Jane Edwards
The Department of Homeland Security has released a solicitation for a potential five-year program that seeks to develop prototypes of technologies meant to counter emerging threats and meet the requirements of the homeland security enterprise.
The other transaction solicitation for the Silicon Valley Innovation Program seeks to engage with non-traditional contractors to work on prototype projects and move them to the production phase, according to a notice posted Thursday on the SAM website.
The department’s science and technology directorate expects SVIP to have up to five phases and a total funding of approximately $75 million over the next five years. DHS plans to award prototype projects in the form of other transaction authority agreements.
Anticipated technical topic areas for technical calls under this solicitation include internet of things security, unmanned aerial systems security, aviation security, border security, cybersecurity, support to first responders and distributed ledger/blockchain technologies.
The initial phase will focus on adapting the technology to deliver a minimum viable product. Vendors under this phase will have either developed a technology proof of concept for demonstration or created reviewable modifications to preexisting technologies.
The second phase will build on the initial prototype to come up with a platform that demonstrates operational and commercial viability and is ready for independent review and evaluation, while the third phase will focus on deploying the prototype into a realistic test and evaluation environment.
Phase 4 is meant for operational testing of the developed capability, while Phase 5 will focus on additional testing and may be carried out in various environments using additional use cases.
