GOODFELLOW AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- The Air Force established Spark Tank in 2017 to encourage innovative ideas that can help the U.S. Air Force sustain a competitive advantage.
“Airmen are able to pitch innovative ideas to top Air Force leadership and industry experts,” said 17th Force Support Squadron Chief of Manpower and Organization, Lexi Kennedy. “Anyone with common access cards can access the website to submit their ideas.”
While submissions go directly to Spark Tank and are reviewed by each Major Command, Goodfellow has Spark Cells ran by the Goodfellow Center of Genius that are available to assist with refinement prior to submission.
The window to submit ideas is currently open and the deadline is October 16, 2020. Lt. Gen. Brad Webb, the Air Education Training Command commander will chair the command’s judging panel and review the submissions and choose the top five entries. After those five individuals or teams are chosen they will have the opportunity to virtually pitch their idea to the AETC selection committee. After the pitch, two will be chosen to represent at the Air Force-level semi-finalist competition.
Winners at the semi-finals will reach the final round of the competition, which is scheduled to take place at the Air Force Associations Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida, Feb. 24-26, 2021.
“The Luke team’s success is a fantastic model for today’s AETC Airmen,” said lead action officer for AETC Spark Tank 2021, Brian Marchitello. “We’re counting on AETC Airmen to get into the competition and we hope to give the commander a large pool of innovative ideas to pick from.”
Submissions are entered into the Spark Tank campaign in IdeaScale https://usaf.ideascalegov.com/a/ideas/recent/campaigns/156 For any information about help on refining a submission on Goodfellow please contact Ms. Lexi Kennedy who is the manager of CoG.
“They are looking for game-changing innovation that have the highest probability of delivering a revolutionary impact to the Air and Space Force within six months to two years,” said Kennedy.