Terry Gerton Jennifer, you’ve got an exciting program here, the ERIS program. DARPA has no shortage of ways for companies to engage with the agency already. So where were you seeing a gap, or what kind of signal were you getting that there was a missing piece to the acquisition puzzle for DARPA?

Jennifer Thabet Yeah, you know, we used to talk about working with us in three main ways. We used to about programs, challenges, and other. And programs are great, but if you are new to working with the government, it would be very hard to get a program off the street. And challenges are fantastic entry points, but they’re only good if there’s a challenge out on the street, and so we’ve really made a concerted effort the last few years to build out that other category and really open our suite of entry points for innovation and collaboration. And really that’s where ERIS fits in. ERIS is really maybe not filling a problem or a hole. ERIS is really offering sort of a front door to acquisition with a video submission, making it easier for you to join and work with us.

Terry Gerton And so Nick, you’re the deputy program manager. How exactly does it work if you’re a company that wants to knock on that front door? What do you do?

Nick Madeloff So ERIS collects video submissions on a monthly rolling basis. So from the first of the month to the 30th, based on the given month. At month end, that group of solutions enters the review process. Similar to our traditional review process here at DARPA, those solutions are initially reviewed by SMEs overseen by a DARPA program manager who will make a final determination. For solutions that end up being posted, companies can expect to be provided with a welcome kit with some next steps. And for those who don’t get posted, we provide tailored feedback on how that video was reviewed against the scoring rubric.

Terry Gerton So let me follow up with you for a minute. I’m a company and I’ve created a better mousetrap in my garage and I want to sell it to DARPA. Is that the kind of video that you’re talking about here?

Nick Madeloff Possibly not. I mean, we’re looking for market disruptors, market leaders, we are looking for answers to critical defense technologies and those solutions. DARPA has a very high bar and a very specific niche that we operate in. We still operate under the DARPA charter, so we’re still looking for those kind of early stage, hot, low TRL technologies that are going to really push the envelope on what’s possible. So, potentially not the new mouse trap, but I will say that we are looking for ideas from anybody who can answer those problems that we that we pose in our topic areas.

Terry Gerton And Jennifer?

Jennifer Thabet Yeah, let’s build off of that a little bit, right? So at DARPA, we’re really looking for those revolutionary, not evolutionary, ideas, right? But the challenge is, as Nick said, really those come from these new technologists, these new innovators. And so ERIS was really designed to make that entry point easy. No more do you need a Pentagon pedigree, right, or a PhD in proposal writing. You need a video camera and a computer. And that’s all you need to start joining and showing us your ideas. And so that was really where we are looking for those innovative ideas.

Terry Gerton And so Jen, as you’ve rolled out this new approach, do you have evidence that ERIS is bringing these new entrants into DARPA’s orbit?

Jennifer Thabet Yeah. I love that because we do. We were designed to really bring in new non-traditionals and a lot of small businesses, right? And so the strongest evidence we really have is that since the launch of ERIS, 76% of the organizations that were deemed awardable, they’re new to DARPA. And of those, we have 48% new to the Department of War. But in fact, we don’t stop there. Currently, of the awardable solutions on our marketplace, 67 percent are from small businesses and 68 percent are from non-traditionals. Now it’s good to say that we have awardable solutions but what does that mean? Where does that go from there? And so I can tell you that ERIS is also translating that participation into contracts and awards. We’re going from awardable solution to awards being made off the marketplace not just by DARPA but also by other parts to the Department of War.

Terry Gerton Jennifer Thabet is program director of DARPA’s Small Business Programs Office, and Nick Madeloff is the ERIS deputy PM. Nick, let me come back to you then as Jennifer just walked us through those exciting metrics. You really do have a lot of new folks at the door. Give us some examples maybe of some technology that ERIS has surfaced that DARPA might have otherwise missed.

Nick Madeloff Yeah, so I’m reticent to go into any specific technologies, but I really do want to emphasize the numbers that Jen just stated, because I think that figure really shows that we’re hearing solutions from people who weren’t finding their way into the DARPA ecosystem through traditional means. And it’s not just DARPA’s radar either that’s discovering these new technologies. Other .mil users with ERIS accounts are already making awards off of our platform. So we’re sharing that new wealth of ideas with our partners in the department already.

Terry Gerton That’s really exciting. And I didn’t realize that ERIS is sharing the portfolio with other organizations. Walk us through maybe how that works and how you balance access. Who gets first pick?

Nick Madeloff Yeah, so we offer access to ERIS to any .mil user who creates an account. They can surf through all of our awardable solutions just like any DARPA program manager can. One of the, I think, absolute highlights of ERIS is that if you have a solution on the marketplace, it’s not just a one-time award. If you have solution that’s interesting to a DARPA PM or a PM at another .mil agency who’s interested, they could both negotiate with you and make an award off of that solution. So we’re not limiting to one award or to one agency who’s interested. We do, right now under ERIS, we do limit our award vehicles to other transactions, which I think is a demand signal that DARPA is looking to do business differently. So we do require that a dot-mil agency who wants to utilize ERIS has OT authority. But right now, those are kind of our only barriers. As long as they have an actual interest in making awards, we’re happy to help them.

Terry Gerton Nick let me stick with you and take it to maybe the next level. As you’re making it easier for organizations to reach you with their great ideas, have you noticed maybe a tip in the balance to where you’re just overwhelmed with submissions? You can’t really process them fast enough and folks are waiting to hear?

Nick Madeloff No, not at all. I don’t think so. I think that it’s very clear in the evaluation criteria and the scoring rubric that we post publicly in the SBA. I think that although we’ve lowered the barrier to entry from a submission artifact perspective, DARPA has not taken their foot off the gas with respect to the competition of ideas that we’re looking to cultivate. Our program managers are still looking for solutions that push the envelope of what’s possible in addressing these critical defense challenges. We’re looking to compete differently, but we are evaluating very similarly to how we already operate here at DARPA. That bar has not changed for us.

Terry Gerton And Jen, let me come back to you then, because you’re overseeing this program. How are you making sure that these submissions, now in video format, conform to the technical rigor that DARPA is known for?

Jennifer Thabet Yeah, I think if we can kind of pull that thread a little more and what Nick was saying, right? Our grading rubric on ERIS really ensures that there is technical rigor in each one of your proposals. Coupling that with the fact that at ERIS, we have guardrails. Your video submission once deemed awardable is only on our marketplace for a year, not only ensuring that you have had technical rigor demonstrated that you’re on our marketplace, but ensuring that your idea is still fresh and new. And so at the end of the year, you will need to resubmit and get re-accepted to ERIS if you want to stay as an awardable solution holder on the marketplace.

Terry Gerton And then Jen, if someone came to you and said, we love this idea, we wanna build our own ERIS marketplace, are there parts of this model that are transferable and are there parts that really just rely on DARPA’s culture and would only be appropriate there?

Jennifer Thabet Yeah. So I would say the best advice to give is really before you think about building your own marketplace, really think about the fact that there are other marketplaces out there like ERIS. And there are some similar marketplaces on Tradewinds and Platform One. It’s always best to check first what is out there. And I’m biased, obviously, towards ERIS, so it’s always good to check on ERIS because you can make awards off of ERIS and so it really cuts through timelines. If you can find a solution that solves your problem that’s already there and gone through competition. The other piece I would say is there are parts you could lift and shift, but something that makes our marketplace so unique and I think so attractive to other parts of the government is the fact that we have such technical rigor and we have such a strict grading rubric. So you know that something that’s on that marketplace is truly something that we think is dark but hard.

Terry Gerton That’s really helpful. And Nick, then, as the deputy PM here, are there changes in the forecast for the ERIS model, things that will make it even better?

Nick Madeloff We have some new things in the works. We’re currently working on our aggregator pilot, which we’re excited to debut soon, but more to come. More to come.