Innovation Week Coming to Orlando

Innovation Week starts June 20, 2023, which will bring multiple events of interest for professionals in the modeling, simulation and training (MS&T) community in Orlando, Florida.

 

On the afternoon of June 20, the Central Florida Tech Grove will host a Cyber Education Series session. All events taking place at Tech Grove during Innovation Week will offer virtual and in-person options for attendees.

 

This event is part of the Department of the Navy’s Blue Cyber program, which provides support, information, education and helpful tools for companies addressing cybersecurity issues. An episode of this Navy program’s “Ask Me Anything” weekly webinar series (which attendees will see at the event) will be hosted live by Kelley Kiernan, chief technology officer, and Blue Cyber Initiative director. James Boughton, division head of cybersecurity at NAWCTSD, will appear in person to interact with Kiernan and her team by answering questions and elaborating on discussion.

 

“This event is an opportunity to learn, especially for smaller companies who are dealing with CMMC [Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification] requirements and any other cyber issues,” said Carol Ann Logue, Tech Grove director.

 

To register, go to Webinar Registration – Zoom (zoomgov.com).

 

June 20 is also the deadline for final submissions to the Live, Virtual, Constructive Interoperability Configuration Management Tool Challenge to develop initial prototypes to automate the assessment of initial configuration settings of components for use in a distributed mission training exercise. This prize challenge has been open for three months, and its deadline marks a milestone for Tech Grove.

 

“This is the first challenge that Tech Grove has run with support from Team Orlando,” Logue said. “A prize challenge is all about giving interested parties a chance to sign up to innovate and bring new solutions to the table.”

 

To learn more about this challenge, visit Prize Challenges (centralfloridatechgrove.org).

 

The National Training & Simulation Association’s Training Simulation & Industry Symposium (TSIS) will take place June 21-22 at the Rosen Centre Hotel. This annual conference presents opportunities for networking, insights from Q&A sessions and panel discussions, and informational briefs on acquisition strategies, timing and funding. Logue said TSIS is organized to be evenly balanced between government and industry perspectives and information.

 

“TSIS is a unique opportunity for industry and government reps to interact with each other in a slightly more intimate environment of only about 1000 people,” Logue said. “It’s a meeting with a great deal of information from government sources, but also from industry panels. Being able to interact with government and larger companies at TSIS represents opportunities, particularly for small businesses, that they just don’t get at other conferences.”

 

To learn more about TSIS 2023 and related events, go to TSIS 2023 (ntsa.org). To register, visit Registration (ntsa.org).

 

The Wall Street Plaza is best known for its place in downtown Orlando’s nightlife scene, but on June 22, it will host the TenX Tech Wall Street Takeover. This nighttime event represents a collaboration between Metacenter Orlando, Orlando Tech Community, Black Orlando Tech, Orlando Devs, Orlando Innovation League and Tech Grove.

 

Four venues at the Wall Street location will showcase Orlando’s latest tech innovations and give attendees the opportunity to meet with leaders in Central Florida’s tech community responsible for the innovations on display. According to Logue, such events provide innovators with increased awareness of where their solutions and skills may find application in the defense industry or other areas.

 

“The Orlando Tech Community does a wonderful job of bringing together a wide cross-section of tech innovators in Orlando: companies of all sizes, government agencies, academia and every industry sector,” Logue said. “These are entire groups of innovators who are local that we can help connect. It also gives the MS&T community a chance to see solutions they would normally never see because they’re in a different industry sector – but from a technical point of view, [these solutions] could have direct applicability to human performance challenges.”

 

Admission is free, but RVSP is required. Visit tenX Tech Wall Street Takeover Tickets, Thu, Jun 22, 2023 at 6:00 PM | Eventbrite to reserve a spot.

 

Central Florida Tech Grove’s third SBIR/STTR Partnership Day takes place June 23 at Tech Grove. This annual meeting showcases small businesses that have secured Phase 2 or Phase 3 Defense Department awards through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Partnership Day gives them a stage to display their achievements developed through those awards, which are intended to improve warfighter readiness.

 

“This event is one of the ways we support the transition of innovation that our military customers already paid for through SBIR/STTR funding companies that have developed highly innovative solutions,” Logue said. “Now those companies who have come up with those solutions can find new customers, either commercial or government. Big companies like Lockheed, Northrup and Grumman love to discover what these small businesses have developed under these programs… and which smaller companies could be great team members.”

 

Go to 2023 Central Florida Tech Grove SBIR/STTR Partnership Day Tickets | Central Florida Tech Grove (simpletix.com) to register to attend.

 

The NATO MSaaS [Modeling and Simulation as a Service] Hackathon at Tech Grove during the evenings of June 23-25 will finish Innovation Week. The Hackathon is a contest that challenges participants to provide a simulation service that is scalable within a cloud-like environment, agile (quickly adaptable to a specific simulation use case), and suitable for either a training or experimentation event. According to Logue, the M&S as-a-service paradigm involves tools and assets residing in the cloud, from which users can pull whatever they need for simulation-based training, and the associated resources will be able to communicate with each other.

 

“This is the ideal set-up when you think about synthetic training environments and a truly complete ability to do live, virtual, constructive training,” Logue said. “You have this massive library of everything users need readily available at their fingertips, and it all works together. That’s the vision, but the goal of the weekend is not to create complete solutions… but to build a simple initial prototype to prove this can be done.”

 

The top winner will get $5,000 and the top three winners will present to the NATO working group the following week.

 

This multinational event also allows attendees to get involved with the challenge as a participant, subject matter expert or observer. To learn more about the challenge or to register, visit NATO Modeling & Simulation Coalition Jam Tickets | Central Florida Tech Grove (simpletix.com).