The Undersea Technology Innovation Consortium was recently awarded an “Other Transaction Agreement” for undersea and maritime technology prototyping from the Naval Undersea Warfare Center, Division Newport.
OTAs are an agile contracting mechanism to provide innovative technology to the Department of Defense. UTIC was established in 2016 to promote the rapid development, prototyping and commercialization of undersea and maritime technology.
With this award, UTIC represents a national technology consortium of industry, academia and nonprofit organizations.
UTIC was able to successfully compete for this powerful opportunity because of Rhode Island’s strong and adaptive innovation ecosystem. This ecosystem is powered, in part, by private foundations, alliances and state economic and workforce-development agencies.
The van Beuren Charitable Foundation and the Rhode Island Foundation are exceptional private foundations focused on improving Rhode Island. Van Beuren has a long history of investing in high-performing nonprofit organizations, advancing their capacity for leadership, growth and sustainment. RIF, as part of its longstanding mission to transform Rhode Island, provides catalytic investments to high-opportunity clusters. Both private foundations make an important and sustaining impact on Rhode Island and provided essential strategic grant funding to UTIC that allowed us to build and strengthen our organization and position ourselves to be the successful bidder for the OTA opportunity.
Alliances, such as the Southeastern New England Defense Industry Alliance, the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and the Newport County Chamber of Commerce also support R.I.’s innovation growth.
SENEDIA identified the need to create an undersea-technology-focused organization and has provided support to UTIC as it has evolved. This need was highlighted, in part, through SENEDIA’s annual Defense Innovation Days in Rhode Island.
This three-day event, this year Aug. 27-29, brings leaders from the Department of Defense, industry and Congress together to share ideas and innovation related to undersea technology and other defense technologies.
The Greater Providence Chamber has supported a successful national campaign to highlight R.I.’s economic advantages and ... provided marketing support to draw attention to the strength and importance of the R.I. undersea-technology cluster. The Newport County Chamber has promoted innovation through its efforts to develop a technology incubator and co-work facility.
R.I. Commerce Corp. has several economic-development initiatives that have supported the undersea-technology cluster. These include innovation vouchers, allowing industry and academia/nonprofit collaboration and industry cluster grants. Through one industry cluster grant, a detailed analysis was performed to identify near and far-term undersea-technology opportunities. This information was shared with businesses in the cluster, allowing them to develop strategic business-capture plans. The R.I. Department of Labor and Training, through its Real Jobs Rhode Island program, has supported an undersea-technology engineering internship program, ensuring the pipeline of future workers.
Rhode Island, through its unique and adaptive innovation ecosystem, effectively champions innovation, fosters collaboration and empowers economic growth.
Molly Donohue Magee is executive director of the Undersea Technology Innovation Consortium and the Southeastern New England Defense Industry Alliance, both in Middletown.
