Innovating @ the U.S. Air Force
The US Airforce sourced 6,000+ solutions from 3,000 companies. Here's what enterprise innovation leaders can learn from the Air Force's open innovation model.
Open Innovation · Case Study
AFWERX — the U.S. Air Force's innovation community — used Collaboration.Ai together with innosabi software to prove that large, complex organizations can innovate fast, if they build the right infrastructure to connect with the people who already have the answers.
The U.S. Air Force has 689,000 personnel, operates across every continent, and maintains some of the most advanced technology on the planet. And yet, when it came to innovation, it had a problem that most large enterprises will recognize: the best ideas were stuck outside the organization, with no reliable way to get in.
The Department of the Air Force spends more than $156 billion annually. It builds fighter jets, satellites, and cybersecurity systems. But for decades, the innovation pipeline was closed — dominated by a small group of traditional defense contractors and locked behind procurement processes designed for a different era.
Small technology companies, startups, and non-traditional defense innovators had no real pathway in. The result was predictable: slower adoption of emerging technologies, missed opportunities, and a growing gap between what was available commercially and what the Air Force could access.
This is not just a military problem. It's the same challenge facing any enterprise with 5,000 or more employees. When your organization is large enough, the walls you build for control become the same walls that keep good ideas out.
AFWERX is a community of Air Force innovators who strive to connect Airmen to solutions across the force — whether that's funding, collaborating with industry, or simply receiving guidance on a project. It was built as a dedicated unit to bridge the gap between the military and the startups, small businesses, and non-traditional technology providers who could help.
The mission was clear: create a scalable system that could source solutions from outside the organization, evaluate them quickly, and move promising ones into real contracts.
Collaboration.Ai together with innosabi software was brought in to tackle the challenge of mapping the community of innovators across America — helping find and grow the unique individuals and companies who could contribute to making the country safer.
The challenge? Scale. The Air Force doesn't need ten ideas. It needs thousands — evaluated, ranked, and matched to specific operational challenges across a sprawling global organization. That required a digital platform capable of handling open calls for innovation at a scale that manual processes could never support — managing challenge-based sourcing, structured evaluation, and transparent decision-making, all while making it easy for external innovators to participate.
Open Challenge Model
AFWERX published specific operational challenges and invited the broader innovation ecosystem to submit solutions — removing the gatekeeping that defined traditional procurement.
Structured Evaluation at Scale
Every submission was evaluated against defined criteria by subject matter experts — not through back-channel relationships, but through a transparent, repeatable process.
From Submission to Contract
The platform didn't stop at idea collection. Solutions moved through evaluation, pilot selection, and into real SBIR/STTR contracts — closing the gap between innovation and execution.
More than 6,000 solutions were submitted through the platform. Over 3,000 companies participated. More than $1.7 billion in contracts were awarded through AFWERX-facilitated programs.
Those numbers are impressive. But the real story is what they represent: a fundamental shift in how one of the world's largest organizations connects with outside innovators.
Before AFWERX, the Air Force's innovation sourcing was limited to who you knew and which contractors were already in the system. After? Anyone with a relevant solution could submit it, have it evaluated fairly, and win a contract — regardless of company size or prior government experience.
Key Insight
The Air Force didn't need more ideas internally. It needed a system to connect with the thousands of innovators who already had solutions — but had no way to reach the people who needed them. The platform became that connective tissue.
You don't need to be the U.S. Air Force to have this problem. Every large organization — whether it operates in automotive, chemicals, consumer goods, or financial services — faces the same structural challenge: the best solutions to your biggest problems often exist outside your walls.
The AFWERX case proves three things that apply universally.
| Traditional Approach | Open Innovation Approach |
|---|---|
| Rely on existing supplier relationships and internal R&D | Broadcast challenges to a broad ecosystem and attract unexpected solutions |
| Evaluate ideas through informal, relationship-driven channels | Use structured criteria and transparent processes to evaluate at scale |
| Procurement cycles measured in years | Rapid pilot-to-contract pathways that move in months |
| Limited to known vendors and established players | Accessible to startups, SMEs, and non-traditional innovators |
What AFWERX built isn't magic. It's infrastructure. A digital platform that can publish challenges, manage submissions, run structured evaluations, and move winning ideas into execution. That's what turns open innovation from a buzzword into a business outcome.
This is exactly where innovation software earns its place. Not as a suggestion box. Not as a brainstorming tool. But as the operating layer that connects an organization's toughest problems with the people who can solve them — whether those people are employees, partners, startups, or customers.
The scalability matters. AFWERX didn't run ten challenges. They ran hundreds. They didn't collect a handful of ideas. They processed thousands. That kind of volume requires software that's designed for it — configurable workflows, structured evaluation, and a user experience that makes participation easy for people outside the organization.
Define the Challenge
Identify specific operational problems and publish them as open challenges — clearly scoped, with defined evaluation criteria.
Open the Door
Invite the external ecosystem to participate. Make it easy for innovators of any size to submit solutions without needing a prior relationship.
Evaluate with Structure
Use expert panels and defined criteria to assess submissions at scale. Remove bias. Create transparency.
Move to Execution
Connect winning solutions to pilot programs and contracts. Close the gap between "good idea" and "real impact."
The AFWERX case study is a proof point for something many innovation leaders already know intuitively: the organizations that thrive in the next decade will be the ones that master the art of connecting with outside expertise.
It's not about having more ideas. It's about having the infrastructure to find the right ideas, evaluate them quickly, and turn them into outcomes. The Air Force proved it works at massive scale. The question for enterprise innovation leaders is simpler: if the Department of Defense can open up its innovation process, what's stopping you?
