ATI & Vertical Lift Consortium facilitate teaming to quickly respond to Army needs

One of ATI’s clients, the U.S. Army Aviation Development Directorate Science and Technology Program recently had an urgent need for project ideas that would help them figure out their needs for the Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (FTUAS). Their goal was to find out what technologies from industry they could incorporate into the FTUAS when replacing a legacy Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System.

The Army came to the ATI-managed Vertical Lift Consortium (VLC), asking VLC members to form teams and send in short summaries of their project ideas (called whitepapers) for five separate Topic Areas of Interest in less than 30 days. The Army released the request to ATI and the VLC on July 5, 2017. To help build these teams and meet the quick turnaround the Army needed, we hosted a series of five speed networking webinars on July 11 and 12 that let VLC members find partners with capabilities in the needed technology areas. In speed networking sessions, each participant gets a few minutes in the spotlight to tell the rest of the group what their company does and their areas of technical expertise. Contact information is shared between members, and companies reach out and build teams when members have capabilities that complement each other.

VLC members submitted their project ideas to the Army on August 1, and four of the six teams selected by the government for award were formed through the speed networking webinars we hosted. By introducing these companies to one another, ATI led meaningful teambuilding that helped VLC members realize business opportunities, introduced the Army groundbreaking ideas, and eventually delivered critical technologies to warfighters.