Naomi Cooper
Tony Frazier, executive vice president and general manager for public sector Earth intelligence at Maxar Technologies, said smaller companies could collaborate with prime contractors to better navigate the Department of Defense’s acquisition process, Defense One reported Friday.
Frazier, a six-time Wash100 awardee, added that prime contractors could show smaller companies “how we can get after a requirement more quickly.”
Biz Peabody, chief of staff of Shield AI, also said partnerships with big companies could enable technology developers to get their products into the market.
Peabody cited Shield AI’s recent partnership with Kratos Defense & Security Solutions to integrate the former’s artificial intelligence-powered autonomous pilot system into the latter’s XQ-58 Valkyrie unmanned aerial vehicle.
In addition, David Spirk, former chief data officer at DOD, noted that there is an increase in partnerships in the defense industrial base as major defense companies team up with smaller tech companies to expand their portfolio of offerings.
“Over the last year, I’ve seen more of the partnerships beginning to occur than I had previously sensed when I was in government. It feels like it’s continuing to accelerate and pick up where we’re starting to see some of that coming together,” said Spirk, a previous Wash100 awardee.
