Call for pitches to optimise the soldier for littoral operations
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The Australian Army is calling on defence industry and academia to pitch innovative capabilities to optimise the soldier for littoral operations as part of Army Innovation Day 2024 (AID24).
FILE PHOTO: Soldiers from 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, on board F470 Zodiacs conducting small-boat training in the littoral environment during Exercise Tiger’s Run 2022 on the Timor Sea. Photo by Corporal Rodrigo Villablanca.
AID24 is a strategic collaboration between the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) and the Australian Army.
Each year, Army Innovation Day poses a new challenge to encourage the development of innovative technologies to solve some of Army’s most complex challenges for the benefit of soldiers.
Hosted by the Australian Army as part of the Chief of Army Symposium, AID24 will be held during the Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition in Melbourne on 11 and 12 September 2024.
Head Land Capability, Major General Richard Vagg, said the challenge statement: Optimising the Soldier for Littoral Operations was chosen to support the rapid delivery of capability into the hands of soldiers.
“As a part of an integrated, focused force, the Australian Army must be capable of deterring a potential adversary from projecting force against Australia and make a credible contribution to the broader strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific,” Major General Vagg said.
“Our soldiers make Army a formidable fighting force and are our most valuable asset.
“This year’s theme will help Army explore how innovative technologies can enhance the operational endurance, tactical lethality and survivability of soldiers operating in increasingly complex, distributed, regional and littoral environments.
“There is an emphasis on getting capability into the hands of soldiers faster,” he said.
Since Army Innovation Day’s inception in 2014, 51 contracts have been awarded to defence industry.
Industry and academia with an Australian Business Number are encouraged to submit pitches to AID24.
Further information can be accessed via AusTender – Current ATM View – LCD22-0002-AID24: AusTender (tenders.gov.au)
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With reference to Australian Army Innovation Day September 2024.
If Innovation is defined as (Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation) – Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as “a new or changed entity, realizing or redistributing value”. then does modification to existing products and services fall within this scope of innovation, or does it really matter, whether through the slightest ever modification, design change, improvement, first order, last order, fundamental discovery or tweaking existing product, service, ……….. or someone does something as simple as painting a highly heat absorbent dark surface for the first time with a heat reflective paint coating to cool the “black box” underneath, or simply by the act of changing the direct of a surface for the first time in recorded human history to raise the utility of that object, it really in the end still comes down to an innovation.
If innovative people or people who engage in, try, experience innovation get a buzz from this aspect, get a metaphorical “high” in being able to solve, best address, overcome some challenge, problem, issue, create benefits where none previously existed, across any spectre of life be it military hardware, fashion, medicine, communications, optics, movie making, energy supply, female and male combat soldiers personal needs compressed all in one durable aluminium or crack proof container – i.e. make up, hair comb, nails, shaving, tooth maintenance kits according to gender (sounds crazy but personal needs don’t suspend in combat zones)……….how can one promote, capitalise, engender, nourish, nurture, this thing we call innovation, on a self, group, personal, societal, national, international level basis, whether for profit or not. Now that’s a real challenge to get one’s audience, one’s target group thinking, breathing, being nourished by that thing we call innovation, so it’s not just the domain of the “white, grey, blue or green lab coat brigade.”
We pretty much need innovation to progress in civilian and military environments.