most-of-your-problems-eric-schmidts-pentagon-offensive/
Schmidt and Medin were also able to retain their positions on the defense Advisory Board, despite their own company's refusal to work with the U.S. military in Project Maven, a program to develop AI for use in military drones.'
*So they contract with the Pentagon for drone video analysis, goog employees "cry foul", and he ends up funding a private company that does just that after leaving Google…nothing wrong there kek