Heidi Shyu, undersecretary for research and engineering at the Department of Defense and a 2022 Wash100 Award winner, said DOD will kick off planning for the second sprint of the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve that is set to take place in fiscal year 2024 and wants the sprint to address contested logistics, Breaking Defense reported Tuesday.
“Looking at the logistics problems the Russians are having. It’s a contested logistics environment. It’s not even that contested — it could be a lot more contested, a lot more difficult. So we truly want to focus on that area,” Shyu said at a conference in Hawaii.
RDER will also focus on long-range fires and all domain command and control and Shyu said she plans to work with nontraditional vendors for the second round of the joint experimentation initiative that seeks to address capability gaps and advance adoption of emerging technologies.
“So if you’re a small company and have a great idea, we’re interested in hearing your ideas. We are initiating that process pretty quickly. Probably in the next few weeks we’re starting our second sprint,” Shyu said during her keynote.
