This month’s newsletter explores the Innovation Hubs at DEFENSEWERX (DWX). I had the opportunity to see the DWX presentation at last month’s Air Force Contracting Summit, and I knew I needed to share it with our Norcal PTAC – APEX Accelerator audience. DWX is a fantastic organization that allows small businesses, academia, industry, and other innovators to lower the barrier to gaining access to the federal government. Norcal PTAC’s service area is an innovator-rich environment; many innovators and startups will appreciate the opportunity DWX offers.
The first thing you should know is that DWX is not a government agency; it is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that utilizes non-Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR)-based mechanisms to support the federal government and provides its services for free. Being non-FAR-based allows DWX to reduce the bureaucracy that can inhibit innovators from traditional and nontraditional organizations from approaching the government through regular federal government innovation pipelines such as Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer.