AFWERX -- an organization striving to create a "culture of innovation" in the Air Force -- now has the authority to award contracts, setting up the young team for closer partnerships with industry and academia.
Maj. Gen. Cameron Holt, head of contracting in the service's acquisition office, recently assigned the hub an "enterprise-level chief of contracting office" through the Air Force Research Lab senior contracting official, Tina Parker, an AFWERX spokeswoman, told Inside Defense on Thursday.
"This assignment allows AFWERX to partner more closely with our mission partners to move contracts ahead faster, smarter," Parker said.
Former Air Force secretary Heather Wilson established AFWERX in 2017 to enable agile engagement with technology developers who can provide the service with such emerging capabilities as artificial intelligence, additive manufacturing, robotics and virtual reality.
The organization's base in Las Vegas, NV, holds "challenges" throughout the year to connect with companies and academics that can offer solutions to specific Air Force needs, like global space transport, persistent intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance and wargaming.
Before AFWERX gained contracting authority, partners would have to obtain a contract through other vehicles, like the Small Business Innovation Research program. But commercial investors wanted a "one-stop shop," according to Will Roper, the Air Force's acquisition chief.
Roper first revealed he was considering empowering AFWERX with contracting authority at the Air Force Association's annual conference last September.
"It's been the most frequent request from commercial investors, that if a company is granted an Air Force award and it was known that that was a single authoritative clearinghouse, that we would see commercial investments swell," he told reporters.
But the ability to award contracts may come at a cost to AFWERX's mission.
"It's challenging because our vision is foremost to be a culture change project, so if AFWERX has acquisition authority, all of a sudden it could become the easy button for teams that don't have to change their culture in how they buy things," Vince Pecoraro, the hub's head of agile contracting, told Inside Defense at the AFA conference.
"On the flip side, it would make our lives a lot easier if we had it -- instead of having to go partner with people, partner with other organizations to buy our core mission," he added.