DON Super-Connector

NavalX serves as the Department of Navy (DON) workforce "super-connector," focused on scaling non-traditional agility methods across the DON workforce. Our Naval culture of decentralized autonomy has been described as an innovation landscape marked by isolated and short-lived bursts of success.

The approach is to connect to these isolated pockets of excellence to capture and scale the methodologies being employed, increasing awareness of cross-Department of Defense (DoD) and external successes, lessons learned, and subject matter experts.

NavalX was formally announced in February 2019, as a direct-report initiative under the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition (ASN RDA).

NavalX spreads high-impact knowledge and skills across the Department. Playbooks make these resources available to anyone who can use them, and involve a commitment to drive adoption.

We focus on topics that are:

The 2018 National Defense Strategy was a call to the Department of Defense to find ways to harness innovation in private businesses and academia to better serve and protect our country. As a response, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition (ASN RDA), Hon. James 'Hondo' Geurts, established NavalX in February 2019 to expand the Department of the Navy's (DON) capabilities. NavalX connects both the internal DON and external DON partners to increase awareness and access to best practices and technologies.

With strong partnership from the Office of Naval Research, NavalX Tech Bridges will CONNECT, REINFORCE, and SUSTAIN acceleration ecosystems in off-base locations across the DON. These Tech Bridges will partner with start-ups, academia, corporations, small businesses, non-profits, private capital, and government entities. In this way, NavalX builds sustainable networks for collaboration and accelerates problem solving. NavalX works with partners to support collision spaces and generate dual-use solutions. These spaces will lower barriers that traditionally hamper external collaboration.

Core Elements of a Tech Bridge:

What Tech Bridges Gain from NavalX Support:

Tech Bridge funded travel to build networks across ecosystems