Tampa hosts the annual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference

Tampa, Florida – U.S. Special Operations Command and the National Defense Industry Association cohosted the annual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference at the Tampa Convention Center May 20-23, 2019. The theme for this year’s conference was “Accelerating SOF Innovation.”

SOFIC provides the SOF community an opportunity to interact with industry and to collaborate on the challenges, initiatives and way-ahead in delivering the most cutting-edge capabilities into the hands of SOF operators. The conference had keynote speeches from leaders in DoD and panels with the special operations component commanders as well as presentations by the Special Operations Forces Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Directorate.

Army Gen. Richard D. Clarke, commander, U.S. Special Operations Command and James Smith, acquisition executive for USSOCOM opened the conference.

Clarke explained USSOCOM’s five new priorities - compete and win for the nation, preserve and grow readiness, innovate for future threats, advance partnerships, and strengthen our force and family. Clarke emphasized the relevance of innovation and challenged industry attendees to help USSOCOM leverage emerging technologies to tackle current and future threats.

“We need systems that allow us to recognize false information and messages of all types, to characterize disinformation or deceptive data, to notify and respond rapidly using the strength of automation, particularly in the area of human language processing,” said Clarke.

Smith, who has been USSOCOM’s acquisition executive for nearly 18 months, explained how to do business with the command and interact with SOF AT&L’s eight program executives.

“This conference is specifically set up to be a little different.” Smith said. “We have deliberately set up this conference to be a two-way conversation. We’ve got our program executive officers that are here in the conference rooms and are ready to present information and opportunities to you and then take your questions.”

Army General Richard D. Clarke, commander U.S. Special Operations Command, addresses the annual Special Operations Forces Industry Conference being held at the Tampa Bay Convention Center May 20 -23, 2019. The theme for this year’s conference is “Accelerating SOF Innovation.” SOFIC is the premiere conference for the SOF community to interact with industry and to collaborate on the challenges, initiatives and way-ahead in delivering the most cutting-edge capabilities into the hands of SOF operators.

Three keynote speakers addressed the conference; Principal Deputy Secretary of Defense, Acquisition Enablers Stacy Cummings, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Owen West; and USSOCOM Chief Data Officer David Spirk Jr.

Cummings remarks explained how DoD acquisition, technology and logistics has reorganized, splitting research and engineering from acquisition and sustainment. She focused on how the DoD is trying to speed up the process of getting needed equipment to the battlefield.

“The purpose of my office is how do we enable the services, how do we enable the combatant commands, how do we enable the warfighter to get the capabilities they need in support of the National Defense Strategy,” Cummings said. “We want to push the decision making down to the lowest level. The people closest to the decisions are the ones with the most information. We want to empower them, give them the tools they need, and reduce as much overhead that is not value added.”

West highlighted the importance of the conference and industry’s commitment to ensuring that special operations warfighters have the best technological advantages on the battlefield.

“In an era where our top companies have petitions circulating objecting to working with the DoD, your patriotism is not lost on us. Everyone in this room sets an example for corporate America. So, I thank you,” West said. “I know in this room many men and women who have walked point out on the battlefield and others who have supported for many, many years. I understand now why special operators call it a community.”

Spirk, who is USSOCOM’s first data officer, was the last keynote speaker. He highlighted the challenges of harnessing big data, current applied artificial intelligence projects and machine learning within USSOCOM, and the need to establish cloud-empowered data and services.

“Purpose driven application is the heart of what we do. We are going to be deploying the technologies and match them up with the commander’s priorities,” Spirk said. Spirk went on to emphasize the importance of applying these technologies to lessons learned in order to help facilitate decentralized execution.

SOFIC drew nearly 13,000 attendees and had registrants from 39 countries who were able to interact with the more 400 exhibitors in attendance at this year’s conference. USSOCOM considers SOFIC an important opportunity to nurture and develop its growing network across industry, government, academia and international partners.