EDGE® Innovation Center

Focuses on Federal Civil Government

By Pascale Matte, EDGE® Innovation Center Lead, Federal Civil Technologies

A new EDGE® Innovation Center with a focus on the Federal Civil government market has opened in Scottsdale, Ariz.

“The mission of the federal-civil focused Innovation Center is to create and maintain an open environment where members can nurture, characterize and position current and emerging technology to federal-civil government users to enhance their command, control, communications, interoperability and collaboration,” said Lee Wright, senior director of National Communications and Homeland Security for General Dynamics C4 Systems.

By adopting the creative and successful EDGE® model for the federal-civil government market, the EDGE® Innovation Network can bring solutions that address the mission challenges of non-DoD law enforcement agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), as well as state and local law enforcement.

This includes agencies such as the U.S. Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“We want to be the premiere innovative and collaborative model where federal-civil government customers can rapidly find technical solutions to support their expanding missions,” Wright added.

Candidate projects, such as radio interoperability, information sharing, and seamless access to voice and data, are some of the high-priority technology needs of these agencies that could be explored jointly with industry and academic EDGE® members.

Future plans include expanding the Center’s federal-civil focused capabilities via high-speed networks to General Dynamics C4 Systems offices in Arlington and Fairfax, Va.

For more information on the EDGE®, visit www.edge-innovation.com.