Podcasts about bmnt

International law enforcement takes down a pair of notorious hacking forums. Wiz discovers an open DeepSeek database. Time Bandit jailbreaks ChatGPT. Ransomware hits one of the largest U.S. blood centers. A cyberattack takes the South African Weather Service offline. Researchers describe a new “browser syncjacking” attack. TeamViewer patches a high-severity privilege escalation flaw. Over three dozen industry groups urge Congress to pass a national data privacy law. CISA faces an uncertain future. N2K's Brandon Karpf speaks with Ellen Chang, Vice President Ventures at BMNT and Head of H4XLabs. OpenAI Cries Foul After Getting a Taste of Its Own Medicine.  Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Today, N2K's Brandon Karpf speaks with Ellen Chang, Vice President Ventures at BMNT and Head of H4XLabs, about the venture model, why it exists, how it works, and its impact. Selected Reading Police seizes Cracked and Nulled hacking forum servers, arrests suspects (Bleeping Computer) Wiz Research Uncovers Exposed DeepSeek Database Leaking Sensitive Information, Including Chat History (Wiz) Time Bandit ChatGPT jailbreak bypasses safeguards on sensitive topics(Bleeping Computer) US blood donation giant warns of disruption after ransomware attack (TechCrunch) South Africa's government-run weather service knocked offline by cyberattack (The Record) Syncjacking Attack Enables Full Browser and Device Takeover (Infosecurity Magazine) TeamViewer Patches High-Severity Vulnerability in Windows Applications (SecurityWeek) Industry groups call on Congress to enact federal data privacy law (The Record) US Cyber Agency's Future Role in Elections Remains Murky Under the Trump Administration (SecurityWeek) OpenAI Furious DeepSeek Might Have Stolen All the Data OpenAI Stole From Us (404 Media) Share your feedback. We want to ensure that you are getting the most out of the podcast. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey as we continually work to improve the show.  Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at cyberwire@n2k.com to request more info. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sabra Horne, Entrepreneur in Residence at BMNT, joins Jeanne Meserve for a discussion on the challenges and opportunities of innovation within the government and how to foster a culture of innovation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit scsp222.substack.com

Send us a textPeter Newell is a retired US Army colonel of 32 years and a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is changing how the government and companies compete and drive growth. Support the show

In this episode, N2K's Brandon Karpf interviews Pete Newell, CEO and Founder of BMNT, about the challenges facing technology adoption within the Department of Defense (DoD). They discuss the concept of “mission acceleration,” focusing on the DoD's struggle to keep pace with rapid changes on the battlefield and the importance of a human-centered approach to technology adaptation. Newell emphasizes that true innovation in defense is more of a "people problem" than a technology issue, requiring shifts in organizational culture and internal education. Tune in to hear insights on accelerating change in defense through better problem articulation and training. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An alleged Australian scammer wanted by the FBI gets nabbed in Italy. The Internet Archive has been breached again. Researchers discover vulnerabilities in encrypted cloud storage platforms. Cisco confirms stolen files but insists it's not a data breach.  A Chinese disinformation group targets Senator Marco Rubio. Malicious chatbot prompts can hide inside harmless ones. The DoD wants to offer senior cyber executives part-time roles as military reservists. Six years out, the specter of Spectre remains. Russian prosecutors seek prison for REvil operators. Guest Pete Newell, Founder and CEO of BMNT, talks with N2K's Brandon Karpf about challenges associated with technology adoption and change in the DoD. Microsoft uses clever deception to reel in phishers.  Remember to leave us a 5-star rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Miss an episode? Sign-up for our daily intelligence roundup, Daily Briefing, and you'll never miss a beat. And be sure to follow CyberWire Daily on LinkedIn. CyberWire Guest Guest Pete Newell, Founder and CEO of BMNT, talks with N2K's Brandon Karpf about challenges associated with technology adoption and change in the DoD. Selected Reading Australian wanted by FBI over alleged $46 million scam arrested in Italy (The Sydney Morning Herald) Internet Archive breached again through stolen access tokens (Bleeping Computer) Severe flaws in E2EE cloud storage platforms used by millions (Bleeping Computer) Cisco Confirms Security Incident After Hacker Offers to Sell Data (SecurityWeek) Report: China's Spamouflage disinformation campaign testing techniques on Sen. Marco Rubio (The Record) This Prompt Can Make an AI Chatbot Identify and Extract Personal Details From Your Chats (WIRED) Wanted: Weekend Warriors in Tech (Wall Street Journal) Spectre flaws continue to haunt Intel and AMD (The Register) Russia's case against REvil hackers proceeds as government recommends 6.5-year sentences (The Record) Microsoft creates fake Azure tenants to pull phishers into honeypots (Bleeping Computer) Share your feedback. We want to ensure that you are getting the most out of the podcast. Please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us by completing our brief listener survey as we continually work to improve the show.  Want to hear your company in the show? You too can reach the most influential leaders and operators in the industry. Here's our media kit. Contact us at cyberwire@n2k.com to request more info. The CyberWire is a production of N2K Networks, your source for strategic workforce intelligence. © N2K Networks, Inc. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 68. Dive into a compelling discussion on TSA's transformative leap into next-generation technologies with Dan McCoy, former Chief Innovation Officer at TSA and now Head of Business Development at BMNT. Stepping in for Tyler Sweatt, Enrique Oti uncovers the strategies behind TSA's embrace of cutting-edge solutions to enhance security operations and streamline processes. In this episode, Dan shares his firsthand experiences and challenges in integrating advanced technologies within TSA, revealing how these initiatives are not just about innovation, but about transforming the agency to meet future demands. Discover the intricate balance between maintaining robust security protocols and pushing the boundaries of technological innovation.What's Happening on the Second Front:Insights into the critical role of advanced technologies in modernizing federal operationsStrategies for overcoming bureaucratic hurdles to implement transformative tech solutionsThe impact of leadership and vision in driving technological adoption at TSAA look at how TSA is setting a precedent for innovation in government agenciesConnect with Daniel McCoy:• Linkedin: Daniel McCoyConnect with Tyler Sweatt: • LinkedIn: Tyler Sweatt• Website: Second Front

This week, Ryan Connell discusses entrepreneurial approaches to problem-solving in defense with Pete Newell, 32-year Army veteran turned entrepreneur, educator, investor, and co-founder and CEO of BMNT. Pete dives into the inception and impact of the Hacking for Defense program and shares his insights on the importance of rapid adaptation and how ingenuity can drive mission acceleration in both government and commercial sectors. Tune in for an in-depth lesson on what it takes to win on the battlefield. TIMESTAMPS: (0:35) Meet Pete Newell (1:37) The evolution of Hacking for Defense (3:53) Problems are like fish bait in Silicon Valley (9:41) Building interdisciplinary teams (14:39) The difference between innovation and ingenuity (18:28) Important takeaways from Ukraine battlefield (20:48) Acquisitions are not the problem (32:38) How to professionalize the building of people LINKS: Follow Ryan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-connell-8413a03a/ Follow Pete: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petenewell/ BMNT: https://www.bmnt.com/ CDAO: https://www.ai.mil/ Tradewinds: https://www.tradewindai.com/

Peter Newell is a retired US Army colonel of 32 years and a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is changing how the government and companies compete and drive growth. Support the Show.

 Bio: Pete Newell Pete Newell is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the  government and other large organizations compete and drive growth.  He is the CEO of BMNT, an internationally recognized innovation consultancy and early-stage tech accelerator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond. Founded in Silicon Valley, BMNT has offices in Palo Alto, Washington DC, Austin, London, and Canberra. BMNT uses a framework, called H4X®, to drive innovation at speed. H4X® is an adaptation of the problem curation techniques honed on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan combined with the best practices employed by successful Silicon Valley startups. The result is a disciplined, evidence-based, data-driven process for connecting innovation activities into an accountable system that delivers solutions and overcome obstacles to innovation. Pete is a founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic program taught at 47+ universities in the U.S., as well as universities in the UK and Australia. H4D® focuses on solving national security problems. It has in turned created a series of sister courses – Hacking for Diplomacy, Hacking for Oceans, Hacking for Sustainability, Hacking for Local and others – that use the H4X® framework to solve critical real-world problems while providing students with a platform to gain crucial problem-solving experience while performing a national service. Pete continues to advise and teach the original H4D® course at Stanford University with Steve Blank. In addition, Pete is Co-Founder and Board Director of The Common Mission Project, the 501c3 non-profit responsible for creating an international network of mission-driven entrepreneurs, including through programs like H4D®. Prior to joining BMNT, Pete served as the Director of the US Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF).  Reporting directly to the senior leadership of the Army, he was charged with rapidly finding, integrating, and employing solutions to emerging problems faced by Soldiers on the battlefield. From 2010 to 2013 Pete led the REF in the investment of over $1.4B in efforts designed to counter the effects of improvised explosive devices, reduce small units exposure to suicide bombers and rocket attacks and to reduce their reliance on long resupply chains. He was responsible for the Army's first deployment of mobile manufacturing labs as well as the use of smart phones merged with tactical radio networks. Pete retired from the US Army as a Colonel in 2013. During his 32 years in uniform he served as both an enlisted national guardsman and as an active duty officer. He commanded Infantry units at the platoon through brigade level, while performing special operations, combat, and peace support operations in Panama, Kosovo, Egypt, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is an Army Ranger who has received numerous awards to include the Silver Star and Presidential Unit Citation. Pete holds a BS from Kansas State University, an MS from the US Army Command & General Staff College, an MS from the National Defense University and advanced certificates from the MIT Sloan School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Bio: Dr Alison Hawks Dr. Alison Hawks is one of the leading experts advancing public sector innovation. A researcher and academic-turned-entrepreneur, she is the co-founder and CEO of BMNT, Ltd., the innovation company that is changing how public sector innovation happens; and Chair of the Common Mission Project UK, BMNT's charitable partner that guides mission-driven entrepreneurial education in the UK. Dr. Hawks co-founded BMNT Ltd with (Ret) Col Pete Newell, the CEO of BMNT, Inc., in 2019 to bring BMNT's proven innovation approach to the UK market. Under her leadership BMNT has become a trusted innovation partner across all single Services of Defence, the Cabinet Office, and the national security community. She has also helped change how real-world government challenges are addressed in the UK, launching the “Hacking for” academic programmes created in the U.S. These courses that teach university students how to use modern entrepreneurial tools and techniques to solve problems alongside government at startup speed. As a result of her efforts, 14 UK universities are offering Hacking for the Ministry of Defence, Hacking for Sustainability and Hacking for Police. More than 480 students have taken these courses, addressing 103 real-world challenges. Dr. Hawks teaches mission-driven entrepreneurship at King's College London, Department of War Studies and at Imperial College London's Institute of Security Science and Technology. She was named the Woman of the Year for Innovation and Creativity at the Women in Defence Awards in 2022. She serves on the Board of Directors of BMNT, leading development of BMNT's innovation education programs while also guiding the integration of BMNT's rapidly expanding international presence. She was previously Director of Research at the Section 809 Panel, a U.S. Congressionally mandated commission tasked with streamlining and codifying defense acquisition. She was also an Assistant Professor at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, as well as King's College London, Department of Defence Studies where she taught strategy, policy and operations in professional military education. Dr. Hawks' doctoral thesis was in military sociology. She received her Ph.D from the Department of War Studies at King's College London, and her MA in Strategic Studies from the University of Leeds. She holds a BA in Political Science from the University of California, San Diego. She has multiple peer reviewed publications on her research. Interview Highlights 03:50 BMNT 06:20 Serendipity 10:00 Saying yes to the uncomfortable 11:20 Leadership 15:00 Developing a thick skin 20:00 Lessons of an entrepreneur 22:00 Stakeholder success 25:00 Solving problems at speed and at scale 28:00 The innovation pipeline 29:30 Resistance is rational 34:00 Problem curation 38:00 Dual use investments 43:00 Accelerating change 47:00 AUKUS 52:20 AI   Contact Information   ·         LinkedIn: Ali Hawks on LinkedIn ·         LinkedIn Peter Newell on LinkedIn ·         Website:  The Common Mission Project UK ·         Website: BMNT US ·         Website: BMNT UK   Books & Resources ·         Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less: Robert Sutton, Robert , Huggy Rao ·         Value Proposition Canvas ·         Business Model Canvas ·         Hacking for Defense ·         Hacking for Allies ·         AUKUS DIN ·         Impromptu : Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI, Reid Hoffman ·         Huberman Lab Podcast ·         Allie K. Miller ·         Wiring the Winning Organization: Liberating Our Collective Greatness through Slowification, Simplification, and Amplification: Gene Kim, Steven Spear ·         The Friction Project - Bob Sutton, Huggy Rao Episode Transcript  Intro: Hello and welcome to the Agile Innovation Leaders podcast. I'm Ula Ojiaku. On this podcast I speak with world-class leaders and doers about themselves and a variety of topics spanning Agile, Lean Innovation, Business, Leadership and much more – with actionable takeaways for you the listener. Ula Ojiaku My guests for this episode are Pete Newell and Ali Hawks. Pete Newell is the CEO and Co-founder of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest problems facing the Department of Defense and Intelligence community. Ali Hawks is CEO of BMNT in the UK and also a Co-founder of BMNT in the UK. In addition to this, she is the Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Common Mission Project, and she Co-founded the Common Mission Project in 2019 and drove its growth as a Startup charity in the UK. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, my conversation with Pete and Ali, I found it very insightful and I'm sure you would as well. Pete, thank you Ali, thank you so much for being with us on the Agile Innovation Leaders Podcast. It's a great pleasure to have you here.  Pete Newell  Thanks so much for the invite.  Ali Hawks  Yeah. Thank you for having us.  Ula Ojiaku Right, this is the second time ever in the history of my podcast that I'm having two people, two guests. The first time was fun, and I know this one would be as well, and informative. I always start with asking my guests to tell us a bit about themselves. So your background, any memorable happenings that shaped you into the person you are today?  Pete Newell  So I'm a retired army officer. I enlisted when I was 18 and was commissioned when I left college in the mid 80s. I spent most of my career as an Infantryman in tactical units. I spent a great bit of time in the Middle East and other war zones. Towards the end of my career, I ended up as the Director of the Army's Rapid Equipment Force, which is essentially the Skunk Works that was stood up at the start of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to accelerate technology to solve problems that were emerging on the battlefield, that weren't part of something else, somewhere else. And in that three-year journey, it probably exposed me to first and foremost, the speed at which new problems are presenting themselves, not just on the battlefield, but in the rest of the world. It exposed me to the speed at which technology is changing, being adopted and then being adapted for other purposes. So it's almost like chasing technology as it changes is a whole new sport, and it exposed me to  the challenges of large bureaucratic organisations and their inability to keep up with the speed of the changes in order to remain competitive, whether it was on the battlefield or in the commercial markets or something like that. Those epiphanies really drove, first, my decision to retire from the military, because I became addicted to solving that problem, and second, drove the impetus to launch BMNT in 2013. And in fact, you are right square in the middle of our 10th anniversary of being a company. So it really is, I think, a big deal because we started with four people on a driveway in Palo Alto, California, now we're a global company with multiple companies and are grateful, but that's the history of how we got started.  Ula Ojiaku  Congratulations on your 10th anniversary, and it's an impressive background and story. Ali, what about you?  Ali Hawks  So, my background, a little bit different than Pete's, by training I was an academic, so my training and my PhD was in military sociology. I was really interested in understanding people's experiences in the armed forces, both in the US and the UK. That is what my PhD was focused around, my thesis, and I went on to be an academic at King's College London here in the UK. I've also been an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University in the School of Foreign Service. But it wasn't until I then took a job with the US DoD, in something called a Congressional Advisory Panel called the Section 809 Panel, which was tasked with overhauling all of defense acquisition, and that's where Pete and I met. I think one of those formative experiences in my career was meeting Pete and going to the non-profit that Pete started and spun out of BMNT, it's called the Common Mission Project with a really big program, Hacking for Defense, and Steve Blank also Co-founded that as you know, and Joe Felter. I went to an educator course for this program in Fort Belvoir as a part of my job to understand, could we take these types of methods and put them into congressional legislation or DoD regulation as a way to change how people think about problems? And when I met Pete, it was the intersection of all of the things that I really love, academia, entrepreneurship, defense and national security. I went up to Pete and pitched him and said, I want to take this back to the UK and launch it. That was the start of what has been thousands of conversations about the value that we can add both in the US and the UK.  I worked in some law firms before I did my Master's and my PhD, but mainly my career has been in academia.  Ula Ojiaku  Wow. Thanks for sharing. And would you say it was serendipity that made your paths to cross and how are you finding the journey so far?  Ali Hawks  I think, yes, I think it's serendipity. I have a really different life journey than Pete. And I think in my career at the time when I met Pete, I hadn't really found what it is, what I felt like my purpose should be, or hadn't really found passion or joy in my work to that day. I found things I loved, I loved academia and I love teaching, but it just still didn't hit all of those things that you kind of get up every day and are like, this is what I'm meant to do. And I had done a lot of work on reflecting of what that would feel like and what that would look like and the elements it had to have. So by the time I met Pete, it was almost as if someone was flashing a huge sign at me saying, don't miss your turn, this is your turn. So I think serendipity, but also really understanding what it is that I wanted to do and the type of people I wanted to work with and the journey so far. I'll hand over to Pete in a second, but it's been nothing short of incredible. Pete has an amazing reputation, but as a business partner and as a leader, he allows people to truly learn, experiment, make mistakes, and he pulls everyone along by building confidence and empowering people that work for him. So in terms of kind of coming from academia and becoming a researcher turned entrepreneur, it's been the most formative experience of my career. Being able to work along Pete is like being able to work alongside that kind of guide or that guru, and you're like, wow, I can't believe I get to talk to this person every week and learn from them and be in business with them. So that's how it's going for me. Pete, how's it going for you?  Pete Newell You know, Steve Blank and I had a long conversation about serendipity when he and I met 2015 and here's my advice in serendipity. It really is if you have an active curiosity and a willingness to say yes to things that you wouldn't normally, and you're not adverse to taking risk, the chances of serendipity smacking like lightning greatly go up. And then I go back to my first trip to Stanford University in 2011. Well, I was still a military officer and saying yes to a number of things that people asked me to do, and just one conversation after another led to a meeting with two guys who were Stanford graduate school instructors who were writing a book. Those two decided to write a chapter in that book about the work I was doing at the Rapid Equipment Force. Now, when Huggy Rao and Bob Sutton decided to write a book and hire a case study writer who spent six months digging into your life, you learn all kinds of things about yourself and about the world, and when that's followed by a chance coffee with Steve Blank, who had no idea who I was, and I had no idea who he was, that 15-minute coffee turned into a four-hour discussion between the two of us. I typically would not have been at the Fort Belvoir thing that Ali was at, and I think our meeting was very brief, but it was, I think, six months later when I found her in the library at Georgetown University at some social event and we both decided that we wanted her to do something, and we wanted to do something in the UK, and we wanted to see something between allied countries come together. There was no strategy or grand business development, there was nothing that drove those conversations. It was simply in the spur of the moment, the curiosity takes over and you start to say I can see where this might work. Now, Ali will be the first to tell you, it has not been easy, but it has been a privilege to work with her and to continue to work between the two governments and the countries to see absolutely brilliant things done. And so I just say, I come back to, it's that curiosity connected with the desire to, the willingness to accept a little bit of risk, but learning how to say yes to things that you're uncomfortable with and digging just a little bit more. That opens up that opportunity so much more.  Ula Ojiaku I could see, it's evident to me the way Ali was talking about working with you, Pete, and your leadership, I'm wondering, could there have been anything about your military background that has influenced your leadership style as a whole? Pete Newell Yeah, everything in my background does. I can tell you, even growing up as a kid that the way my parents raised me influenced me positively, and negatively in some cases. My military background, I have been fortunate to work for a group of fantastic military leaders, I spent time in the Special Operations community, I spent time working for Stan McChrystal, I spent time in the Pentagon working for brilliant people. I also worked for some of the absolute worst bosses in the entire world, and I rarely say this about people, they were just bad human beings, and I will tell you in many cases what I learned watching a leader in a just really horrible environment influenced me more than watching the really brilliant guys out there. If you think about it, it's really hard to pattern yourself after somebody who is brilliant and driven and successful and kind and they do all that, but I'll tell you what, you can look at somebody who is really a bad boss and say, I don't want to be like them, and it happens in an instant, that I do not ever want to be like that person. That teaches you a lot about the environment that you want to create that people are going to work in. I have some hard areas, and Ali will acknowledge some of them, in the way people are treated in the workplace. Also as a graduate of the Special Operations community, I have strong feelings about how high performing people should be allowed to perform, and also expectations of how they work. I think the military left me with a high degree of not just respect, but you want to hire people, there's a certain degree of dedication to their success, whether they stay in your company or whether they leave, or they go someplace else, whether they're challenged or something else. And I'll tell you, if there was something hard about transitioning from the military to the business world is, in the military, you're given people and you're told to make them successful no matter what. In the business world, you tend to just fire people who are unsuccessful and not invest time and energy in them. I have never been able to make that change, and it's a bit of a struggle sometimes, because in the business world, you can't afford to hang on to people who are subpar performers, if you want to run a high-performance organisation. So if there's one of the things that I have learned is I am challenged in letting somebody go because I see it as a personal failure if somebody fails to thrive in my organisation, that has been built and imprinted by my past. I think Ali has a very different opinion, because she comes from such a great different place. Here's the beauty of it, the work with people like Ali and some of the others, we can argue and disagree and fight like cats and dogs sometimes, but we still love each other, and it is still an absolutely amazing environment to work in. That's really what, if you get it right, that's what life's like.  Ula Ojiaku What's your view, Ali?  Ali Hawks So we clearly have different backgrounds, I think that I was a bit of a late bloomer in terms of leadership style. Being in academia, you're not really in a leadership position because you're responsible for yourself, and in a way, it's a really good test bed for being an entrepreneur, because in academia you have to have such thick skin, because you turn in your peer reviewed journal publications, you turn in your papers and people write back and slash, and no one's trying to make you feel good. In fact, they want to help you, but also they're quite competitive. So that was a really good proving ground for being able to develop the thick skin for critical feedback or any feedback and really all of the knocks that come with being an entrepreneur. What I took into starting BMNT here four years ago was, things that I took from Pete and from the U.S. was really allowing people and high performers to work in the way that they feel best. One of the things I hated when I was younger in certain jobs, and working in law firms is punching your time card at 8 am, and you punch out at 5, and an hour for lunch, and it never felt right that that was the way to measure someone's productivity or to really enhance or empower people. And so the way that I approach it is we consider everyone to be an adult and to do their job, and also to be as curious as possible. So on our Standup this morning, with two new team members coming back into BMNT, one of the things that we agreed on is if no one's asking for time off to be creative or to have a day or two days to read a book that will enhance their knowledge or make them a better BMNTer, then we're failing. If no one has asked for that time by the end of this calendar year. So the way that I really approach leadership is how can I empower, but also invest in every single person, because it's not me delivering the everyday work, it's the people in my company, so they're building it alongside of me. I hire smart young people who will give feedback and we action that feedback. So we change things based on what we get from a 23-year-old, so everyone in the company feels really valued. And I think, learning from Pete, is also being really honest and transparent with everyone in the company when your chips are down and you have to say, guys, this is what's going on, and I found it has built such a strong cohesion in the team that we have now, that this year going into it is the most excited I've ever been about running BMNT. So taking a lot of what I learned from Pete and also my own experiences of feeling really caged, actually, in most of my jobs, and being able to understand that people work in very different ways, and if you allow them to work in the ways that are best for them, you really do get the best of everyone.  Ula Ojiaku That's very inspiring and insightful. Now, there was something Pete said earlier on about you, Ali, walking up to him and sharing the vision that you wanted to take back what BMNT is doing to the UK and so what made you go for it, what pushed you towards that? Ali Hawks Again, it was a lot of work on my part of really understanding what I wanted to do, and when I approached Pete that day, I was really excited and exuberant and I said, I want to take this back to the UK and I want to run it. And Pete is, as you get to know him, he's very calm and he's quiet, and he kind of looked at me and he said, you should talk to some people. And I thought, okay, I'll go talk to people. So I went out and I talked to people and I got Pete on the phone a few weeks later and I said, Pete, this is my dream job, this is what I want to do. And Pete said, prove it, do a Business Model Canvas. So I then hung up the phone, I googled Business Model Canvas, I watched YouTube videos on how to complete it. I was still working at the 809 Panel, so I was getting up really early to talk to people back in the UK, make phone calls, pulling on all of my contacts because I've been in defense and national security for gosh, since 2009, and I was canvassing everyone I knew, I filled out the Business Model Canvas, I sent it to Pete, he was going to be in DC about a week later, and he wrote back saying we should meet. So we then met and had an initial conversation around what it could look like, but it really wasn't until as Pete said in that library at Georgetown for a reception that we came together and having had both time to think and think about what I put down in the Business Model Canvas, but also how we got along, I think, and gelled as business partners, we decided, let's do it. So when we said we didn't have a plan, I had an idea of what we could do, and I have unfailing determination to make things work, and so I just knew, and I think we both knew if we tried it, that something would come of it, and if not, we would learn a lot from it. So we went from there and it took a while before we got a plan, to be honest, but we got there. Ula Ojiaku Well, here you are. Ali Hawks Exactly. Pete Newell You know, if there's one thing I have learned as an entrepreneur is that the plan you thought you were going to have, is never the one you actually execute. So the faster you begin to test it, usually by talking to people and doing things, the faster you will get rid of bad ideas. And it's not about finding the good idea, but it's about creating all the ideas you could possibly have and then killing them off quickly so that you understand the core of the value that you think you're going to deliver. Everything after that is the mechanics of how to build a business. I mean, that's not easy stuff, when you're launching a company, more importantly when you're launching one in a country you haven't been in in a while, but getting there is really about getting the thought process moving and getting people to disabuse you of the notion that every idea you have is brilliant. Ula Ojiaku I mean, I agree setting up a business isn't easy. I can't imagine the additional challenge of setting it up in the defense sector, the Department of Defense in the US, Ministry of Defence here in the UK. What sort of things would you say would be the additional? Do you have to go through hurdles to go through approvals, clearances and all that? Ali Hawks From the MOD experience, it's less about clearances and those types of things, it's more about understanding, winding your way through what feels like a maze, to find the right stakeholders that you can bring together at the right time to make a decision. So while there are individuals that hold budgets and can make decisions, there's a constellation of people around them that need to be aligned in concert with that decision. If you went to a business, of course, you'll have to have a couple of people on board, but the time to sale or the cost to sale is relatively straightforward. When you go into the government, you have a group of highly motivated people, highly mission-driven people who experience the pain of their problems every day, and they are trying to fight just as hard as you are in order to change something for the better. So in the first instance, you have great allyship with your customers, because you have a shared mission, and you're both working towards it, which is fantastic. The second is really trying to understand if that person has the budget and they need to sign off on it, how much do they need to care about it, or is it their chief of staff that needs to really care about it? Or is it their engineer? So I would say the difference is the amount of discovery that you do and doing that stakeholder mapping, is fundamental to success, but also knowing that people change jobs in the civil service and the Armed Forces every few years, that is a critical skill as a business working with the government, that stakeholder mapping and that discovery with your customers, customer development never ends. So I think that that is the longest pole in the tent in terms of finding the right people, and sometimes people say that's the person that has authority, you go talk to them and they say, no, I don't have any authority, so it's really trying to wind your way through the maze to align those key stakeholders. Pete Newell I would add to what Ali said, is that it's like climbing into a very complicated Swiss watch and you need to understand not just how things work, but you need to understand why they work the way they do, and how they work with other things, and then you need to understand who's responsible for making them work and who the beneficiary of the work is, and who possibly might want to make them not work. So, Ali's comment on stakeholder development, it's at the heart of everything you do -- you talk about more sociology and anthropology than it is anything, it truly is understanding why things work the way they do and what drives people to behave one way versus another. Once you figure that out, then you can figure out how to motivate them to behave one way or another, and where you might fit to help them in their daily job or whatever else. But that stakeholder development and understanding who's in charge, who benefits, who doesn't benefit, why something might be counter to something else is so critical in any consulting business, but in particular, if you are trying to get something done inside a government organisation. It, in many cases, it's archaic, but it still operates underneath a very definitive culture that you can map if you've been at it long. Ula Ojiaku So BMNT, you help government organisations to solve hard problems at speed and at scale. Can you expand on this? Pete Newell It's both I think. I go back to my experience, way back in the Rapid Equipping Force and 2010 is first and foremost, there are tens of thousands of problems that prevent the government from doing what it wants to do. The government is challenged, first, in being able to identify those problems; second, in translating those problems into plain English that other people might understand; third, in using that translated thing to find ever bigger groups of people, to then redefine the problem one more time, so that it makes sense for the rest of the world; and fourth, creating the policies and process that will attract people to come to them and work with them to solve those problems fast enough to build a solution before the problem changes so much that the calculus is completely out of whack again. And in all this there's a complicated long answer, but the impedance difference between the speed at which you develop and acknowledge a problem and your ability to get people to work on it, if it's out of sync with the speed at which technology is being adopted and adapted, you will constantly be perfectly solving the wrong problem, and you'll be constantly delivering things that are antiquated before the day they land in somebody's hands, so that's really the speed issue. I go back to what I said about sociology. This is the speed of your ability to get people to come together to work on something, and then the scale is determining, scale how fast, and scale how big. The scale how fast is, I can start to deliver a solution to this, but I know the solution is going to change every 6 months. So I don't need to commit to building tens of thousands of these over a 5-year contract, but I do need to commit to changing what I deliver every 6 months, or this is going to scale to some big end and it goes into a much different system, you have to be ambidextrous about your approach to scale, and unfortunately most procurement laws, both the United States and in the UK are not built to be ambidextrous. They're built to do one thing and one thing very efficiently only. Unfortunately, that's not the way the world works anymore. Ula Ojiaku Any thoughts, Ali? Ali Hawks As Pete said, and as a sociologist, the most often thing, and I think Pete said this a long time ago when we first met, is the government doesn't have a tech adoption problem, it has a people problem, and a lot of our work, a lot of our customers will come and say they have a tech problem, and they have a huge degree of urgency, but the things that get in their way are they have no common language, and they have no repeatable and scalable process in which to think about and work on their problems. And the framework that we developed, the innovation pipeline, is that process for them to do it. It's not complicated, it's methodology agnostic, and so it allows you to develop an entire workforce around a common language of innovating, mission acceleration, agile transformation, whatever you want to do, recognising that people are at the heart of it. The Head of Innovation at UC Berkeley and during one of our Lean Innovators Summit, said something that has stuck with me for several years now, ad he said, and it really hit home with our customers, because sometimes when I first started BMNT here, I was such an evangelist that I forgot to listen to the customer. I was just so convinced that they needed what we had, and I think the customer was telling me something else and I would get frustrated, and when I heard this, it was resistance is rational. When we go into a room with a group of people, we usually have a customer who is an evangelist of ours, or an early adopter, a huge supporter, and they have a couple of other people who feel the same way they do about change and innovation and moving rapidly, and then 70 percent of the team don't feel that same way. So approaching it and really empathising with the customers and understanding resistance is rational, why would they want to change? Things for them work, the way that they have always done, it works, and that is a rational response. So being able to then develop a service where you're connecting with them and saying, I understand that, and that's a rational response, and then using tools, like one of my favourite tools, the Value Proposition Canvas, to really understand, what are the jobs to be done, and the pains and the gains, and when you speak in that type of language, there are so many times that I have seen this kind of aha moment of like, oh, so if I did that, then I wouldn't have to do this anymore, or I would be able to do this different thing. And this is not complicated, these are not complicated tools or processes we're talking about, but the common denominators of it are discipline, consistency, and hard work. And I think, coming off what Pete said, when you want to get pace and speed, you have to be consistent and you have to be disciplined, and people have to understand what you're saying in order to get over that resistance is rational piece. Pete Newell I think Ali's spot on in terms of the problem with the problem. Oftentimes is, we can put a problem in a room and 10 people work on it and get 10 different versions of the problem, and so part of the art that's involved in the process is to get a group of people to agree to a common definition of a problem and use the same words, because many times we're inventing new words. It's new technology, new problem, but the first thing we do is get everybody to say the same thing the same way, and then start to talk to other people about it, because part two of that is you learn that your problem is probably not the right problem, it's a symptom of something else, and that whole process of discovery is a very disciplined, I would say it's a scientific methodology applied to how we communicate with people. You have to get out and test your theory by talking to the right people in a big enough diverse crowd to truly understand that whether you're on the right track or the wrong track. That's hard work, it really is hard work, and it's even harder to get what I would say critical feedback from people in the process who will challenge your assumptions and will challenge your test, who will challenge the outcomes of that. That's what our team does such a great job of, working with customers to teach them how to do that, but listening to them and helping them come together. At the same time, we're looking at the quality of the work and because we're a third party, we can look over the shoulder and say I see the test, and I see the outcome, but I don't think your test was adequate, or I don't think you tested this in an environment that was diverse enough, that you may be headed down the wrong path. The customer can still decide to go with what they learn, but in most cases, at least they're getting honest feedback that should allow them to pause and relook something. Ali Hawks I think for this particular reason, this is why BMNT is a leader in this space, is because the kind of jurisdiction around that front end of the pipeline, of are we making sure that we're choosing from enough problems and we're not stuck with a couple of investments that might be bad, so to speak, really validating that problem to decide, is it worth working on, is this even progressible, does anyone care about it, can it technically be done, does the organisation care about it, before spending any money on investment. Now that front end of the pipeline is gradually becoming a stronger muscle, and I'll speak for the UK, is gradually becoming a stronger muscle because of the work that BMNT has done, and both in the US and the UK, there is incredibly strong muscle memory around experimentation and incubation, which is fantastic. There's a lot of structure around that and frameworks and a lot of common language, which is amazing, because when you have that developed, going back to the beginning to refine before you put into the machine, so to speak, that's where what we call curation, really validating that problem, that's a single most determining factor on whether a problem will transition to an adopted solution. Most of government starts in experimentation and incubation, so they don't get the benefit of de-risking investment in a solution, and they don't necessarily get the benefit of all the learning to expedite that into incubation and experimentation. So I think where BMNT comes out and really owns that area is in that front end of the pipeline, and when you do that front end, you would be amazed at how fast the other part of the pipeline goes through discover incubation experimentation, because you've increased confidence and really de-risked investment in the solution. Ula Ojiaku Thanks for sharing that Ali, would you say you're applying lean innovation amongst other things to the framework you're referring to, or would that be something else? Pete Newell No, I think that it's all part of the process. We use a variety of tools to get to the data we want, and then it's a matter of doing analysis, and this is why Ali's background as an academic is so critical, because she's keen on analysis, and looking at the data and not skewing the data one way or another, and that's an incredibly important skill in this process. Again, this is really the application of a scientific methodology, and you need to be able to do that, but you need to understand how to get the data. So whether it's Lean or it's Scrum or it's some Google tool or something else. We have become really adaptive in the use of the tools and a mixture of the tools to drive a community of people to create the data we need to make an assessment of whether something's going the right direction or not. And that's the beauty of being involved with the Lean Innovation Educators Forum, the beauty of the time we spend with folks like Alex Osterwalder or with Steve Blank or with the folks from the d.school at Stanford or any of those places that are developing tools. It is understanding how to use and adopt the tool to fit the circumstances, but at the end of the day, it's all about creating the data you need to use the analysis that will drive an insight, that will allow you to make a decision. Too often I find people who are just overly enamoured with the tool and they forget that the tool is just a tool. It's about data, insight, and decisions, and you have to get to a decision at some point. Ula Ojiaku Data, insight, decisions. Amazing. So, if we shift gears a little bit and go into your Strategic Innovation Project, SIP, I understand that one of the shifts you're driving in the DoD and MoD respectively is about their approach to involving private investment in defence technology. Could you share a bit more about that? Pete Newell As part of the innovation pipeline, you have to eventually transition out of the discovery phase and at the end of discovery, you should know that you have the right problem. You have a potential solution and you have a potential pathway that will allow you to deliver that solution in time to actually have an impact on the problem. At that point, you start incubating that solution, and if it's a tech or a product, then you're talking about either helping a company build the right thing, or you're talking about starting a new company, and that new company will have to do the thing. Our work in terms of early-stage tech acceleration is really now focused on what we call dual-use technologies. Those technologies that are required to solve a problem in the military, but also have a digital twin in the commercial world. There has to be a commercial reason for the company being built that's actually going to solve the problem, and so as we looked at that, we found really interesting conversations with investors in the United States and then eventually overseas who were looking for a way to help defense get the technologies it wanted, but have portfolios that don't allow them to just invest in a defense technology, and they were looking for an opportunity to engage one, with like-minded investors, but two, in honest conversations about problems that existed in the military and in the commercial world so they can make better decisions about the deployment of their capital to create the right companies. I think it's probably been five years now we've been working on the hypothesis around this. we started to develop a very strong language around dual-use investments in early-stage tech acceleration and adoption, and we started to build new tools inside government programs, as well as new groups of investors and other folks who wanted to be involved. All that was fine in the United States, but then we found it was a slightly different application outside the United States, particularly in Europe, which is not necessarily the most Startup friendly environment in the world in terms of investment, but at the same time, understanding that the United States has an unequalled appetite for technology to the point where that technology doesn't necessarily exist within the United States, nor do the best opportunities to test that technology exist for the United States, so we had to come up with a way that would allow us to do the same type of investigation with our allies, which turns into this incredible opportunity amongst allied nations and companies and vendors and things like that. And I know that from Ali's standpoint, watching NATO DIANA and other programs start, that it is more challenging, it's a different environment in Europe than it is in the United States. Ali Hawks Picking up there and in terms of the way that we think about investment, and what Pete is talking about is a program we run called Hacking 4 Allies. We currently work with Norway and take dual-use Norwegian Startups into our incubator and accelerator called H4XLabs in the US and we help them enter the US defense market and the commercial market, and one of the things that we're starting to see over here is it is a pathway that doesn't really exist in Europe. So when we think about NATO's DIANA, what DIANA is focused on, which is dual-use and deep tech and what they are overly focused on, and I think is correct, is how do you raise investment in the countries themselves to help booster a whole range of effects around being able to raise money within the country? Ultimately, though, and a lot of what DIANA was doing, in terms of the concept and its focus on dual-use and deep tech, was before the invasion of Ukraine, and so at that time before that, I think in terms of the NATO Innovation Fund and thinking about investment and NATO, it wasn't as comfortable with dual-use and investing in dual-use as the US is, not only is the US comfortable, but you have things like we helped a private capital fund, where people feel a great deal of patriotism, or that it's a part of their service to be able to contribute in that way. That feeling doesn't exist, it exists here, but it manifests itself in a different way, and it doesn't manifest itself as let's invest in dual-use technologies to help our defense and national security. So there's different understandings and cultural feelings towards those things. Now, having had the invasion of Ukraine and now the war in Israel and Gaza and now in Yemen, I think that the change is accelerating, insofar as what are the capabilities that we need to rapidly develop within NATO to be able to feel secure on our borders, and what type of investment does that take? Now, US investment in Europe has dropped about 22 percent in 2023, and so they're a little bit nervous about investing in these companies, and so the strength that being able to change the investment paradigm, which is ultimately, the companies that are going to receive the investment from the NATO Innovation Fund and NATO DIANA, they want to develop in the country, but ultimately all of those companies and their investors want them to get to a bigger market, and that bigger market is the US. So, what we are able to do is to connect real dollars, government dollars and commercial dollars, to those companies. We are one of the only pathways outside of export regimes for the Department of International Trade here in the UK. We are one of the only private pathways that has not only been tested and proved, but that we are able to take more companies year on year, take them to the US and prove that model. Now that's really exciting, especially as we see some of the investment declining, because we're able to identify those companies, we're able to connect them to problems that matter that people are trying to solve, develop the use cases, and then help them on the commercialisation side of things in terms of going into a new market. I think that the way that we think about investment in the US from a BMNT perspective, and the US is a little bit different from Europe and the UK, but the exciting thing is now that we have this proven pathway to enhance and accelerate concepts like DIANA and the NATO Innovation Fund. Ula Ojiaku So it sounds to me like it's not just about the localised investment into the innovation, it's also about BMNT building pathways, so European Startups, for example, that want an inroad into the US, maybe vice versa. Pete Newell I think the AUKUS DIN, the Defense Investor Network really is the collection of the US Investor Network, the UK and Australia. All three countries had Defense Investor Networks that had been set up over the last several years and primarily focused on, one, allowing investors to engage other investors about topics that are of common interest when it comes to this dual-use paradigm; and two, being able to engage with people in the government about things the investors were concerned about. I'm very clear when I talk about the Defense Investor Network, it is about defense investors, not about the government's problem. I've had to redefine that multiple times, as this is about enabling investors to be more proactive and participate in building the right kinds of companies, not about the government telling investors what they need to do, or the government telling the investors how they need to do it. It really, it was built from the investor perspective, and then we found is that the investors were prolifically honest about their feedback to senior people in the government, which I think has been hard for people in the government to get that kind of feedback, but when an investor with a portfolio of 30 and 40 companies looks at the government and says, I will never do it the way you just described, and here's why. Until you change that quantity, it makes no sense for us to participate, invest in, do, you'd be amazed. Sometimes it is the first time somebody's been able to articulate why something isn't going to happen, and then people nod their heads, well, I'll quit asking for that, or I'll go back and change something to see what it is we can do. So, we went from Hacking 4 Allies, which started out as a BMNT program with the Norwegians, to Hacking 4 Allies with the UK, Australia, Norway. At the same time, we had set up the Defense Investor Network, but as soon as we started the Allies program in the UK, the UK-based investors raised their hands and said, what you're doing in the United States, we want to do here, and then the same thing happened in Australia. When they made the AUKUS announcement, it just made too much sense to be able to look at, if we really want a free flow of technology and problems across the AUKUS governments, then surely we should be building ecosystems of like-minded people who can help drive those conversations. So it was super, super easy to bring the AUKUS Investor Network together, it was just too easy. The part that I think is not so easy, but we need to do work on is we, those investors need to be fed problems that are of an AUKUS nature, and at the same time, the governments need to listen to the investors when they tell them they have problems investing in companies that aren't allowed to participate in exercise or training or contracting or acquisitions in a different country, and if you really want to make AUKUS a real thing, there are a lot of policies that have to change. There's been a lot of progress made, but I think there's a lot more left to do to, to really get the opportunity to happen. Ula Ojiaku And would you say some of the problems would be related to what government officials would call national security, because if it's a dual-use spec, whilst it has its secular or commercial use, in the military, you wouldn't want other people knowing how you're deploying that technology and the ins and outs of it. So could that be one of the issues here? Pete Newell My definition of national security really touches public safety all the way up to military, so it's both. I think if you dig into it, it touches everything from supply chain, to access, to raw materials, to manufacturing, to education and workforce development, and you name it. There's a paradigm shift that has to happen if we're going to build more things, more often rather than long term ships and things like that, that as allied nations, we have to be able to attack all of the underlying foundational problems, and that's my supply chain, raw materials, manufacturing, and workforce that's necessary for the future. No one country is going to get that fixed all by themselves, and I think, to me, that's the absolute brilliance of what AUKUS should be able to focus on. Ali Hawks I agree, and I think that to being able to co-invest as well, the opportunity for investors to come around and understand what are the opportunities to, not only co-invest and coordinate, but to be able to scan their companies and their deal flow to see where their companies can partner and secure greater work and contracts and scale. So I think that it's a really important initiative in terms of being a steward of an extremely important ecosystem, not only being a steward, but being able to build that ecosystem of support and development. How we look at national security in the UK is really no different than what Pete talked about, and when we think about working with companies and the willingness to work with big tech companies or small tech companies or whatever it is, it's not just simply one transaction where, here's the money and here's your software. So obviously the kind of employment and the skills, but what is the ecosystem around that technology that is necessary? Does it require sensors and chips, and what is it that it requires that's going to bring in multiple different industries to support it, and that's really what the agenda here around prosperity is. How do we invest in these types of technologies and their ecosystems around it to have a more prosperous Britain? So you have a wider spread of skills as opposed to just investing in one thing. I think that's where AUKUS brings three very important allies together to be able to do that individually, but then the option to do it across in terms of the broader strategy and the policy around AUKUS, is a once in a lifetime chance that I think has come up. Ula Ojiaku So I think the key thing here is, this is a space to be watched, there's lots of opportunity and the potential of having the sum being greater than the parts is really huge here. One last question on this topic. So you said deep tech, and with Open AI's launch of ChatGPT earlier on last year, the world seems to have woken up to, generative AI. Do you see any influence this trend would have, or is having, in the military space in the Defense Innovation space. Pete Newell I think the world has woken up and is staring into the sun and is blinded. The challenge with AI in general, and I would say that it's not the challenge, AI has a long way to go, and by and large, folks are really focused on the high end of what AI can do, but people have to learn how to use AI and AI has to learn. What we're not doing is using AI to solve the mundane, boring, time wasting problems that are preventing our workforce from doing the high end work that only a human being can do, and I don't care how many billions of dollars we're pouring into building robots and other things, it's all great, but we still have government people managing spreadsheets of data that, they become data janitors, not analysts, and it is particularly bad in the intelligence world. I quote the Chief Information Officer of a large logistics agency who said data is not a problem, we have tons of data, it's just crappy, it's not tagged, it's not usable, we have data going back to the 1950s, we have no means of getting that data tagged so it's useful. Now, if we put time and energy into building AI products that would correctly tag old data, it'd be amazing what we can do. In the cases that we have helped develop tools with our clients, they'll save anywhere from a million to 300 million dollars a year in finding discrepancies in supply chain stuff, or finding other issues. So imagine if we put that kind of work in place for other people, but free people up to do more, better, smarter things, how much more efficient the use of the government's time and money would be, so that that money and that time could be invested in better things. So when I say, yeah, the AI is out there and people's eyes are open, but they're staring into the sun. They're not looking at the ground in front of them and solving the things that they could be solving at the speed they should be doing it, and unfortunately, I think they're creating a gap where legacy systems are being left further and further behind, but those legacy systems, whether it's finance, personnel, supply chain, discipline, things like that, aren't going to be able to make the transition to actually be useful later on. So I would describe it as an impending train wreck. Ula Ojiaku And what would be, in your view, something that could avert this oncoming train wreck. Pete Newell I think a concerted effort, really just to have the government say we're going to use AI to get rid of as much of the legacy brute force work that our populations are doing so that we can free them up to do other things. Part of this is we're then going to take the money we save and channel that money back into investment in those organisations. Right now, the money just goes away, that's great, you did better, therefore, your budget's reduced. There's no incentive to get better that way, but if you look at an organisation and say, you know, if you can save 10 million dollars a year, we'll give you that 10 million dollars to reinvest back into your organisation to do better and something else. Now, you have some incentive to actually make change happen. Ula Ojiaku Any thoughts, Ali? Ali Hawks I think the exciting thing for us, the way that I look at it in terms of government is that that government enablement to be able to use AI, here they are building large language models for the government based on the data that they have, and there's a lot of excitement around it and there should be. It's a pretty exciting thing to do. I think where we're in a really strong position and what I find really exciting is being able to do what we do best, which is help them understand what is the query and how do you validate that query? So what are the basic skills that you need to be able to interact, and then to be able to retain the skills of critical analysis, so when the answer comes back, you do not take that as the end all be all. It is a tool. So within your decision-making process, it's decreasing the amount of time it takes you to gather a certain amount of information, but just as you would if you were doing a book report, you still have to validate the sources and understanding, and you have to apply your own judgment and your own experience to that packet of information, which is what we all do every day, but it's not really thought about that way. So I think that the way that people are looking at it here is it will be able give us the decision and it will be able to kind of do our job for us, and for some tools, yes, and I completely agree that we need to free up all of the mundane work that hoovers up the time of civil servants here, because it's extraordinary how they're bogged down, and it completely disempowers them and it contributes to low retention rates and recruitment rates. But I think also it's developing the muscle to be able to do that critical thinking in order to leverage human intelligence to engage with artificial intelligence. And I think that's where we are uniquely positioned to do that because that is the bulk of our work on the front end of the pipeline, which is how are you going to validate what you know, how are you going to get the problem statement in order to query what you need to query and then having the judgment and the analysis to be able to look at that answer and make a decision, based on your own human intellect. That's where I see it playing here. I completely agree with Pete, we have people looking into the sun being like LLMs and they're going to solve everything, but you sit, let's say a hundred people down in front of an LLM and tell me how many people know what to ask it, or how to use it and integrate it into their everyday workflow. There's a long way to go, but I feel really excited about it because I feel like we have something so incredible to offer them to be able to enhance their engagement with AI. Ula Ojiaku That sounds excellent, thank you. Just to go to the rapid fire questions. So, Ali, what books have you found yourself recommending to people the most? Ali Hawks So I don't read a lot of work books, in terms of like how to run a company or anything like that, sorry, Pete, but, and I have a 4-year-old and three stepchildren, so I don't actually read as much as I used to, but I have read over in the last few weeks, the book Impromptu by Reid Hoffman about AI, which is great, and I listen to a lot of podcasts on my commute into London, so the Huberman Lab podcast I listen to a lot, but if you're looking for workplace inspiration, I'm afraid I look at Instagram, listen to podcasts, and then I follow Allie K. Miller, who writes a lot about AI, came out of Amazon, and she is fantastic for breaking things down into really bite sized chunks if you're trying to learn about AI, if you don't come from a technical background. Ula Ojiaku Thanks, Ali, we'll put these in the show notes. And Pete, what about you? Pete Newell I will give you two new books. One of them is a fun one, Wiring the Winning Organization written by Gene Kim and Steven Spear. Steve Spear is a good friend of ours, he's been a great mentor and advisor inside BMNT for a long time, I've known Steve since way back in my early days. The other one is by Huggy Rao and Bob Sutton, and it's called The Friction Project, and it's just like you say, it's all about friction in the workplace. I think both of those books tend to lend themselves to how to drive performance in organisations, and I think, knowing all of the authors, that they are phenomenal books, but I think the experience the four of them bring to the dialogue and the discussion of what the future workplace needs to look like and the things we need to solve will all be buried in those books. In terms of podcasts, I'm all over the map, I chase all kinds of things that I don't know. I listen to podcasts about subjects that I'm clueless about that just spark my interest, so I wouldn't venture to pick any one of them except yours, and to make sure that people listen to yours. Ula Ojiaku You're very kind, Pete. Well, because you're on it, they definitely would. Would you both be thinking about writing a book sometime, because I think your story has been fascinating and there are lots of lessons Pete Newell Only if Ali would lead it. So I have picked up and put down multiple proposals to write books around the innovation process within the government and other places, and part of the reason I keep stopping is it keeps changing. I don't think we're done learning yet, and I think the problem writing a book is you're taking a snapshot in time. One of the things that we are very focused on for the military, we talk about doctrine, what is the language of innovation inside the government workplace? It's the thing that we keep picking up, we've helped at least one government organisation write their very first innovation doctrine, the Transportation Security Administration of all places, the very first federal agency to produce a doctrine for innovation that explains what it is, why it is connected to the mission of the organisation, and describes a process by which they'll do it. I think within the Ministry of Defence, Department of Defense, there needs to be a concerted effort to produce a document that connects the outcome of innovation to the mission of the organisation. We call that mission acceleration. We look at innovation as a process, not an end state. The end state is actually mission acceleration. There's probably a really interesting book just to be written about Ali's journey, and I say more Ali's journey than mine because I think as a woman founder of a defence company in the UK, all of the characters in the book are completely unlikely. So somewhere down the road, maybe. Ula Ojiaku Well, I'm on the queue waiting for it, I will definitely buy it. So where can the listeners and viewers find you if, if they want to get in touch? Ali Hawks We're both on LinkedIn, so Pete Newell, Ali Hawks, our emails too are on our various websites, bmnt.com, bmnt.co.uk. Ula Ojiaku Awesome. Any final words for the audience? Pete Newell I'll say thank you again for one, having us. Like I said, it's the first opportunity Ali and I have had to be on a podcast together. Any opportunity I get to engage with the folks and have this conversation is a gift. So thank you for giving us the time. Ula Ojiaku My pleasure. Ali Hawks Yes, Ula, thanks very much for having us on together. It's been great. Ula Ojiaku I've enjoyed this conversation and listening to you both. So thank you so much. The pleasure and the honour is mine. That's all we have for now. Thanks for listening. If you liked this show, do subscribe at www.agileinnovationleaders.com or your favourite podcast provider. Also share with friends and do leave a review on iTunes. This would help others find this show. I'd also love to hear from you, so please drop me an email at ula@agileinnovationleaders.com Take care and God bless! 

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova.    This week, I'm excited to re-share a conversation with retired U.S. Army colonel and Silicon Valley investor Peter Newell.   Pete is the co-founder and managing partner of BMNT, an investment company that provides early-stage investment to companies developing technology for the commercial market that has relevant applications in solving national security problems. He is a co-author of Hacking for Defense, a platform that merged the rapid problem-solving techniques curated on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with a lean startup methodology developed by Steve Blank in Silicon Valley. Pete is a former Army Ranger who has received numerous military awards and decorations, including the Silver Star and the Presidential Unit Citation. It's an honor to have Pete on the show to discuss innovation, deploying, and forward-thinking.   THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… leaders interested in identifying and fixing problems and wanting to move their teams and companies forward with an innovation focus.   TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE… this episode is all about bringing the battlefield to the boardroom and re-engineering the problem. Your role as a leader is not to sell products. Your role as a leader is to identify the problem and guide your team and your customers to an innovative solution. Lack of investment in understanding the problem is what ultimately leads us to failure.   WHAT  I  LOVE  MOST… I love the concept of innovation exhaustion and the difference between “innovators,” “makers,” and “hackers.” I love that distinction along with the thinking around deploying an idea and making sure you design what people are actually looking for–thinking about the customer. It's necessary to be innovation-focused if we want to keep pushing ourselves, our people, and our companies forward.   Running time: 34:52   Subscribe on iTunes   Find Tiffani Online: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn   Find Pete Online: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn  

Bull Holland (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bullholland/). He is a Defense Acquisition professional with a passion for mentoring students, scientists, and technology innovators. He is a proven leader with experience working with foreign, federal, and state government agencies, academia, and industry.He works for BMNT - BMNT is a global innovation company for governments & their partners. We use startup methods inside large organizations to create new capabilities.Bull leads the H4Xtraining Program (https://www.h4xtraining.bmnt.com/)The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the host and guests and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the analysis do not reflect the position of any entity other than the author(s) – and since we are critically-thinking human beings, these views are always subject to change, revision, and rethinking at any time. Please remember that the information presented in this podcast is for general informational purposes only and should not be taken as professional advice.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/philosophy-from-the-front-line--4319845/support.

Since 2016, the Department of Defense and other national security agencies have partnered with the Hacking 4 Defense program allowing students at universities across the U.S. and the globe to address critical problems facing the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community. Launched as a pilot out of Stanford, the program has expanded to more than 63 universities and enlisted more than 3,000 students for the course. And more recently, participating universities have partnered with our allies and universities in the U.K. and Australia to work on common problems. This week, the latest Hacking 4 Defense cohort is beginning, and it's the largest ever, with 37 universities teaching 39 H4 courses, supporting 120 student teams with over 500 students between the U.S. and U.K. Joining the podcast to discuss the evolution of Hacking 4 Defense and what to expect from the latest cohort is Pete Newell, co-founder and CEO of BMNT, the defense innovation firm that runs the Hacking 4 Defense program.

The U.S. national security apparatus in 2021 signed on to a trilateral partnership with the United Kingdom and Australia that has come to be known as AUKUS. The partnership, as the Pentagon explains, is intended to strengthen the ability of each government to support security and defense interests, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, building on longstanding and ongoing bilateral ties. And it will promote deeper information sharing and technology sharing; and foster deeper integration of security and defense-related science, technology, industrial bases and supply chains. Back in December, a group led by private sector defense innovation firm BMNT launched the AUKUS Defense Investors Network — a network of leading private capital investors from 300+ institutional venture capital firms, corporate venture capital (CVC) groups and family offices from the three nations. d military capabilities in cyber, AI, quantum, undersea capabilities, hypersonics, counter-hypersonics, EW and information sharing – areas where private sector investment can accelerate government investment in developing solutions to critical security challenges. Heather Jo Richman is the founder and co-chair of the AUKUS DIN. For much of her career, Richman has served in roles serving alongside the U.S. DOD and the Intelligence Community to create ecosystems of innovators and investors to engage in national security-focused problem solving on all levels. I recently spoke with Heather from her home in the Silicon Valley area in California to learn more about the new AUKUS DIN. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.

Join us in the BreakLine Arena for a conversation with William Treseder, Senior Vice President at BMNT, a company transforming how governments deliver new capabilities at speed and at scale.William dives into all things defense tech, including the evolutions he has seen over the past decade and the current state of the market. He also shared the story of his non-linear career path and the essential insights he gained along the way. “There's more defense startup-related activity now on any given day than there was in an entire year, ten years ago.”Please like, rate, subscribe, or review our show if you've liked what you've heard! We'd love to hear your thoughts. If you're interested in joining our community, please visit www.breakline.org. If you're interested in exploring partnerships with BreakLine, please visit https://breakline.org/partners/partner-signup/.

Chief innovation officer – it's a title you don't often see across the federal government. But at the Transporation Security Administration, it's become a critical role for building and sustaining a culture of innovation and creating an environment that incentivizes anyone across the agency to innovate. Dan McCoy served as chief innovation officer at TSA from May 2020 to Oct. 2022. Now the head of business development for BMNT, McCoy joins me on the Daily Scoop Podcast to discuss what he learned during his time as chief innovator at TSA and how other federal agencies can take that blueprint to create of culture of innovation, whether they have a chief innovation officer or not. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and Stitcher.

Join host Jess Larsen and guest Daniel McCoy, Former Chief Innovation Officer at TSA to learn how he revolutionized TSA and now takes on a new role at BMNT to drive innovation in national defense, intelligence, space exploration, and health research! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of ASPI's special podcast series, The Sydney Dialogue Summit Sessions, John Leslie, Director of Trade and Investment and Lead for Space & Defence at Austrade speaks to Heather Richman, Entrepreneur in Residence at BMNT, and Linda Lourie, Senior Advisor with WestExec Advisors. They discuss all things defence innovation, investment and security. The conversation covers the different approaches of government and industry to innovation, how the government can support innovation and the role of industry in security innovation. Guests (in order of appearance): John Leslie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-leslie/ Heather Richman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherjrichman Linda Lourie: https://www.westexec.com/linda-lourie/ Music: "Eclipse-6" by Michikawa. Via: www.tribeofnoise.com/

Welcome to the Burn Bag's collaboration with Girl Security, a workforce mentorship program designed to help young women pursue careers in National Security. This series focuses on how we can reframe our thinking on National Security — what is pertinent to national security in the 21st century? Who, or what, is missing from the national security discussion? Join us as we explore topics within each episode alongside experts in the realm of national security, hosted by Andrea Ochoa and Girl Security Fellows.This week, Andrea and Sravya Kotamraju speak with Ellen Chang, Vice President Ventures and head of H4X Labs at BMNT, about the breadth of opportunities available in private sector national security work. Ellen touches on her work and prior experience as a former U.S Navy Intelligence Officer and defense industry expert to provide a thorough break down of the dynamics of government and private sector collaboration, international cooperation in advancing technologies, and innovation in this space. Our hosts learn more about the future of private-public sector partnerships and how younger generations can be involved. Tune in as we expand more upon the various stakeholders involved in our country's security. 

Subscribe to The Realignment to access our exclusive Q&A episodes and support the show: https://realignment.supercast.com/.REALIGNMENT NEWSLETTER: https://therealignment.substack.com/PURCHASE BOOKS AT OUR BOOKSHOP: https://bookshop.org/shop/therealignmentEmail us at: realignmentpod@gmail.comPete Newell, CEO of BMNT and former director of the U.S. Army's Rapid Equipping Force, joins The Realignment to discuss his efforts to adapt the military to the rapidly shifting battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq, innovation lessons from the war in Ukraine, the impact of technological change, and how large organizations such as the Department of Defense can solve critical problems at startup speed.

On this episode of the DefAero Report Daily Podcast, sponsored by Bell, Sabra Horne, an NSA and CISA veteran who is now the entrepreneur in residence at the BMNT consultancy, discusses efforts to accelerate US government and Pentagon innovation efforts are bearing fruit, where progress is being made, why real innovation is more than just technology but culture change and personnel practices, how to speed the process, the role of the Office of Personnel Management in crafting a talent management system that rewards prudent risk taking, and luring new talent to government service at a time when working for private industry is increasingly more lucrative with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian.

Global Product Management Talk is pleased to bring you the next episode of... Product Mastery Now with host Chad McAllister, PhD. The podcast is all about helping people involved in innovation and managing products become more successful, grow their careers, and STANDOUT from their peers. About the Episode:  Today we are talking about building more innovative organizations. To help us with that, we have the author of Creating Innovation Navigators: Achieving Mission Through Innovation joining us. That is Sabra Horne, who is Entrepreneur in Residence at BMNT, where she supports the development and deployment of government innovation efforts. Before joining BMNT, she was Chief of the Innovation Hub, responsible for envisioning, establishing, and developing innovation efforts in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Previously, she served the National Security Agency (NSA) as Deputy Chief for Information Sharing and Collaboration, facilitating sharing of NSA's most highly classified intelligence. 

I was pleased to have Pete Newell back on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss the urgency of getting innovative defense prototypes into the field and working with partner nations. Pete is founder and CEO of BMNT Inc., a global technology advisory firm, co-founder of Hacking 4 Defense, and a retired Army Colonel who ran the Rapid Equipping Force that fielded hundreds of products into Iraq and Afghanistan. 1:05 - The problem with the National Defense Strategy 2:55 - Hacking for Allies program 5:30 - Doing DOTMLPF in six months instead of six years 7:50 - Congress will have to drive change 10:00 - Acquisition risk reduction increases warfighter risk 12:25 - Joint assignments for innovation 14:40 - Ukraine's speed to incorporate new tech 16:30 - Story of heroic tech transition at the REF 23:30 - Turning saboteurs into advocates 28:00 - Program Manager personal networks 32:50 - What to do in 3-5 years to deter China 35:00 - How to fix Defense Innovation Unit 40:00 - Office of Strategic Capital This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. As this year comes to a close, I'm revisiting one of my favorite episodes with retired U.S. Army colonel and Silicon Valley investor Peter Newell! Pete is the co-founder and a managing partner of BMNT, an investment company that provides early-stage investment to companies developing technology for the commercial market that have relevant applications in solving national security problems. He is a co-author of Hacking for Defense, a platform that merged the rapid problem-solving techniques curated on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with a lean startup methodology developed by Steve Blank in Silicon Valley. Pete is a former Army Ranger who has received numerous military awards and decorations, including the Silver Star and the Presidential Unit Citation. It's an honor to have Pete on with us today to discuss innovation, deploying, and forward-thinking.   THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…  Leaders who are interested in identifying and fixing problems and who want to move their teams and companies forward with an innovation-focus.   TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE…  Today's episode is all about bringing the battlefield to the boardroom and re-engineering the problem. Your role as a leader is not to sell products. Your role as a leader is to identify the problem and guide your team and your customers to an innovative solution. Lack of investment in understanding the problem is what ultimately leads us to failure.   WHAT  I  LOVE  MOST… I love the concept of innovation exhaustion and the difference between “innovators,” “makers,” and “hackers.” I love that distinction along with the thinking around deploying an idea and making sure you design what people are actually looking for–thinking about the customer. It's necessary to be innovation-focused if we want to keep pushing ourselves, our people, and our companies forward.   Running time: 34:38 Subscribe on iTunes     Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn   Find Pete Newell on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

Engineering Success interviews Floriane Fidegnon-Edoh a Consultant for BMNT Floriane is currently working on the Royal Navy contract, helping them to correctly identify and translate operational problem areas. She has a background in manufacturing engineering and public policy, having worked in a manufacturing production environment, a public policy think tank and the charities sector. Prior to joining BMNT, Floriane was a department head in a public policy think tank, as the head of the Industry, Technology and Innovation team. She has extensive experience working with civil servants, parliamentarians, private and public sector stakeholders across manufacturing, data analytics and innovation policy translating and publishing challenges into actionable recommendations for government. As a manufacturing engineer for a major pharmaceutical company, she contributed to a number of lean and innovation-led programmes that were adopted to improve production performance. Floriane is a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) design and manufacturing policy panel and an IEEE TechEthics ambassador, advising professional institutes on their engagement with industry and academia in emerging markets. Floriane is passionate about diversity, inclusion, equity and youth engagement in STEM. She founded and led the Warwick Women's Engineering Society, is a Royal Academy of Engineering Leaders Scholar, and regular science communicator. She is a charity trustee for Stemette Futures as well as the Chairperson of the Stemette Futures Youth board. She holds a first class BEng in Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Warwick.

Sabra Horne joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discussed her new book: Creating Innovation Navigators: Achieving Mission Through Innovation. She is an executive in residence at BMNT, and before that she held a number of important roles including Innovation Hub Chief at DHS's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Deputy for Information Sharing and Collaboration at the National Security Agency, and an advisor to the Chief of Staff for the Director of National Intelligence. 1:20 - characterizing the 300 federal innovation efforts 3:40 - streamlining clearance and suitability processes 6:30 - how to select metrics and evaluate performance 10:00 - when mission calls, people deliver 13:30 - using commercial solutions openings  17:00 - leadership and the DHS procurement innovation lab 22:00 - partnering with general counsel to adopt authorities 23:50 - BMNT's innovation navigator's course 27:00 - how to get to 'yes' with the frozen middle and stakeholders 31:10 - we need 20 Hondo Geurts and 20 Mike Browns 32:30 - it took 30 years for government to organize around cyber 37:00 - the innovation pipeline 39:30 - requirements and budgeting misaligned with human-centered design 45:00 - engaging with industry 50:00 - investment readiness levels, adoption readiness levels This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. You can follow me on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at https://AcquisitionTalk.com

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This content was originally published on BMNT's YouTube Channel. You can find the original video here. In this follow-up conversation to BMNT's June panel "The Race for Autonomy: Navigating a New Battlefield," A'ndre Gonawela talks to Dr. David Broyles, Research Program Director at the Center for Naval Analysis and co-host of "AI with AI", on the challenges facing the Department of Defense when it comes to developing and leveraging autonomous systems and capabilities. Dr. Broyles digs into why he (like our prior panelists) believes the state of autonomy today is ‘brittle', and why the end goal for many is ‘general AI' – the ability for artificial intelligence to behave and adapt like human intelligence can. We discuss Dr. Broyles' belief that an ‘AI Winter' may be approaching, where momentum in the development of systems is slowed or even halted. We then dig into where the Department of Defense is on the racetrack, dissecting the lingering confusion that underlies the differences between unmanned systems and autonomous systems, and how we can better equip DoD leaders in understanding how autonomous systems can operate. Dr. Broyles highlights opportunities to build trust in autonomous systems with the warfighter, in addition to addressing the edge cases and ‘fat tails' that can impede the success of autonomous vehicles.   You can read about our first panel here: https://www.bmnt.com/post/the-race-for-autonomy-is-here Notes from Episode General consensus of state of autonomy is that it is brittle, and still in infancy when it comes to DoD Bigger debate in AI community – end state is general AI, equivalent to human intelligence, adaptable to environment, and process things like a human can. What are the tools to go about this? Two camps that disagree with each other: Neural network reward: Can employ larger neural networks, dump more data, put more processing power, and have reward schemes. Symbolic logic camps – need ways to encode information in symbols that machines can manipulate at higher levels of aggregation. Still trying to figure out the things we really need to make these things work and get rid of the bugs. AI Winter? There have been periods where the momentum in AI development stopped – last one in early 2000s, influenced by availability of graphical processing capabilities (large computational power being dumped on the problem) Are we coming to the limits of the tools and capabilities we've developed? Margins of incremental improvements are diminishing. AVs are a bellwether of progress – if progress isn't delivered in tangible ways, market could lose interest, meaning less financial investment. AI Summer? Alexnet winning image recognition competition in 2014 was first real success of neural networks, motivated community at large, many developments between 2014 through 2019. People were trying many different tools. Where's DOD with developing/leveraging autonomous systems? It's hard to pinpoint where they are on the racetrack. Confusion between unmanned and autonomous systems – can be communicated unclearly, sometimes unmanned systems are mistakenly attributed as autonomous when they aren't. First major step is for DoD to employ more unmanned systems – it's been slow, but CNO actually incorporating uncrewed systems into their force structure direction is a significant step. Lots of little things here and there are going on but there's nothing being coordinate in a big way. CDAO (Chief Digital AI Office, former JAIC), is trying to play a role here but there's more ways in which they can step in. Ensuring trust for warfighters? You can either not have enough trust, or you can overtrust, and the latter gets less attention – the example here is Tesla's autopilot system being overtrusted and then getting involved in deadly crashes. Need to get autonomous systems into the hands of the warfighters – biggest priority. Need to communicate the capabilities better to an operator, need to ensure that the operator can have other cues and/or ways of interacting with the system. Do our DoD leaders understand how autonomous systems can be used/leveraged and how they work? Can we work to educate them quickly? Area of high concern, and cyber discussions are indicative of the difficulties that could be faced as senior leaders have taken some time to embrace and understand the technologies. Very small number of senior leaders who have a good idea of what's going on, and larger number with staff who know what they're talking about, but there's issues with proposals promising to develop tech that simply won't happen. People in approval chain may not understand that these things won't work Arming senior leaders with the key questions, but that's a bandaid – we need more people with basic understandings of how these technologies work. This does not necessarily mean we hire computer scientists, but DoD can work internally to raise the floor on level of understanding – and these areas are beginning to slowly come up to speed. Addressing edge cases? Fat tails – distribution of things that you may run into, most of the stuff is going to fall into a general bin, but there'll be edge cases that'll extend. What happens if a plastic bag runs into a screen of an AV? Uber and others couldn't just throw hundreds or millions of hours of driving data to fix this. Solution is General AI – we can't throw fat tail problems into same bucket. Running simulations still runs into the same problem, and throwing info won't solve it. There really is no good answer, there's not been a good articulation of the answer. We're trying to minimize the edge cases as best we can. However, alternatives like smart roads and sensors can provide added information to help prevent accidents or minimize disruptions in environment. Experimentation – What's Commercial doing that DoD is not doing? Mechanics around how to do things are the primary thing that can hinder experimentation. There's a strange acquisition ecosystem that isn't always friendly to innovative ideas going through standard program office processes. Policy Lagging Behind on Autonomous Systems? There are some new technologies falling under clear regulation – and as long as it doesn't cause any other problem, but because these technologies are so wide ranging they can cause issues. You can forecast some of these things, but there's always an unexpected bit. Is there a general philosophy on how to handle this? There'll always be questions on privacy and safety. Is DoD adequately reaching out to small businesses? It is happening, but biggest barrier (in his view) is DoD contracting and being able to decipher postings, requirements, forms, and etc. Need to take a quantitative approach to assessing effectiveness of this.

Innovation is the word of the day. Every organization talks about innovating and hiring innovators. How to you find such people -- whether inside your agency or applying for jobs -- and make sure they're able to, well, innovate? For one view, innovation Federal Drive host Tom Temin talked with Entrepreneur-in-Residence at consultancy BMNT and former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency innovation hub chief, Sabra Horne.

Peter Newell (@PeterANewell), CEO of BMNT, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways:- Peter was “handed the Ferrari of skunkworks” when he came to be in charge of the Rapid Equipping Force. It was a program that handled over a billion dollars to deploy new technologies.- He became more of an entrepreneur after his time at the REF and that led to starting BMNT.- Often times procurement in the US military is HQ-centric and product-centric and does not take into account the needs of the people on the ground.- The acquisition system that was built in the 1950s in the US presumes that the military can perfectly understand the problem and build a perfect solution for it. However, this takes much too long to deploy and isn't suited for modern times.- A founder can't go all-in on selling to government — they have to be able to build for both government and commercial.- Often times companies will receive indefinite delivery contracts where it is unclear how much money they will actually receive. You might land a budget with SOCOM but it's hard to actually get the dollars out of Congress.- Hiring a lobbyist to educate you on the processes and people within the US government is a good idea but hiring a lobbyist to do business development for you is often not the right approach.- It's best to invest in building networks in VC and at DoD before hiring consultants.- Not having enough people to do the advanced manufacturing that the US needs keeps Peter up at night.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary onthe latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Peter Newell (@PeterANewell), CEO of BMNT, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways:- Peter was “handed the Ferrari of skunkworks” when he came to be in charge of the Rapid Equipping Force. It was a program that handled over a billion dollars to deploy new technologies.- He became more of an entrepreneur after his time at the REF and that led to starting BMNT.- Often times procurement in the US military is HQ-centric and product-centric and does not take into account the needs of the people on the ground.- The acquisition system that was built in the 1950s in the US presumes that the military can perfectly understand the problem and build a perfect solution for it. However, this takes much too long to deploy and isn't suited for modern times.- A founder can't go all-in on selling to government — they have to be able to build for both government and commercial.- Often times companies will receive indefinite delivery contracts where it is unclear how much money they will actually receive. You might land a budget with SOCOM but it's hard to actually get the dollars out of Congress.- Hiring a lobbyist to educate you on the processes and people within the US government is a good idea but hiring a lobbyist to do business development for you is often not the right approach.- It's best to invest in building networks in VC and at DoD before hiring consultants.- Not having enough people to do the advanced manufacturing that the US needs keeps Peter up at night.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We'll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary onthe latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Lean Innovation Problem Solving With Peter Newell Peter Newell is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, a Palo Alto-based innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in […] The post Lean Innovation Problem Solving With Peter Newell – #332 appeared first on James Taylor.

Lean Innovation Problem Solving With Peter Newell Peter Newell is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, a Palo Alto-based innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in […] The post Lean Innovation Problem Solving With Peter Newell – #332 appeared first on James Taylor.

Innovation Is All About People With Alison Hawks Dr. Alison Hawks is the CEO of BMNT, Ltd and Executive Director of the Common Mission Project in the UK, and a recognized expert in military strategy and sociology.  Ali was previously the Director of Research of the Section 809 Panel, a US congressionally mandated commission tasked […] The post Innovation Is All About People With Alison Hawks – #331 appeared first on James Taylor.

Innovation Is All About People With Alison Hawks Dr. Alison Hawks is the CEO of BMNT, Ltd and Executive Director of the Common Mission Project in the UK, and a recognized expert in military strategy and sociology.  Ali was previously the Director of Research of the Section 809 Panel, a US congressionally mandated commission tasked […] The post Innovation Is All About People With Alison Hawks – #331 appeared first on James Taylor.

Pete Newell is a nationally-recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage tech accelerator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond. Pete is a founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic program that focuses on solving national security problems. It has in turned created a series of sister courses—Hacking for Diplomacy, Hacking for Oceans, Hacking for Sustainability, Hacking for Local and others—that use the H4X® framework to solve critical real-world problems Pete is also the Co-Founder and Board Director of The Common Mission Project, a 501c3 non-profit responsible for creating an international network of mission-driven entrepreneurs, including through programs like H4D®. Pete served as the Director of the US Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF). Reporting directly to the senior leadership of the Army, he was charged with rapidly finding, integrating, and employing solutions to emerging problems faced by Soldiers on the battlefield and was responsible for the Army's first deployment of mobile manufacturing labs, smart phones merged with tactical radio networks, and tactical drones. In this podcast, he shares: Lessons from accelerating innovation in the military that can be applied to business The key stages you should be focusing on in your innovation pipeline Why driving innovation is sociological problem, not a technical one The first step you should take if you want to elevate innovation in your organization __________________________________________________________________________________________"Part of the beauty of a pipeline is that you start with a lot of volume and you make hard decisions about the things that go through it. So that increases the velocity, both in terms of speed and pressure, because it allows you to focus your resources on a smaller and a smaller group of things until you pile everything you own on the things that you know are going to win, but you can't get there without having a large pool of things you're sourcing." -Pete Newell__________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Introducing Pete + The topic of today's episode2:11—If you really know me you know that...3:04—What is your definition of strategy?3:44—Could you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to your work?6:15—Could you walk us through the key 10 steps of your process of innovation?9:27—Where do you think large organizations most often falter in this process?11:00—How does an organization flip failure to seeing it as learning?15:20—Could you share an example of an organization that gets this process more right than others?17:18—How do you balance speed and killing ideas off?17:57—What are the first steps a Chief Strategy Officer should take in their organization?19:08—How can people connect with you and learn more about what you're working on?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Twitter: https://twitter.com/peteranewellLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petenewell/

Pete Newell is a nationally-recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage tech accelerator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond. Pete is a founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic program that focuses on solving national security problems. It has in turned created a series of sister courses—Hacking for Diplomacy, Hacking for Oceans, Hacking for Sustainability, Hacking for Local and others—that use the H4X® framework to solve critical real-world problems Pete is also the Co-Founder and Board Director of The Common Mission Project, a 501c3 non-profit responsible for creating an international network of mission-driven entrepreneurs, including through programs like H4D®. Pete served as the Director of the US Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF). Reporting directly to the senior leadership of the Army, he was charged with rapidly finding, integrating, and employing solutions to emerging problems faced by Soldiers on the battlefield and was responsible for the Army's first deployment of mobile manufacturing labs, smart phones merged with tactical radio networks, and tactical drones. In this podcast, he shares: Lessons from accelerating innovation in the military that can be applied to business The key stages you should be focusing on in your innovation pipeline Why driving innovation is sociological problem, not a technical one The first step you should take if you want to elevate innovation in your organization __________________________________________________________________________________________"Part of the beauty of a pipeline is that you start with a lot of volume and you make hard decisions about the things that go through it. So that increases the velocity, both in terms of speed and pressure, because it allows you to focus your resources on a smaller and a smaller group of things until you pile everything you own on the things that you know are going to win, but you can't get there without having a large pool of things you're sourcing." -Pete Newell__________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Introducing Pete + The topic of today's episode2:11—If you really know me you know that...3:04—What is your definition of strategy?3:44—Could you tell us a little bit about your background and what led you to your work?6:15—Could you walk us through the key 10 steps of your process of innovation?9:27—Where do you think large organizations most often falter in this process?11:00—How does an organization flip failure to seeing it as learning?15:20—Could you share an example of an organization that gets this process more right than others?17:18—How do you balance speed and killing ideas off?17:57—What are the first steps a Chief Strategy Officer should take in their organization?19:08—How can people connect with you and learn more about what you're working on?__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Twitter: https://twitter.com/peteranewellLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petenewell/

Peter Newell is a retired US Army colonel of 32 years and a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is changing how the government and companies compete and drive growth.

In this episode, A'ndre and Ryan speak with Col. (ret.) Peter Newell, founder and CEO of BMNT, an organization seeking to drive competition within both the government and the private sector. Pete discusses his experience leading the U.S. Army Rapid Equipping Force, talking sourcing, acquisition, and personnel, and how his experiences there have translated into lessons on defense innovation. Peter also provides six take-aways from his military career that can be applicable to startups -- including how to address an adversary that may be "shrewder and faster" and how to get the right people in the same room.

John and Renaldo recap the BMNT at the FIBA WC '23 Pre Qualifiers.

On this episode of the DefAero Report Daily Podcast, sponsored by Bell, Col. Pete Newell, US Army Ret., the former director of the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force who is now the CEO of BMNT, discusses the Hacking for Defense and Allies initiatives, driving innovation at speed and scale, creating the right architecture for change and more with Defense & Aerospace Report Editor Vago Muradian.

In this episode, I’m really excited to have as my guest, Steve Weinstein. With a background that spans technology, product development, and entertainment, Steve Weinstein is an innovation expert, entrepreneur, and educator who enjoys building products or teaching others how to build companies using Lean Startup techniques. Steve is Senior VP of Strategy at BMNT Inc, helping to create pipelines of innovation that companies, government agencies, and other large organizations can use to stay competitive. A former C-level executive at a number of startups, he teaches entrepreneurship classes, including Steve Blank’s Lean LaunchPad course, as well as Hacking for Defense and its sister courses, Hacking for Social Impact and Hacking for Oceans, at multiple major universities including U.C. Berkeley and Stanford. Before joining BMNT, Steve was founder and CEO of Motion Picture Laboratories, the Silicon Valley-based R&D center funded directly by the six Hollywood major studios. He was CTO of Deluxe Entertainment; guided the transition from physical technologies to e-commerce at Rovi Corporation; and at Vicinity, a mapping company acquired by Microsoft in 2002. He was also a founding executive and Chief Strategist and Technologist at Liberate Technologies, an interactive television software company. In our discussion, Steve talked to me about: Creating value beyond the dollars in profit The impact of consumer perception on brands What a mission-driven organisation is and how they behave Listen to the podcast to learn more. Show Notes and Blog The Podcasts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you apply the lean startup methodology to the military? Well, that's the subject of this week's episode of Agile Giants. Pete Newell, whose name may sound familiar because Steve Blank mentioned him at the Corporate Entrepreneurship Forum as the co-author of his upcoming book, Innovation Doctrine. Pete is the CEO of BMNT Inc., a Silicon Valley based innovation consultancy and early stage tech accelerator. He's a retired US Army colonel and the former director of the US Army Rapid Equipping Force. You'll hear on this week's episode a little bit about what Pete's been doing both with BMNT and in the classroom with Steve Blank. And again, just like we did on Steve's episode, teasing this book coming out that I know so many of you are excited about, Innovation Doctrine.

Are you wondering how your business can innovate better? Are you confusing methodologies and activities with the process of actually keeping and creating a pipeline of innovation? Then don't miss this hugely insightful episode all about innovation, with the internationally recognised innovation expert, Pete Newell. Pete finished his 32-year military career with a 3-year tour running the US Army's skunkworks - or in layman's terms, he was the Director of the US Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF). He had a remit to go and find problems and solve them, using commercial technology to solve a battlefield problem. Out of the 300 problems he was tasked with solving, he found resolutions for 20 of them. An incredible hit rate.When he realised he couldn't stay in that role indefinitely, Pete retired from the military to found BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in US national security, state and local governments, and beyond. Pete is also founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic programme originally taught at Stanford University. “[This is] the only class they take in their academic career that allows them to use everything they use in university or network they build to work on a real problem with real people to give them real experience that leads to real jobs.”So to find out what the fundamental things are inside an organisation that you need to do to drive innovation in your business, don't miss this fantastic conversation. On today's podcast:The work of BMNTRapid Equipping Force (REF)Hacking for Defence (H4D)®H4X® - the operating systemWhen Silicon Valley met the militaryThe innovation pipeline

In this episode, I’m really excited to have as my guest, Peter Newell, who is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. A retired Army Colonel, Pete is the CEO of BMNT, a Palo Alto-based innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond. Pete is also co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic program taught at 40+ universities that teaches students how to quickly solve critical national security problems while performing national service. In our discussion, Pete talked to me about: The idea of practicing risk-taking in a safe environment, to learn about the value of "failure" Moving from a product-centric to a problem-centric mindset The art of discovery - the best way to get over your fears and to test your ideas Listen to the podcast to learn more. Show Notes and Blog The Podcasts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ellen Chang, director at BMNT and partner at Syndicate 708 talks about working with the DoD as a startup, she explained how a startup can get funding from the Department of Defence, what are the major problems of working with it and much more. We've also covered the major challenges for deep tech startup founders. Resources mentioned in the episode: DEF: https://www.def.org/ SBIR: www.sbir.gov DOD SBIR: https://www.dodsbirsttr.mil/submissions/login Syndicate708: www.syndicate708.com

In our previous episode, Adam Thomas introduced how he uses a military technique (BLUF) for prioritisation. This week, former US Marine William Treseder – now co-founder and SVP of Product at innovation consultancy BMNT – joins us to talk about how he works with Government, Defense, Academic and Corporate clients to transform their innovation culture. [...] Read more » The post Accelerate Your Product Development – William Treseder on The Product Experience appeared first on Mind the Product.

Pete Newell is a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond.  BMNT is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington DC, Boston and London. He holds holds a BS from Kansas State University, an MS from the US Army Command & General Staff College, an MS from the National Defense University and advanced certificates from the MIT Sloan School and the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is  also a founder and co-author, with Lean Startup founder Steve Blank, of Hacking for Defense (H4D)®, an academic program taught at 22+ universities.In addition, Pete is a Board Member for Solace Power, a wireless power technology company; and Hacking for Defense Incorporated, the 501c3 non-profit responsible for extending Hacking for Defense® academic programming to universities across the United States. Prior to joining BMNT, Pete served as the Director of the US Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF).  Reporting directly to the senior leadership of the Army, he was charged with rapidly finding, integrating, and employing solutions to emerging problems faced by Soldiers on the battlefield. From 2010 to 2013 Pete led the REF in the investment of over $1.4B in efforts designed to counter the effects of improvised explosive devices, reduce small units exposure to suicide bombers and rocket attacks and to reduce their reliance on long resupply chains.  He was responsible for the Army’s first deployment of mobile manufacturing labs as well as the use of smart phones merged with tactical radio networks. Pete retired from the US Army as a Colonel in 2013. .He is an Army Ranger who has received numerous awards to include the Silver Star and Presidential Unit Citation.  (Interviewed by Chris Joannou @DREAMPUSHERS).

In today's episode of the Idea to Value Podcast, we speak with Pete Newell, Founder of BMNT. We speak about how to align innovation strategy with operations in large organisations. Topics covered in today's episode: 00:01:30 - How Pete's history in the military with the US Army's Skunkworks influenced his journey to innovation 00:03:00 - The military is always in a certain state of chaos at the head of the battlefield, moving towards structure as you move up the chain of command 00:05:00 - How companies suffer from innovation exhaustion 00:06:00 - What is an innovation pipeline? From start to finish in 5 steps 00:09:30 - No problem survives first contact with investigation. Finding the right problems is vital 00:11:00 - Between every stage of an innovation pipeline, it requires someone making a decision about what is required from one activity to the next activity with another team. Many people are too focused on proving the purpose of the current activity, rather than thinking what should be the series of priorities 00:15:00 - How BMNT assesses a company's current innovation pipeline Links mentioned in today's episode: BMNT's website: https://www.bmnt.com/ Bonus: This episode was made possible by our premium innovation and creativity training. Take your innovation and creativity capabilities to the next level by investing in yourself now, at https://www.ideatovalue.com/all-access-pass-insider-secrets/ * Subscribe on iTunes to the Idea to Value Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/idea-to-value-creativity-innovation/id1199964981?mt=2 * Subscribe on Spotify to the Idea to Value Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4x1kANUSv7UJoCJ8GavUrN  * Subscribe on Stitcher to the Idea to Value Podcast: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=129437&refid=stpr * Subscribe on Google Podcasts to the Idea to Value Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9pZGVhdG92YWx1ZS5saWJzeW4uY29tL3Jzcw  Want to rapidly validate new ideas and innovative products and GROW your online business? These are the tools I actually use to run my online businesses (and you can too): * The best email management and campaigns system: ActiveCampaign (Free Trial) http://www.activecampaign.com/?_r=M17NLG2X  * Best value web hosting: BlueHost WordPress http://www.activecampaign.com/?_r=M17NLG2X  * Landing pages, Sales Pages and Lead collection: LeadPages (Free Trial) http://leadpages.pxf.io/c/1385771/390538/5673  * Sharing & List building: Sumo (Free) https://sumo.com/?src=partner_ideatovalue  * Payments, Shopping Cart, affiliate management and Upsell generator: ThriveCart https://improvides--checkout.thrivecart.com/thrivecart-standard-account/  * Video Webinars for sales: WebinarJam and Everwebinar ($1 Trial) https://nickskillicorn.krtra.com/t/lwIBaKzMP1oQ  * Membership for protecting content: Membermouse (Free Trial) http://affiliates.membermouse.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=735  * eLearning System for students: WP Courseware https://flyplugins.com/?fly=293  * Video Editing: Techsmith Camtasia http://techsmith.z6rjha.net/vvGPv  I have used all of the above products myself to build IdeatoValue and Improvides, which is why I can confidently recommend them. I may also receive affiliate payments for any business I bring to them using the links above. Copyright https://www.ideatovalue.com

This week, we’re talking to Pete Newell, retired U.S. Army Colonel, CEO of BMNT (a government consulting/innovation firm), and close collaborator of former guest Steve Blank. Pete has helped entrepreneurs and organizations across the globe apply the innovation lessons he learned in the Army to better perceive when significant – and disruptive - change is near. Now, amidst a global pandemic, those lessons are needed more than ever to respond to the demands of this crisis for a better, safer future. We learned from Pete that to successfully innovate through a crisis, we must be incredibly prepared and nimble - ready to adapt to a rapidly changing environment. Successful crisis innovators react and respond well to signals . . . those flares in the sky signaling that distress is near. Pete’s lessons from his time innovating in the military are important to all of us COVID-19 crisis innovators. Tune-in for lessons on adapting in a storm, and stay tuned for next week’s return guest—Steve Blank!

On today's episode, Justin welcomes Pete Newell,  a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is transforming how the government and other large organizations compete and drive growth. He is the CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest real-world problems in national security, state and local governments, and beyond. BMNT is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA, with offices in Los Angeles, San Diego, Washington DC, Boston and London. They discuss similarities in military and entrepreneurial leadership, lessons from failure and smart problem-solving.

Army Colonel Peter Newell (retired) is the founder and CEO of BMNT, a consulting company and early stage technology incubator that works with national security organizations to solve challenging problems. He has also co-founded Hacking for Defense, an academic program taught at more than 20 universities in the US which combines the best from the battlefield and successful Silicon Valley startups. The post 459: How to Break Into Careers in National Security With Pete Newell, BMNT [Espresso Shots] appeared first on Time4Coffee.

Ellen Chang C88, WG98, is Principal of BMNT Partners. In this position, she is leading efforts around innovation within the Navy and energetically grows the San Diego ecosystem that supports national security innovation. Ellen is also co-founder/managing partner of Syndicate 708, a deep tech focused investment syndicate that looks to accelerate companies @ LightSpeed. She also founded LightSpeed Innovations, and board an aerospace-focused accelerator dedicated to investing in and fostering startups in the aerospace sector, many of which have become successful going concerns. She speaks often on investment trends and nurturing new starts in this domain. Prior to BMNT, Ellen was VP Operations and VP Commercial Products for Cognitive Medical Systems, a Healthcare IT company that serviced the Veterans Administration. In this role, she led the finance, contracting and services delivery of this $15M company. She led the accounting function ensuring the company passed a GAAP audit on an annual basis and laid in operational processes to improve the development of market entry strategies for the clinical decision support system that Cognitive is developing. Ellen’s career spans from the U.S. Navy as an intelligence officer to JP Morgan where she focused on exploring and facilitating investing in start-ups. She later founded her own start-up in the aviation industry where the team focused on building a B2B aviation part sourcing and brokerage focused on business jets. During her 12 years at Northrop Grumman, she held positions as a systems engineer and program manager, working in design and development of autonomous systems ranging from the Global Hawk to the Unmanned Carrier-based unmanned aerial system and departed as Director of Advanced Systems where she and her team formulated and transitioned concepts targeted at a 5-10 year horizon. Ellen holds a bachelors degree in history from the University of Pennsylvania, an MS in systems engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School, and an MBA in Finance from The Wharton School. Ellen loves to run, taste wine, and travel. She is the chair of the Wharton Angel Network Southern California. She is also co-founder of Wharton Aerospace and runs the innovation-ventures focused Wharton Aerospace Ventures conference in San Francisco.

Pete Newell joined me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss a range of issues around problem curation and lean methodology. He is the CEO of BMNT, a firm that helps clients build problem solving teams to address significant issues. He is also on the board of Hacking 4 Defense and is a former Colonel who led the Army's Rapid Equipping Force just prior to retiring. During the episode, we discuss a range of issues including: - How to build and maintain discipline through the innovation pipeline - Advice for business leaders in the Covid-19 crisis - How Hacking 4 Defense is developing a new generation of entrepreneurs - What it means to be disciplined in an agile/iterative environment - Ways large enterprises can break away from their self-sabotaging processes The episode features a host of lessons learned from Pete's years of experience transitioning technologies. During his time leading the Rapid Equipping Force, Pete was able to take a $150 million budget and build an investment portfolio more than five times that size through partnerships and other methods. Ultimately, the REF transitioned 170 programs into production during Pete's time there. Pete explains how the Pentagon has become quite good at opening the aperture for new companies and ideas to get small projects started. More work is needed, however, on giving companies showing success multi-year/multi-million dollar programs of record. One problem he points to is in the handoff phases through the innovation pipeline. He recommends thinking about: (1) how we move people through stages; (2) how contract language should change as projects mature; and (3) what sources of funding are available. Until the government is able to demonstrate more successful transitions, it won't impact the psyche of entrepreneurs and investors who still look upon public sector with suspicion. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. Soundtrack by urmymuse: "reflections of u". You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at AcquisitionTalk.com.

Ellen Sundra, Vice President of Americas Systems Engineering at Forescout Technologies Inc., explains how Zero Trust Architecture allows agencies to secure their most important data with so many people teleworking Chris Moran, Vice President of the Lockheed Martin Corporation, and Peter Newell, CEO of BMNT, talk about the current landscape in the venture market for companies trying to penetrate the defense space Nick Sinai, Senior Advisor at Insight Partners, discusses the DIU and the new contract that will provide reporting on threat intelligence for Cyber Command

Okay, federal contractors. Listen up. Presuming you can keep your company live until the other end of the tunnel we're in, can you actually prosper? For some advice on navigating the next few months, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin turn to the CEO of innovation advisors BMNT, Peter Newell.

Just like entrepreneurs creating a startup, Peter Newell is addicted to solving problems. “When I got into a room with a bunch of startup folks and I had a problem it was like throwing fresh meat to a piranha.” A retired Army Colonel and former director of the Army's Rapid Equipping Force (REF), Pete is an accomplished entrepreneur and CEO of BMNT who is using the problem-curation skills developed from his time as with the REF to help government agencies and other large organizations adapt and evolve at startup speed. “The impetus was to create a company that would be the connective tissue that would translate things between the government, startup world, investors and others so that we can create these opportunities to actually help men and women at the edge of the battlefield.”

Peter Newell is a retired US Army colonel of 32 years and a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is changing how the government and companies compete and drive growth. He is the founder and CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early stage technology incubator that works with national security organizations to rapidly solve challenging problems. The post 302: How To Become Resilient & Handle Tough Times at Work w/ Pete Newell, BMNT & Hacking For Defense [K-Cup DoubleShot]  appeared first on Time4Coffee.

Pete Newell is a retired US Army colonel of 32 years and a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is changing how the government and companies compete and drive growth. He is the founder and CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early stage technology incubator that works with national security organizations to rapidly solve challenging problems. The post 301: How to Go From College Dropout to Motivated College Graduate w/ Pete Newell, BMNT & Hacking For Defense [K-Cup DoubleShot] appeared first on Time4Coffee.

Peter Newell is a retired US Army colonel of 32 years and a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is changing how the government and companies compete and drive growth. He is the founder and CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early stage technology incubator that works with national security organizations to rapidly solve challenging problems. The post 298: How Military Service Prepares Soldiers For Civilian Careers w/ Pete Newell, BMNT & Hacking For Defense [K-Cup DoubleShot] appeared first on Time4Coffee.

Peter Newell is a retired US Army colonel of 32 years and a nationally recognized innovation expert whose work is changing how the government and companies compete and drive growth. He is the founder and CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early stage technology incubator that works with national security organizations to rapidly solve challenging problems. The post 297: How To Turn a Military Career Into a Successful Silicon Valley Company w/ Pete Newell, BMNT & Hacking For Defense [Main T4C episode] appeared first on Time4Coffee.

klimaaktiv ist die Klimaschutzinitiative des Bundesministeriums für Nachhaltigkeit und Tourismus (BMNT) und ein Instrument für die Energiewende. Die klimaaktiv Konferenz 2019 stand ganz im Zeichen des Themas „Vom Reden zum Handeln! Wie muss man kommunizieren, damit Menschen aktiv werden?“. In diesem klimaaktiv-Special von Petajoule hören Sie den Mitschnitt einer Podiumsdiskussion, die am ersten Tag der Konferenz stattgefunden hat. - Mari Lang (Moderation) - Mathias Braschler und Monika Fischer (Schweizer Fotografen-Duo) - Theresa Imre (markta.at) - Johannes Praskac (Absolvent der HBLFA für Gartenbau Schönbrunn) - Jürgen Schneider (Chef der Sektion "Klima" im BMNT)

For the 100th episode of The Modern Architect, Tom welcomes retired Colonel Pete Newell. Pete is the CEO of BMNT and Board Director for Hacking4Defense, Inc (H4Di) H4Di is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established to enable powerful approaches to stimulating science and technology invention, disruptive innovation, and entrepreneurship on university and college campuses. H4DI solves real problems right now and tackles complex problems critical to national security. They also invent new technologies with a team of engineers, scientics, MBAs and policy experts.

Nicole Schöndorfer spricht über Frauen- und Männerbilder in der Gesellschaft und mit welchen Strategien sich junge Feministinnen wie sie heute behaupten. Aber auch darüber: Wie darf sich eine Frau benehmen? Oder: Was hat der Feminismus auf Twitter mit dem realen Leben zu tun? Links zur "Whistleblowing"-Site des BMNT: https://www.bmnt.gv.at/service/presse/land/2018/K-stinger---sterreich-treibt-Kampf-gegen-unlautere-Gesch-ftspraktiken-voran.html

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova.   This week I am excited to be chatting with retired army colonel and Silicon Valley Investor Peter Newell! Pete is the co-founder and a managing partner of BMNT, an innovation company that provides early-stage investment to companies developing technology for the commercial market that have relevant applications in solving national security problems. He is a co-author of Hacking for Defense, a platform that merged the rapid problem-solving techniques curated on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan with a lean startup methodology developed by Steve Blank in Silicon Valley. Pete is a former Army Ranger who has received numerous military awards and decorations, including the Silver Star and the Presidential Unit Citation. It's an honor to have Pete on with us today to discuss innovation, deploying, and forward-thinking.   THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… Leaders who are interested in identifying and fixing problems and who want to move their teams and companies forward with an innovation-focus.   TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Today’s episode is all about bringing the battlefield to the boardroom and re-engineering the problem. Rather than sell products your job as a leader is to identify the problem and guide your team and your customers to an innovative solution. Lack of investment in understanding the problem is what ultimately leads us to failure.   WHAT  I  LOVE  MOST… I love the concept of innovation exhaustion and the difference between “innovators,” “makers,” and “hackers.” I love that distinction along with the thinking around deploying an idea and making sure you design what people are actually looking for–thinking about the customer. It's necessary to be innovation-focused if we want to keep pushing ourselves, our people, and our companies forward. Running time: 34:23   Subscribe on iTunes   Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn   Find Pete Newell on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn

Sie hat ein Buch geschrieben, das jungen Frauen (und Männern) helfen soll, ihre Rolle in der Gesellschaft zu finden: Hanna Herbst, selbst erst 28, wurde von der Journalistin zu einer von mehreren Galionsfiguren junger Aktivistinnen in Österreich. Im Gespräch mit Sebastian Krause erzählt sie, warum Feminismus wütend sein darf und Humor Grenzen braucht, wie auch Männer Feministen sind können und wie es nach Vice nun weitergeht. Links zur "Whistleblowing"-Site des BMNT: https://www.bmnt.gv.at/service/presse/land/2018/K-stinger---sterreich-treibt-Kampf-gegen-unlautere-Gesch-ftspraktiken-voran.html https://www.bmnt.gv.at/land/produktion-maerkte/markt_preise/Whistleblowing-Website.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdcIsfQqvbw

Sept 12, 2018 | This third episode features Peter Newell, managing director at BMNT, a Silicon Valley company focused on solving national security challenges. He spent nearly 30 years in the military and when time came to transition out of the service, he knew what he didn’t want to do next: work for somebody else. So he uprooted his life to the West Coast, fought through a start-fail process and lived without a paycheck for a year, risking it all to launch his own company — and new passion.

When Colonel Peter Newell headed up the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force (REF) he used lean methods on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan to provide immediate technology solutions to urgent problems. Today, his company BMNT does for government and commercial customers what the Rapid Equipping Force did for the U.S. Army. Pete and I created the Hacking for Defense class (with Joe Felter and Tom Byers.) One of the problems our students run into is that there are always multiple beneficiaries and stakeholders associated with a problem, often with conflicting value propositions and missions. So how do you figure out whose needs to satisfy? Here’s Pete’s view of how you do it.

Savonix is neuroscience democratized. Its digital, research-based assessment delivers a state-of-the-art cognitive and emotional function evaluation. The evidence-based screening is a 30-minute (on average) assessment accessed from any iOS or Android device. Savonix Mobile is a state-of-the-art cognitive and emotional function evaluation that provides an accurate, accessible, actionable and affordable tool for professional cognitive screening Until Savonix, cognitive assessment remained locked inside dated, analog processes that are costly, time-consuming and only accessible through a clinician. The test, which is used for screening cognitive and emotional function, is accessible via any iOS or Android device during the open beta. Users can take the set of clinically valid neurocognitive tests to receive results in multiple domains, such as: Verbal memory Impulse control Sustained attention Information processing speed Cognitive flexibility Emotionality Working memory Executive function Emotion regulation Decision making Savonix also raised $1.5 million in seed round funding, led by RoundGlass Partners, with Kickstart Seed Fund, BMNT capital. I invited Savonix founder Mylea Charvat, Ph.D onto the show to learn more.

Jackie Space, Partner at BMNT Partners, explores DOD’s current focus on Silicon Valley and national security startups and offers advice to entrepreneurs in the domain.

In peacetime the U.S. military is an immovable and inflexible bureaucracy. In wartime it can adapt and adopt organizational change with startling speed. BMNT, a new Silicon Valley company, is combining the Lean Methods it learned in combat with the technology expertise and speed of startups.