Access to this landing page has only been granted to those who have been selected as a Participant or Facilitator for the 16-19 April 2024 USSOCOM Innovation Foundry (IF15) Event. Do not share with anyone else. The landing page is intended to serve as a quick and easy reference page to access pertinent documents and links before, during, and after the event. Please be sure to refresh the landing page so you have the most updated information.

Event Description
SOFWERX, in collaboration with USSOCOM’s Directorate of Science and Technology (S&T) Futures and UK Strategic Command, will host the fifteenth Innovation Foundry event (IF15) in London, England. As the second international event in the series, IF15 aims to bring together military practitioners, industry, academia, national laboratories, and futurists to explore and ideate around future scenarios and missions. This phase of the innovation cycle is being co-sponsored by the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD).

The theme of IF15, ‘Smart Cities – Future Challenges for SOF’, will explore the challenges of physical and remote SOF operations in a range of future complex smart city scenarios.

S&T Futures has developed and refined a unique process, the Innovation Cycle, to engage technology pioneers and leaders, and to discover and develop high risk, innovative, and disruptive technologies for future on-boarding. This Innovation Foundry is the first phase of the Innovation Cycle and will be focused on idea generation. Deliverables for the IF15 event will include preliminary capability concepts targeting the defined problem areas which may impact SOF and operations in the 2035 timeframe in interconnected smart cities. This event will be followed by 1) a Rapid Capability Assessment (RCA) to further develop the preliminary capability concepts, and 2) a series of Integrated Technology Sprints (ITS), to demonstrate proofs of concept.

Problem Statement
The rapidly changing nature of the future operating environment will increasingly involve operations in smart, interconnected cities. More than 50% of humanity resides in cities, and by 2030 there will be more than 60 cities with populations between 5-10 million. Many are located within global resource hot spots in an increasingly multi-polar world order that challenges hegemonic legacies. These dense urbanities are becoming ever more complex; socially, physically, and technically.

This presents new challenges and opportunities for SOF operations across the full breadth of potential mission sets, in an interconnected environment where access and manoeuvre will be challenging. The confluence of domains and environments amplifies these challenges. Virtual and physical theatre entry, combat operations, sustainment, and partnering will all require novel approaches. From biometrics to autonomy, to remote sensing, future smart cities will present SOF with some of the toughest challenges.

To tackle these problems SOF will need to:
•    Develop a vision for the future challenges posed by operating in smart cities.
•    Identify, understand, and combat smart city risks and vulnerabilities.
•    Develop plans and policies to enable operational advantage in smart cities and exploit dual-use capabilities.
•    Develop capabilities to understand and characterize adversarial actions in smart cities.
•    Develop new concepts of operation with partners and allies to operate in a range of heavily constrained smart cities scenarios.
•    Identify, recruit, and train for the skillsets required to operate in future smart cities.

What you will do at IF15:
•    Create a vision for what might be the characteristics of the 2035 operational environment from a smart city perspective.
•    Discuss what might be the predominant technology challenges within the future operational environment.
•    Conceptualise how these technologies might be applied towards SOF smart cities challenges.

To describe what might be, participants will:
•    Not limit themselves to mere extensions of today’s environment, technologies, and processes.
•    Describe innovative concepts for the future operational environment in a science-fiction-like manner, developing new concepts that might exploit and defeat the infrastructure of the future.
•    Identify the investments SOF needs to make now in order to succeed in this challenging future operational environment.

Read Ahead
IF15 Event Read Ahead (Required Reading): Click Here to Download
IF15 Event Briefing Deck (Required Reading): Click Here to Review
IF15 Podcast: Click Here to View
BT Notice (Read Before Entrance to the Event): Click Here to Review

Tentative Agenda
*Times are listed in PT, ET, BST and are subject to change*

Completed 08 April 2024 Orientation Session (Virtual): Click Here to Add Event to Your Calendar
7:00AM - 9:00AM PT
10:00AM - 12:00PM ET
3:00PM - 5:00PM BST

Completed 16 April 2024: Event Attendee Social Hour & Registration (Required, In Person)
6:00PM - 6:30PM BST (Badging)
6:30PM- 9:00PM BST (Meet and Greet)
Address: BT HQ, 1 Braham Street, London, England

Completed 17 April 2024: Click Here to Add the IF15 Event to Your Calendar
8:30 – 9:00: Arrival/Check-In
9:00 – 10:00: Welcome and Introduction
10:00 – 11:00: Group breakouts
11:00 – 11:15: Break
11:15 – 12:30: Design Thinking Activities
12:30 – 1:30: Lunch
1:30 – 2:55: Design Thinking Activities
2:55 – 3:10: Break
3:10 – 4:10: Design Thinking Activities
4:10 – 4:50: Wrap Up Days Activities
4:50: END OF DAY

18 April 2024
8:30 – 8:45: Arrival/Check-In
8:45 – 8:55: Plan of the Day
8:55 – 9:25: Design Thinking Activities
9:25 – 10:25: Break
10:25 – 12:00: Design Thinking Activities
12:00 – 1:00: Lunch
1:00 – 2:30: Design Thinking Activities
2:30 – 2:45: Break
2:45 – 4:45: Design Thinking Activities
4:45 – 4:50: Wrap Up Days Activities
4:50: END OF DAY

19 April 2024
8:30 – 8:40: Arrival/Check-In
8:40 – 9:55: Design Thinking Activities
9:55 – 10:10: Break
10:10 – 11:45: Design Thinking Activities
11:45 – 1:05: Lunch
1:05 – 1:45: Presentation Refinements
1:45 – 2:00: Break
2:00 – 4:00: Outbrief to Leadership
4:00 – 4:45: Socialization of Concepts Developed
4:45: END OF DAY

Directions
Travel Packet: Click Here to Download
What To Do in London (From a Londoner) Packet: Click Here to Download

Innovation Cycle 15 Technology Demonstration