GSA’s Office of Information Technology Category (ITC) is committed to fostering innovation and driving IT modernization across the government. We work with the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) to accelerate the integration of cutting-edge commercial technologies into federal operations, particularly for purposes of increased national security.
Purpose of the partnership
DIU and GSA work together to quickly move successful technology prototypes into scalable solutions for the Department of Defense (DoD) and other federal agencies.
DIU focuses on solving national security challenges by engaging commercial technology providers, especially nontraditional defense contractors. By using the Commercial Solutions Opening (CSO) process, DIU can quickly prototype and acquire dual-use technologies.
While the DIU-GSA agreement was created to encourage new-to-government industry participation, these opportunities are also open to existing GSA industry partners too. Existing GSA contract holders’ products and services may serve as a foundation, but DIU’s CSO process is geared towards prototyping technologies for potential DoD use.
Opportunities for GSA industry partners
Under the DIU-GSA partnership, GSA will move successful DIU prototype solutions to GSA contract vehicles. DoD and the broader U.S. government will be able to adopt innovative commercial technology solutions faster.
The DIU-GSA partnership streamlines access to leading-edge commercial technology. It also maximizes opportunities and minimizes barriers for small and/or underserved businesses and nontraditional vendors seeking to do business with the government.
GSA ITC has designed an onboarding process for DIU’s commercial prototype partners to pursue four potential pathways:
- Partnership agreements: Develop partnerships as subcontractors or through joint ventures with companies on GSA’s Multiple Award Schedule (MAS) program.
- Reseller agreements: Obtain reseller agreements with companies on GSA’s MAS program.
- Governmentwide Acquisition Contracts (GWAC): Consider GSA’s GWAC program during open periods.
- GSA MAS contracts: Secure a spot on GSA MAS.
As part of its onboarding process, GSA’s ITC supports and educates DIU commercial prototype partners on how to advertise and market solutions to federal, state, and local government entities.
Also, GSA’s MAS ITC developed a pilot program to streamline the process for DIU’s commercial partners in parallel with the FASt Lane: Making It Easier initiative.
Moreover, GSA’s pilot program, Effectively Awarding & Streamlining eOffers (E.A.S.E.), launched in July 2022, provides presubmission assistance to DIU commercial partners pursuing a GSA MAS contract. This initiative aims to increase collaboration, reduce processing workload, and expedite the contract award process.
Bringing innovation to government
This collaboration between DIU and GSA is yielding tangible results. A recent milestone in this partnership is the award of a multimillion dollar contract to a MAS-IT contract holder to advance an AI-driven social media analysis tool for the U.S. Army. This is but one example that shows that this partnership results in innovation.
The awarded AI tool transforms the implicit human domain knowledge of intelligence analysts into autonomously generated knowledge graphs. These graphs show the meaning of dynamic, unstructured social media data according to user-defined ground truth. This AI-driven system enables the tool to reason, understand, learn, remember, collaborate, question, predict, decide, and act in domain-specific ways at a superhuman scale.
In another example, GSA awarded a MAS contract, within the E.A.S.E. program, to a company that designs, manufactures, and operates a fleet of unmanned/uncrewed surface vehicles or ocean-fairing drones. Before the GSA MAS contract award, the company supported DoD requirements with its innovative solutions, allowing agencies and the science community to monitor and study severe storms and hurricanes in a new way.
Since the company’s MAS award, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has used the contract vehicle to support the agency’s hurricane efforts, as well as to support the U.S. Coast Guard.
Getting involved
The DIU-GSA partnership is committed to publicizing successful technology prototypes and granting access to these innovations through the DIU’s Commercial Solutions Catalog. This catalog makes it easier for government organizations to find and procure vetted, commercially available technology solutions.
Interested companies can sign up for newsletters and new solicitation notifications on the DIU website. You can also follow ITC on LinkedIn and subscribe for blog updates.