Over at the Department of Homeland Security site today, they announced that the “Science and Technology (S&T) directorate has established a program, TechSolutions, to support the first responder community by accelerating delivery of emerging technologies. TechSolutions is designed to collect technological requirements and provide solutions for first responders”.
“No one understands the needs of first responders better than first responders,†said Jay M. Cohen, Under Secretary for S&T. “Every day, hundreds of law enforcement officers, fire fighters, emergency medical services personnel and bomb-squad members think, ‘there’s a better way to do this,’ and we want to hear from them.â€
S&T’s commitment to spiral development and rapid prototyping ensures funding for selected proposals within 45 days, and a solution demonstrated within 12 months of funding. Costs of the solutions should be commensurate with the proposal, but less than $1 million per project. Solutions also should deliver up to 100 percent of identified requirements, and first responders will partner with the department from start to finish.
First responders are encouraged to submit ideas that would aid the first responder community by increasing efficiency and on-the-job safety at: www.dhs.gov/techsolutions.
When you hit the Tech Solutions link, it redirects to a mailto (techsolutions@dhs.gov) for people to send a submission “limited to 3 printed pages”.
I hope to God that first responders don’t bother typing documents, waiting for days and months, and waiting for the government to spend “less than $1 million”.
I recognize this mumbo-jumbo from large software development projects. Wikipedia says “the spiral model is favored for large, expensive, and complicated projects.” Not what we need. When first responders say, “there’s a better way to do this”, they ought to find the cheapest, most suitable tools at their disposal to do it better. That’s a better “rapid prototype”.