Coast Guard Kicks Off Innovation Expo 2011 At Tampa Convention Center

Posted Oct 24, 2011 by Howard Altman

Updated Oct 24, 2011 at 10:07 PM

The 11th annual Coast Guard Innovation Expo kicks off at the Tampa Convention Center Tuesday morning.

The three-day event, sponsored by the National Defense Industrial Association, offers a chance for “Coast Guard innovators to resolve organizational challenges” by showcasing and sharing ideas with other innovators, Department of Homeland Security officials, academics, government types and industry folks.

There will be simulators, a helicopter inside, a chance to talk with some of the Coast Guard’s most forward thinking people and the public is welcome.

An example of the work being honored at the expo is the CDR Joel Magnussen Award for Management
According to the award citation:

In the early days of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it became apparent that BP was overwhelmed by the influx innovative spill response technologies submitted from all levels of government, academia, industry, and the public at large.

BP wasn’t acting on the submissions and offerors were not being notified about idea disposition.

This directly resulted in growing public distrust in the response, a series of extremely negative media stories, and direct complaints from Congress.
In response, the NIC established the IATAP effort.

CG-926 took the lead in this effort and devised a management strategy to implement a systematic, fair, and government-managed technology assessment program to evaluate potential alternate response strategies.

This is the first time that a program like this has been established, and marked a significant departure from the Research and Development Program’s normal world of work. Based on its unqualified success, this program will be executed during future Incidents of National Significance where rapid, fair, and systematic technology assessment is required.

Aside from the awards, this year, as budgets are tightened across the government, the expo will focus on “gaining efficiencies” today while making “prudent investments” in initiatives for tomorrow. 

“We are focused on recapitalizing aging assets and building operational capacity in our cutter, aviation, shore, and C4isr assets,” according to a Coast Guard media release.

This includes making the Coast Guard more energy efficient.

For more information, check out the website.