U.S. Army Cyber Command and Second Army (ARCYBER) recently announced that it had launched several new initiatives to realize Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s vision for greater cooperation between DOD and Silicon Valley.
One of these initiatives is the Silicon Valley Innovation Pilot, which aims to pair ARCYBER experts with their private industry counterparts by creating joint projects through direct collaboration. As part of the program, ten Army cyber professionals specially selected from ARCYBER, the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade, the Army Cyber Institute and the Army Cyber Protection Brigade will be teamed with parters from Silicon Valley.
“I think we’re pushing on an open door,” ARCYBER Commander Lt. Gen. Edward C. Cardon said. “I think you’re going to see information sharing in ways that we haven’t’ really seen before. The good news is that I think that’s happening. So if I look at where we are today and where we’ll be a year from now, it will be pretty stunning, and if I look at where we’ll be five years from now, that will be simply amazing. We’re not in this by ourselves. We need academia and industry. We don’t have the luxury of choosing which threat we may face next, but we do have the ability to set the course for how best to prepare for the future.”
The goal of the initiatives is to create a better, more flexible cyber defense infrastructure that features both the best of American private industry and military capabilities.