NAVAIR Looking for Research to Assist Digital Transformation

Naval Air Systems Command is working on its digital transformation project, and is looking for research and prototype projects in seven areas, including DevSecOps and artificial intelligence, to help it get closer to a truly digital culture. 

NAVAIR’s Digital Department, which leads the digital transformation and enterprise strategy, is seeking white papers “to address digital transformation challenges, problems, and future technology needs,” according to a broad agency announcement published on beta.SAM.gov Nov. 19. 

“The digital transformation of the Naval Air Systems Command is underway,” the BAA reads. “As such, recent advances in digital technology and data integration are being harnessed to improve material readiness, increase speed in the delivery and sustainment of warfighting capability, and accelerate business operations.”

The seven areas for research listed in the BAA are:

• Data architecture and management.
• Predictive analytics, business intelligence and visualizations.
• Development security operations, known as DevSecOps.
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning.
• Business transformation.
• Digital and data careers and organizational strategies.
• Digital innovation, emerging technologies, and disruptive digital technology.

NAVAIR provided a list of subtopics that fall under each of the seven main research areas, enumerating more than 50 examples of research in which it’s interested. NAVAIR is also looking for information around how the research topics “could be accomplished in a cloud hosting environment and how native cloud services could be leveraged to accomplish the research topics,” according to the BAA. 

The data architecture and management category featured the most subtopics, with 17 areas including identity and access management, cloud services, data governance, and augmented data management.  

Nearly every major IT buzzword—from edge computing to automation, 5G and everything in between—is included in the BAA, but submissions can go beyond the specified topics so long as the proposal has the potential to enhance NAVAIR’s digitization effort. 

NAVAIR is accepting white papers through Nov. 18, 2021, according to the beta.SAM.gov entry, and multiple awards are anticipated. Funding levels will depend on availability of funds and quality of proposals, according to the BAA.