Secrets of Darpa's Innovation Machine

Forbes ^ | 2/15/2013 | Ted Greenwald

[oxcart]

Lots of people like to think of government as a black hole that sucks in tax dollars and allows nothing of value to emerge. They haven’t taken a look at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

This secretive research arm of the Defense Department has a unique mission: to embrace the most wide-eyed visions of the future and manifest them in the here and now. Founded in 1958 as a shocked and fearful response to Russia‘s launch of Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, Darpa has over 45 years racked up a consistent record of innovation that has utterly transformed contemporary life: the Internet, cloud computing, GPS, speech recognition, satellite imagery. Of course, that’s to say nothing of the department’s many military technologies, such as aircraft nearly invisible to radar, unmanned autonomous aerial vehicles, and interplanetary rocket engines.

[null and void]

One big secret they glossed over:

The head of DARPA is always a temporary position.

Yes, that does, as the article admits, give him or her a sense of urgency.

But the really important thing it does is prevent the organization from falling into a cultural rut.

[vbmoneyspender]

Lefties have taken over the Forbes website.

See Link

[bunkerhill7]

DARPA will seize your hi-tech patent/IP/trade secret “in the interest of national security” unless you have at least a million dollars in the bank and big bucks behind you. Read their fine print.

[GreyFriar]

article about DARPA

[jamaksin]

Lest we mis-remember, before DARPA was ARPA as in APRA-net.

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. This is an excellent article about an excellent organization.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

I worked on a high risk DARPA project last year. We made so much progress that they cut our money for this year. They only fund high risk stuff. Once you eliminate the risk, the money goes away since they figure a private company will fund the rest. Very frustrating.

[JoeFromSidney]

Back in the early 1960s ARPA (forerunner of DARPA) established two "counterinsurgency" research centers, one in Saigon and one in Bangkok. The basic idea for the centers was to take equipment that had received functional testing in the US and test it's suitability for use in Southeast Asia.

I served in the Bangkok center in 1962 - 1963. I was primarily an operations analyst, but I did a lot of testing of various kinds of electronic gear. It was an interesting and challenging assignment, not only professionally but personally, as it gave my family a chance to have an overseas tour. I did a lot of traveling "upcountry" in Thailand, and had some temporary duty in South Vietnam, where I conducted surveys of needed capabilities for electronic equipment.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Lest we mis-remember, before DARPA was ARPA as in APRA-net."

Yup. I would bet that the ROI contributed to the US GNP by the development of the internet has more than paid for every project ARPA (and later DARPA) has ever funded.

[Moonman62]

I thought this was going to be an article about Al Gore.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks oxcart.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

Bump for later