Old Greenwich-based Inno360 L.L.C. has brought the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory on board as part of its Alpha program.
Inno360’s Alpha program unites individuals around the world to co-develop new platforms.
A member firm of the Spencer Trask Collaborative Innovations, Inno360 is a global software and service platform. The Air Force has been a leader in collaborative innovation since it began as an offshoot of the Army after World War II.
“With their rich culture of public-private collaboration and their focus on solving real-world challenges under demanding conditions, they will be valuable partners in guiding and improving our world-leading innovation platform,” said Glenn Wienkoop, CEO of Inno360, which spells its name “inno 360” in company literature. “We look forward to working with them for years to come.”
The Air Force Research Laboratory manages more than $4 billion in annual research and development spending, of which 60 percent is spent through outside partners.
“Inno360 helps us reach out to unusual and unexpected places for breakthrough technology, so the U.S. Air Force can continue to keep America and the world safe from threats,” said Alok Das, senior scientist for design innovation at the lab. “We have always worked in partnership with leading aerospace innovators in the private sector, but we look forward to a platform that will help us find common cause with a broader range of partners from industry and academia, including the most innovative startups and academic pioneers.”
The lab is engaging with Inno360 through a public-private partnership with the Wright Brothers Institute in Dayton, Ohio. The Wright Brothers Institute (WBI) operates as a neutral place for multidisciplinary teams to come together in intense collaborations.
WBI will use the Inno360 platform to assist the Air Force lab to find and work with leading innovators in the US and globally.
“The Internet was originally created for the Department of Defense as a collaboration capability,” said Bart Barthelemy, associate director of the Wright Brothers Institute. “Over the years, it’s become so big that we need tools to help with that collaboration. Inno360 provides some of that help, and lets us use the internet for collaboration far beyond what was initially imagined.”
