Meeting Goals for FOCUS 2000

This morning I would, first of all, like to welcome you all to DARPA Focus 2000. And, unlike what it says in the agenda, I'm not going to talk about the meeting goals. Dr. Jane Alexander, who will follow me, is really going to talk about the meeting goals. I am going to tell you what I think DARPA does for National security, how it does it, and why I think research in this interdisciplinary area is so very important to Defense.

As we enter the 21st century, it has become clear to me that we are in a time where change has become the norm, not the exception. In particular, the rapidly changing nature of our National Security threats, the globalization of critical technology, the uncertain rules of engagement and reliance on coalition partners and, finally, the increasing role of affordability as a factor in acquiring technology all require that a major part of our strategy include our ability to adapt to uncertainty.

In such times, the DoD needs an organization whose job it is to see change as an opportunity…to be a change leader. DARPA serves as DoD's change leader...

DARPA's mission is to enable radical innovation in support of National Security. We are pursuing three main mission areas in this regard.

The first is to try to find technical solutions to what we call "national-level problems." Our priority is on problems that may impact our national survival. At present, protection from biological attack and protection from information attack are such problems.

Our second mission area is to be the technical enabler for the innovation required to achieve dominance across the range of military operations - what's called "Operational Dominance" by the warfighter.

In our third mission area, we continue to develop and exploit high-risk core technologies reflecting DARPA's traditional strengths. In this way, I think we can fulfill DARPA's charter of "avoiding technological surprise."

Let me talk to you a little bit about the characteristics of innovation - which is what DARPA is all about. First of all, let me be clear. Innovation is much more than invention! Innovation is the process of using inventions, whether they are technical, operational, or financial, to change the way we do business fundamentally!

Innovation usually can be characterized into two categories. There is sustaining - or evolutionary - innovation, which really refers to predictable, dependable advances in capability, in what is normally part of a long-range business plan. Most good operations have this. On the other hand, revolutionary, or radical innovation uses some enabler - something that comes along - and a new business model, a new paradigm, to achieve a level of performance that eventually far exceeds the limits of current, evolutionary advances.

This kind of evolution - all evolution -takes a long time for large institutions. Institutions don't change very quickly. Innovation requires iteration between new operational concepts and new technical ideas.

In fact, radical innovation, in particular, is very risky. It's very risky because the new business model may not be obvious and almost always initially under-performs the current established business model. It also requires iteration, because failures are inevitable.

Radical innovation also depends strongly on creative people and is therefore subject to their vulnerabilities and their weaknesses.

Radical innovation almost always displaces or disrupts some well-established, current business practice in the operation in which it's invented. It is therefore a threat. As such, radical innovation must be protected at the outset, because the operation it displaces will almost certainly attack it and attempt to destroy it.

An example in the warfighting area: the British invented naval aviation, and, before WWII, developed a lot of the tactics. But it was the United States and Japan that actually used it to change the way naval warfare was done. The British admiralty did not allow this new concept to be exploited.

Finally, radical innovation requires, above all, leadership, dedication and high-level protection. In almost every case study, successful radical innovation has involved both high-level champions to support and protect it and, "green-eyed zealots" who, for their own reasons, choose to make this paradigm change the hallmark of their careers.

My final point is that defense innovation and progress requires both the radical kind of innovation that DARPA does, and sustaining, requirements-based R&D in order to provide our Nation with the defense capability needed for the 21st century.

Given that our job is radical innovation, our strategy at DARPA is simple and brutal. We must be flexible and be able to quickly exploit emerging situations. This is a reflection of our view at DARPA that in this changing world, events taking place outside of the customary DoD establishment may very well have the greatest impact on national security

We emphasize problems that are both difficult technically, and that are focused on a desired outcome. As an example that I remember (at my age) was President Kennedy's charge in the early 60s to put a man on the moon and bring him back safely in less than a decade. That was a very difficult problem at that time, and very, very highly focused.

DARPA emphasizes competition at all levels, believing that, in this quest for innovation, outside stimulation is essential.

DARPA has a much broader research horizon than, say, a commercial venture capital firm. DARPA can fund an idea - we can act as an "angel" - or we can build a full-scale prototype of a system. We can focus our work into outcomes, when needed, without using the peer review process prevalent in university research. Finally, we can work on national security needs without there being well-established, articulated, acquisition-based requirements. This is the freedom that DARPA has.

Since we perform our work in a manner more like an investment house than the traditional government R&D organization, DARPA's organizational structure is flat, and it uses contracts with industry, laboratories, and universities to get our work done. We own no facilities or institutions, and we have a very, very lean staff.

We also have a highly flexible contracting and hiring authority to allow us to exploit new opportunities

We stress constant examination as we review our programs and rotate our people to ensure that resources are available for new activities. The kinds of questions that you must be able to answer before we invest in a research program are questions like this: What are you trying to do? What is the current approach in this one area that you're working in - how do we do it now? How will the new DARPA approach remove current limitations? What difference do you think it will make? Remember, we want to enable revolutionary innovation. How are you going to prove that you have accomplished the program goal? What are your mid-term and final exams? And once you've accomplished the program goal, how will DARPA bring an end to its investment? What is our "exit strategy"? To whom do we transition this work? And, of course, how much will the program cost?

DARPA supports a wide variety of performers. The largest amount of our funding annually goes to industry, but universities, government laboratories, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (so-called "FFRDCs"), and non-profit organizations play a vital role in conducting DARPA research.

Our budget has been essentially flat over the last two years. We hope to increase it slightly this coming year. Notice especially the growth in the Basic and Applied Research area. In some ways this is a symptom of the increasing importance of the very newest research areas such as those you will be discussing today.

Let me tell you about DARPA's technical organization. We have a very broad and eclectic charter, ranging from the development of prototype military systems to the most fundamental research into, for example, molecular electronics. Each office is headed by a Director and Deputy Director, and consists of approximately 15-20 program managers, many of whom are here today to take part in the breakout sessions.

The Advanced Technology Office is focused on technologies and systems for early entry, rapid reaction forces and Special Forces, communications systems and technologies and maritime technologies and systems

The Defense Sciences Office emphasizes biological warfare defense technologies, biological programs, materials efforts, and mathematics.

The Information Systems Office manages information assurance and security, command and control systems, planning and logistics systems, and systems and technologies to counter the asymmetric threat.

The Information Technology Office emphasizes networking, embeddable systems, human computer interface, and translingual and software composition technologies.

The Microsystems Technology Office manages electronics, photonics, MEMS and their integration into microsystems.

The Special Projects Office manages efforts to develop chemical and biological defense systems, systems for surface and underground target engagement, and sensor and navigation systems.

And, finally, the Tactical Technology Office develops advanced air-, space-, and land platforms, laser systems, future Army combat systems, and space-based systems for surveillance and targeting.

To go into more detail about our investment strategy, I want to talk a little bit about our current focus areas.

In the area of national-level problems, we are focusing on protection from biological attack and protection from information attack.

The Biological Warfare Defense effort is developing therapeutics, countermeasures, advanced sensors, advanced diagnostics, consequence management tools, air and water purification devices, and genetic sequencing codes for potential biological threat agents.

In the area of Information Assurance and Survivability, DARPA is developing technologies to raise very strong barriers against cyber attack and to provide our commanders with mechanisms to see, counter, tolerate and survive sophisticated cyber attacks. That's about 15% of our budget.

The largest part of our budget - about 45% - is focused on developing and demonstrating the technologies required for Overwhelming Operational Dominance.

These projects include technologies and systems to enable affordable, precision moving target kill for both offensive and defensive missions. We are developing dynamic command and control technologies, including mobile wireless and ad hoc communication networks for information superiority and tools to plan and replan in near real-time. We are investing in technologies and systems that will enable future warfare concepts for air, space, land and sea. These include networked operations combining manned and unmanned platforms, and the ability to correctly characterize hard and deeply buried targets.

The third investment area, which represents about 40% of our budget, is devoted to developing and exploiting high-risk, high-payoff technologies that are critical to our Nation's defense.

Our core technology investments include information technology, microsystems technologies, materials technologies, advanced lithography and microelectromechanical systems. It is the results of these investments that allow DARPA and DoD to build the systems and capabilities for the operational dominance work that I talked about earlier. In addition, investments in these core areas, I believe, allow DARPA to provide the DoD with a unique outreach into commercial and dual-use technology areas.

DARPA's investments in information technologies will provide information superiority through advances in embedded and autonomous systems software; high performance computing and communications components; advanced networking, and seamless computer interfaces.

In addition, DARPA is investigating chip-scale microsystem technologies that integrate the core technologies of electronics, photonics (light) and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) at the chip-level. This chip-scale integration offers substantial new opportunities to revolutionize and miniaturize communication systems, targeting systems, sensors, and analytical systems.

A new effort called "Beyond Silicon," which will be starting this coming year, is a brand-new investment area that is investigating approaches to electronic device design that extend beyond today's scaling of traditional complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) devices.

Today, you are here to discuss another of DARPA's new thrusts: the intersection of biology, information technology, and physical systems such as electronics, optoelectronics, sensors, and actuators.

There are several reasons why I think this is an important area. In fact, last year when I first started to take a tour of some universities to see what the feeling was, I was overwhelmed by the ground-swell of enthusiasm that existed at some of the major schools in trying to get work done in this area - and how difficult it was for researchers to get funding for interdisciplinary activities through conventional means. As a result, we sat down and said, "Maybe this is a place where DARPA can really start to make a difference." I think that, later, you're going to hear about some of the things that are going to come out that are very important.

One of my major reasons, from a National Security standpoint, that I think this is an important area is the following: I think that, in the future, our military concepts will lead more and more into dealing with highly complex systems that may very well be composed of networks of people and robots. Our knowledge, our modeling, our understanding of complex systems is very, very rudimentary. We know that biological systems represent successful, highly complex systems of networks. I believe that we're at the point, now, where we can use advanced physical systems to measure and understand controlled biological systems, and that today's information technology is robust enough to be able to manage and process the massive amounts of information obtained from such measurements. I believe that, if we can work at the intersection of these three areas, we will be able to build models and to create algorithms, software, and fault tolerant architectures that the DoD needs for the future. A major part of DoD future plans involves large, networked systems of humans and robots that will be aware of, and will react to, their environment in such a way that will enable operational dominance for future warfighters.

That's a major reason why, at a top level, DARPA's interested in this.

Now, beware: I would predict that, having told you this - and, probably, I'm 180° out of what will come out of this activity (this always happens when DARPA gets into a new area) - but I think that the core idea of using the intersection of these three systems to try to understand how complex systems work is something that DARPA now has to start to get into, because we're into this in the DoD.

My Deputy, Dr. Jane Alexander, will discuss this new area for you in more detail.