Vanguard Magazine

TEChNologY wATCh www.vanguardcanada.com JUNE/JULY 2018 37 A ll good things start with the seed of an idea. And of course, in the words of Thomas Edison: "To have a great idea, have a lot of them." Personally, my issue was never coming up with ideas; the hard part is ev- erything that comes after the idea: build- ing, improving, and eventually – after a lot of sweat and a little luck – succeeding just enough to get you to the next phase and evolution of your original idea. It becomes an amoeba morphing down its path of evolution. It truly is all about that initial idea and the first catalyst that propels ideas down their path; that allows us to move forward, continue to innovate, and ei- ther defend our competitive positions or hopefully improve them. It's easy to get apathetic about your need to evolve, but it is truly life or death. The difficulty with innovating in the defence sector (I learned this the hard way) is that the sales cycles are incredibly long (so many ideas die because they're underfunded to han- dle 2-5 year sales cycles), and the culture, even in the business community, tends to be risk-averse and bureaucratic, often mirroring their customer, the Govern- ment. Risk capital tends not to flow freely to defence-related new ideas; in fact, it seems to be hard to get any capital for anything unless a specific RFI is on the street that you already fit into. There is still a bit of a gap in the market to incen- tivize more great innovations that should lead to big things in the long run. Like so many other people working in the sector, this is why I am excited about Canada's new Innovation for Defence Excellence and Security (IDEaS) pro- gram and its implications for defence in- novation in the future. A long-term culture of defence innovation The IDEaS program was first introduced last year as a part of Canada's new Strong, Secure, Engaged defence policy. IDEaS seeks to promote a long-term culture of defence innovation among the industry and in Canada in general – and it has the capital to back it up. The fed- eral government has committed to $313 million in funding over the next five years and $1.6 billion over the next 20 years to tackle some of Canada's toughest and most important defence challenges. The funding will go towards fostering collaboration and competition among different stakeholders to stimulate new ideas and innovation. Research clusters will be created to connect government research to the private sector and aca- demia to fully leverage Canadian talent and potential. Contests and competi- tive projects will be held, allowing both private companies and academics to ap- proach challenges in their own unique methods, spurring each other on. IDEaS will also introduce a more sup- portive environment for new ideas on all fronts. Support from the Department of National Defense will come earlier in the R&D process, risk will be shared more equally between the government and its innovation partners, and the Canadian Armed Forces will be more involved in field testing new products. Finally, IDEaS will be working closely with Innovation, Science, and Economic Development Canada (ISED) towards the broader objectives in Canada's Inclusive Innovation Agenda: accelerating growth, encouraging entrepreneurism, and lever- aging research across all sectors and for all Canadians – in short, transforming good ideas into a better reality and ensuring there is a diverse supplier base included. New training system at 402 Squadron re-vamps airborne electronic sensor operator courses. Participants team up to complete a challenge during exercise Cyber Challenge 2017. Photos: DND

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