A recent panel at the 2022 Intelligence and National Security Summit looked at technology futures. Moderated by Lewis Shepherd, VMware’s senior director for research and innovation, the DARPA Director Dr. Stephanie Tompkins highlighted the issue with the U.S. supply chain and what DARPA wants from industry. Dr. Lisa Porter, LogiQ Co-President and Dr. Catherine Marsh, Intelligence Advance research Projects Activity (IARPA) joined Tompkins in the discussion.
But Tompkins said that right now, DARPA is looking at the U.S. supply chain, and they need ideas from industry. A key way that DARPA makes future progression is through ideas submitted to them. In fact, DARPA is continuing to look at companies that may not yet have the necessary clearances but have great ideas. And Tompkins said that DARPA will move forward with those ideas and work on getting a company the necessary clearances. And this is why the U.S. has a bigger innovation pipeline than our adversaries. China doesn’t have a DARPA, but they are willing to steal our ideas. So, it’s important to create an environment that encourages innovation, but we also need to work together to protect those ideas.
Layoffs
T-Mobile
While The Layoff has noted a lot of comments from T-Mobile employees talking about internal layoffs, WARN notices in Seattle, company headquarters, haven’t confirmed. But in response Fierce Wireless, T-Mobile said, “These are continued organizational shifts that have been happening across our business. As we continue to hire top talent across the country (with over 3,000 posted positions), we are also making ongoing course-of-business organizational shifts in some areas of the company.”
T-Mobile doesn’t deny layoffs, but they do highlight that they are evolving their internal structures in order to better align with customer needs and wants. They said that they will offer impacted employees other positions, when possible.
Hiring
Lockheed Martin
Just in Connecticut, Lockheed Martin, and including its Sikorsky business, has a large footprint of over 8,000 employees. But Stratford-based helicopter maker Sikorsky says they currently have over 500 open positions to fill, with 300 for engineering and technology roles. With new subsidies from Connecticut, Lockheed Martin says they have committed to keeping Sikorsky there until 2042.
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Opportunity to Watch
Last week, at the Billington Cybersecurity Summit, CIA Director William Burns highlighted the weakness in Russia’s strategy and implementation. The U.S. has a lot of takeaways from the Ukrainian response. However, Russian failures are also a source of intel.
“Not only has the weakness of the Russian military been exposed, but there’s going to be long-term damage done to the Russian economy and to generations of Russians as a result of this,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean that we ignore Russia. Burns said that declining powers, like Russia, are a different type of threat for the U.S. than rising powers, like China. And part of our success has come from our intelligence analysis and decisions.
“Good, accurate intelligence has helped us to make policy choices and strengthen alliances,” said Burns, so that six months into a tough war, Ukrainians have been able to launch a counter threat. While this war has clearly impacted Ukrainians, it has also provided a lesson on what’s needed from defense companies and the IC.
