Approximately five years ago, the Department of Defense began a new effort to collaborate with non-traditional defense suppliers as a means of accelerating its pace of innovation. The clear and present danger that is driving this strategy is the unprecedented rise of China’s economy and it’s growing military strength. In today’s episode, my guest, Col. Sean O’Brien, a professor and department head at the National Defense University, explains some of the ways DoD is modifying its acquisition and development efforts in order to accelerate systems development as well as leverage the innovation of non-traditional commercial suppliers that normally do not do business with DoD. In particular, Col. O’Brien discusses the origins and success of the Air Force’s KesselRun project. This podcast, Commercial Innovation for Defense, is hosted and produced by Mark Goode, a partner with CommerceBasix (commercebasix.com), a leading technology scouting firm that identifies commercial suppliers with products or services that could address US military capability requirements. Be sure and subscribe to this podcast for more interviews and information about this important national security topic