 Hold on. All right. All right. Can it's all right now. Let's see. Can you guys hear me? Yep. I know way can hear me. Check my phone. It says we're live. I said stream is live. All right. MTP. Can you hear me? Mr. Chill. Can you hear me Brandon? John James. Let me know. Says I'm live. Yep. Yeah. Okay. All right. We're good. All right. Yep. Good stuff. Okay. All right. Hey, listen, in case you missed that first bit. We are joined today by Mr. Wade Watts. Wait. Yeah, there's a little bit of a loop here. Is a lag. There's going to be a lag in it. Okay. Yeah. There's always, there's a, when you go from streaming to the session, there's a little bit of a delay. So you'll see that lag. All right. Good. Perfect. All right. Good stuff. So again, as always, let us know your industry that you're in and let us know where you're from. Drop it in the chat. Use this as your own conference call. Use it as your own government contract and conference where you get to share who you are with the people out there. Let us all know what you do. There are a lot of opportunities things. A lot of things we're going to be discussing tonight. So it definitely helps us when we know who's in the audience. So thank you, Mr. Pierce. So definitely drop us in where you're at, what city you're in, and then also your industry. So let me know if you're in a cyber, if your it, if you do hardware, if you do software. All right. Wait, any other categories? What kind of categories? Wait, speaking of that, what kind of categories of companies and industries that you guys target? This loop is pretty tough. So hard to understand you there, but. Okay. All right. No, 30 second delay there. Everything's a lot of sync. I mean, you're talking over yourself. Okay, so watch the zoom, not the YouTube. Yeah, I'm looking at the zoom meeting. That's it. Okay. All right. So that was delayed as well. That's all I'm watching Eric. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. I don't have the YouTube up. Okay. All right. Good. Okay. All right. No, what, what types of industries, the companies that you guys typically work with? Well, so it's spans the gamut. Everything from IT, artificial intelligence, machine learning, very popular, very, very, very popular cybersecurity, medical devices, medical technologies, things like exoskeletons, anything that will improve combat performance or human machine interfaces, a whole variety of things. Okay. All right. So everyone listening, did you hear that? That's why I know we have some IT people in here. I know we have some cyber people in here. I don't know about exoskeletons folks, but that's okay. We're talking today. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and your organization and let people know. Okay. Great. My name is Wade Watts. I'm with the National Security Innovation Network, or NSIN that acronyms pronounced ensign, not like the ensign with the bars up here. NSIN, ensign. Okay. We are part of the Department of Defense. And we support all Department of Defense organizations through the Under Secretary of Defense for research and engineering. Now, what we do for a living is we help Department of Defense or DOD units, commands and organizations solve problems and challenges. And we do it without them being worried about paying us money. It's done for free. Now we do this in several different ways. We work with universities, faculty and students, and we also work with the startup community forming early stage ventures, working with early stage ventures, working with entrepreneurs, venture capitalists to take nascent technologies, good technologies that can be used in the military space and move forward with innovation to help DOD organizations solve their problems. In a nutshell, that's what we do at NSIN. Wow, you said a mouthful there. Yeah, don't ask me to repeat that again. Hope, go backwards. No, no, no, we're not. We're not going to. That's, of course, this computer. Yeah, no, that's good. By the way, since everyone's logging on, welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome. Thank you for joining us today. Let us know where you're from. Let us know your industry, your space. I see aviation in there. I see investment services. I see telecom, Randy Evans, cybersecurity grace over Maryland. You're going to enjoy today's talk. Nikki, you're going to enjoy cyber e-learning development. Okay. Wayne, we've got an interesting crowd out here today. Yeah, that's great. That's wonderful. You know, let's see what else we have out here. Diesel fuel. Okay. All right. Good stuff. Again, today's conversation is a little different from our typical conversations where we're just giving out government contracting advice. Today we're going to be talking about in sin. We're talking with Wade Watchman in sin. And he's going to be sharing a little bit about his organization, what they do. And him and I are going to have just have a conversation back and forth, like a typical podcast. And then again, for all those folks listening out here, feel free to chime in, ask any questions. I will be reviewing the screen while we're talking, but what I'm going to do is just going to go through, talk to him and it's going to be a live podcast where I'm interviewing him. And at the same time, you guys can interact and participate. Sounds good. Yes. Everybody's good. Okay. All right. So I just, I just want to set the tone for everyone else out there listening today so that they know exactly what's going on. So we're doing pretty good so far. By the way, make sure give us a thumbs up. Give us a thumbs up to figure out watching. So I see right now we've got 33 people watching seven likes. Let's keep it going. I know it's still early. Let's see who else we have out there. Let's see. We got electrical company. We have another aerospace person. He looks technology, AI, healthcare, medical. All right. Wait, we look like you got a good crowd. Yeah. That's a good thing. Yeah. Lots of stuff to talk about. Yeah. No, no, no. Lots of stuff to talk about. Definitely. Definitely. So all right. Wait. Take it away now. How did you get into this particular industry? Can you tell us a little bit about your background? Well, I was an Air Force officer for 23 and a half years. Worked in a variety of different fields. From aviation to war planning, a whole bunch of different things. Had a blast. Got out of the service and I started working for a firm. Called Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm. And there we did something with a strategic command. The United States strategic command out at off at Air Force base. They were standing up an organization called the global innovation strategy center, the gisk. And the purpose of the gisk was to solve quickly strategic command problems. And minimal time, get the 80% solution to a problem out now versus the 100% solution out years from that. I was a program manager for their systems engineering contract. At the gisk. And that's where I got a lot of the, if you will background with which to do my job, which is as a university program director or a UPD with ensign. And what that entails is I'm dedicated to working with a university in this case, it's the University of Nebraska at Omaha. And working with them working with the university, you know, as we call it. And working with ensign and bridging that gap and matching up DOD department of defense problems with the university to have students and faculty solve problems and then work with what we call the ecosystem. Basically the community within a 75 mile radius of Omaha to work with small companies or early stage ventures, startups, as well as military organizations within that 75 nautical mile radius. So I work with units like strategic command, the 55th wing out of off it. Air National Guard units out in Lincoln. And then I take their problems and then get them worked on either with through those venture capital type organizations or through universities. Now, this is the really great thing. This is the power of the University of Nebraska. This is the power of ensign. All right. All right. The last letter in ensign network. So there are many other UPDs like me who are sprawled at universities throughout the country. We have dedicated partnership agreements with 39 universities throughout the country. And we work with we work with these universities to solve problems from an academic perspective. So we might go to the students. We might go to the faculties. We have 12 plus different programs with which to solve problems at the university level. Additionally, as I said before, we also work through this network so that we have nationwide coverage. So I'll give you an example. Let's say a unit out in Massachusetts has a problem that they want to have a they want a cloaking device. Let's talk about Star Trek. I mean, hey, why not? They want a cloaking device. They don't want people to be able to see them. So that UPD that is out there in Massachusetts working with that unit, he might not have somebody at his fingertips. These are her fingertips to solve for a cloaking device. So he puts out information to the ensign network and says, Hey, does anybody know about this? Anybody know about cloaking devices? Somebody out in the West Coast, maybe at UC Berkeley says, Oh, we've been working cloaking devices for years. It says, yeah. And so we connect that particular unit in Massachusetts with University of California in Berkeley and they begin working on a problem. So no matter where that client, as we call our DOD brethren, is in the United States, no matter where the expertise may lie throughout the United States, chances are we can connect problem to solution or people who can provide that solution. That's the power of the ensign network. Wow. Wow. That's pretty incredible. Sticking with that same example, how did you, okay, how does the person who has the cloaking device solution become part of the ensign network? So each UPD University program director established his or her own ecosystem that includes all these companies in their particular area of responsibility. And because they work closely with people in their ecosystem, they, and they're working closely with people in the ensign network that UPD, they have the capability of matching the problem and the solution together. Now, for example, we here in Omaha just had an entrepreneurial symposium on the 5th of the month. And we got together a bunch of accelerating business accelerators, hubs, incubators, as well as other people who were in the business of creating companies. And that's the start of our ecosystem. Now we just started operations out in Omaha this past summer. Okay. So it's a matter of each UPD reaching out to the ecosystem, getting to know the ecosystem, establishing communications. And that UPD knows what's in their ecosystem. So when a problem, a DOD problem comes up that can do that matching. So this is a personal relationship kind of thing. Think of it in a way as kind of government-oriented business development, if you will, in marketing, getting out there, letting people know what we can do for our country and people have the opportunity to serve without becoming a member of the military. So that's interesting. Now let me repeat this back to make sure I understand it from a layman's person's term. So you're actually out there looking for companies with good solutions, right? So that you can have some sort of a repository of them. So when the Department of Defense needs that solution, you already know who to go to. Yes. Is that it? Yeah, that's it. All right. All right. And the net information within itself. So it's not like, gee, I only know my area, but the network communicates. Everybody understands what's available nationwide. And that's, again, you'll hear me say this. That's the beauty of the network. I like that. I like that a lot. Now, with that said, okay, how do I, as a person who has a solution, how do I bring it to the network? Okay. So there are a couple of different ways. One way is to go to our website at ensign.us. Okay, hold on. Let me pull up in a screen for everyone to see. Okay. So you can go to our website at ensign.us. Right. You can go to a section that interests you and usually at the bottom of the page, you'll see for further info, go to the, send an email to this address. In some cases you can even apply for a program online. Okay. Okay. Another way is to send an email. So you can send an email to info at ensign.us. And I'll drop that into that. Okay. And that way, you know, you can ask any question about anything and you'll get a response. And those, of course, local to Omaha can go to go to the website and get ahold of me. All of our team members are listed in our webpage in our, in our website. So if there's somebody that's near you, you can click on their information and link up with them on LinkedIn. All right. Now, at your, on your website here, you're saying I can find out like, for example, what type of solutions or technology you're looking for. Not, not quite. You'll, you can get that from by contacting us and we can tell you the information that's specific to your region. But what you'll get in the website is an overall description of all the different programs that are available. Through ensign and who to contact to get further information. Okay. Okay. All right. Now. Tell me about the, the university and affiliation part of the university and how does that come to play for me as a small business as, or as a product designer, someone who has a solution. How does that come to play with the university? So think of the university as a civilian think tank. So a lot of the problems that we get from. The DOD go to the university. See that the faculty or the students are both. Okay. They work on these problems could be over a semester and they come up with a solution. In some cases, when they come up with a solution, it's a theoretical solution. And they, and they can form their own companies. In many cases, and then work without what we call our acceleration portfolio. And they can, and through that, they can do some follow on work. So once the concept is, is developed and everything else, then they can develop prototypes using our acceleration portfolio. And that's a number of different programs, about six or seven different programs that enable businesses to directly work with the government to establish a contract and a variety of different means. That's one way. Students might be interested in working with the company to deform another company or to become part of their company and go forth with solutions. Additionally, we have other programs where companies and students and faculty, faculty can work together to solve problems. So there are a variety of different ways. There's not just one. The best way that the key people in all this are the university program directors. And we have regional directors on top of the, who work with the UPDs. So what you want to do is go to the incident website and under team. You'll see a listing of all of our team members. You'll see a listing of all of our team members. And then you'll see a listing of all of our team members. And then you can find the region in which you live and go to that regional director or UPD if there's a school close to you and directly link up with them or go to our website and email info at ensign.us or go to our website and find the thing that you're interested in. And there will be links or other areas that you're interested in. So I'm going to say something interesting that I intentionally did not do any of this beforehand just so that I could be surprised. And this is pretty good. I mean, I've never seen a website that has the connection to the person's LinkedIn profile. Well, we use LinkedIn quite extensively within Ensign. And it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's linked in quite extensively within Ensign. And it's been a good media hub for us. And I, I'm going to say this to everyone out there listening, you know, a few weeks ago when I was on with Judy, Brett, we talked about the power of LinkedIn. If you do not have a LinkedIn profile, create a LinkedIn profile. If you're not contacting and reach out to people via LinkedIn, you should be doing it. As you see here in this particular organization, they actually are linking the bios to the person right below their bios is their LinkedIn profile. So which means to me, they're wanting to connect with other businesses and entrepreneurs via LinkedIn. This is the tool that they're using to do so. So if you are not on LinkedIn, you should be on LinkedIn. You should be building up your professional profile. Because again, this is the new way in which again during COVID and where we have social distancing, this is how people are connecting outside of meeting face to face and in the office. So this is a great segue. I really do like that. And I appreciate that. This is, this is really, really neat and neat to see. I'll be honest with you. It's the first time I've ever seen any organization do that. And I suspect that there's going to be a lot of people coming behind you that do something very similar. Well, that's a good thing. Yeah. So I just want to say that I was like, wow, that was, that's really, that's pretty revolutionary. Especially for, do you guys consider yourself a government agency? We are part of the department. Oh yeah. So, so yeah. So then especially for a government agency. It's worked out well. We use all sorts of communications types. So if you don't have a LinkedIn account, all is not lost. I mean, we have that info at ensign.us email, which you can, you can use that to ask any question in the world regarding that. And so you, if you are interested in particular program and you want to sign up for it right then and there, can't do that with all the programs, but some of them you can, you know, our website contains a bevy of information. So one way or another, you're going to be able to get ahold of us, whether you have a LinkedIn account or not. That's, that's, that's very encouraging. Now the, someone asked the question, how does it differ from an SBIR? Okay, so we have SBIR programs in our portfolio. So you can come to us and say, hey, I'm, I'm interested in doing business with the government. And we can give you or connect you info, give you information so that you can apply for those. Okay. So we have SBIR, small business, innovation research contracts, and get into the system. And there are three phases to that system that give different amounts of awards. And in the third phase, you can even get a contract, a permanent contract with the Department of Defense at the end. It's a competitive process. You have to make pitches. You have to make phases or stages that where you get increasing amounts of funding to do more research and solidify, solidify your product or service. Now that's, So you cover it all. We cover it all. Additionally, here's another thought. Say you're a new business, right? And, you know, you've got some ideas or maybe you have a product that would be not only help in the commercial realm, but can help in the military realm. We call that dual use technology. Okay. You know, you can contact us and or a UPD university program director. And if you're a new company and you have no idea what's going on about how to create a company, how to get products to market, we can connect to you with a variety of different incubators and hubs and accelerators because again, they're part of our ecosystem and help you and make that connection. And now you've got somebody who can mentor you, mentor that company and do great things while you're going after a whole bunch of government contracts and going through our portfolio of what we call acceleration programs that link businesses to problems or problems with businesses. So you're telling me I don't have to have any revenues or sales or anything. I created a technology, I have a solution. I can reach out to you guys and you guys will start connecting me into your network. The key thing here is that you have a product or a service. Now, you know, if it's in the conceptual stages, you know, there are ways that we can introduce you to various hubs and accelerators to get started and mature those things. Now, if you have something at TRL level four, that's technology readiness level four, which means that you've got a component or a bread board that's gone through some type of validation in the lab. That's usually the point of entry for a lot of our programs. Okay. And then you can talk to us and we can get you involved in some of our programs. If you've got something a little bit less than, you know, we can refer you to those civilian agencies that can help you mentor you with your product or your idea. And then when it gets up to that TRL level four, we can get you involved in some of our programs. That's pretty good. I mean, is there any other agency or arm of the Department of Defense that's doing anything like this? Well, so maybe not at the DOD level, there are lots of other agencies and lots of other things within the services that have innovation offices. For example, at a base, you might find several innovation offices in a command. I know strategic command has its own innovation office. So, but we cover the entire Department of Defense. So you're saying basically why not start there? Start with us and we can link you up with the right people. That's really neat. By the way, just going to circle back around today, we're talking with Mr. Wade Watts from National Security Innovation Network and we're discussing the particular network and also their customers and how they are helping solve problems and how you too can get involved with your technology, with your solution, with your product, with your service. His organization connects you to, they have an ecosystem, is that the right way to say it? Yeah, that's right. An ecosystem of mentors, partners, universities that they can plug you into. Did I do a good job? Yeah, you did a great job. You got me. All right. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. And so again, for all those folks out there, I've sat in several meetings with people that they wonder, how do they get funding for their product? How do they get funding for their technology solution? Or they've already built the solution. They maybe they have patents already on the solution and they're wanting to bring it to the government realm. And so we are talking today discussing one way that you can do that. But coming through, and Mr. Wade Watts will elaborate, there's a host of different programs that they have that they could bring you in. If you start here, is that correct? Yes. Okay. I read somewhere you guys have hackathons. Yes, yes we do. So this is when a client, a military client comes to us and they say, we have a problem. And we hold what's called a hackathon or hacks. And we get a bunch of people throughout the entire nation to crash or concentrate effort on this particular problem. And it could be done over a period of about 30 to 45 days. Now, before COVID, we did this at various places throughout the nation. Now that COVID's here, we do this virtually. So people crash on a particular project with people apply to work in teams. They get set up in teams. The teams work on all these different problems, come up with solutions, and then determine what solution is best. So it's a really great program. It gets the client a really good solution within a very short period of time. Now, here's another letter in ensign eye for innovation. You don't normally see these kinds of things all over the place to solve military problems, department of defense problems. And the idea is to bring in people with a completely different mindset to, and a fresh perspective to solve the problems. Who better than students and faculty and entrepreneurs to bring their resources to bear to look at things differently. You know, you take a person who's been saying the department of defense for many, many years, they've got great experience, but maybe they're getting a little bit long in the tooth. Maybe they're not aware of certain new technologies or new trends. And so all these people from the academic and the entrepreneurial communities can bring their resources to bear in an innovative and quick fashion to solve real world problems. Now, you just said something which I actually pulled up your, your deck here. And we get this, I've again, I've sat in some rooms on some stages in clubhouse where people said that the venture capital community doesn't look to department of defense because they are slow and they're inefficient. But you're saying that you guys are quick and you're fast. So how does that? Can you kind of like explain the differences between typical perception of the department of defense being slow, taking a long time for contracts to happen. They rather go to the commercial sector as opposed to going through your network. Okay. So yeah, I'm happy to address that. So here's the deal. We built up a bunch of innovative quick reaction type programs so that people can come in. It's all about collaboration, right? Getting people in. Here's a problem with concentrate on the problem. Bam. Okay. Great. Now it's solved and we get that out to the, to the military client. Now, if you do things traditional through traditional means through military organizations, but I'm not ragging on the military. I was going to 20 somebody, but they have a lot of things that they have to be concerned about. They have to be concerned about regulations. They have to be concerned about, you know, being impartial and there are certain things, but certain regulations that they have to follow. This is about taking people that we have agreements with and legally bringing them together in a quick fashion and getting them to work on a problem quickly and get that problem out. So instead of taking years and years to develop the perfect solution, it might be done in a matter of months or maybe in a couple of years, if you're talking about producing prototypes and getting something out, out in the world, if it's something extremely complicated. So the idea is, you know, national security innovation network. We have a network. We innovatively create solutions through our partnerships, through the universities, through entrepreneurial ventures and get the job done and then get that out to our clients, our military clients. Wow. That's pretty good. Hey, what are you talking about? Make sure to give us a thumbs up in this video. Let people know about this. A lot of people, persons are still under the impression that the government is not innovative and they're coming up with ways to do so. They do recognize some of the flaws and national security innovation network seems to be a solution that is working. And so they created this as a way to even say, hey, we understand our flaws, but we do have probably need to be addressed quickly. And so they create this. Now, when was Ensign started or created? Back in 2016. Okay. It's known as MD five at the time and then morphed into what we now know as Ensign over a year ago. Okay. All right. So this is new. Yeah. Yeah. We're a new organization. Oh man. Now let me give you some statistics here. So over the years, we have ended up with over $200 million of contracts, government contracts through these problem solving things that we've discussed today. And over 200 new dual use ventures have been created in the past three years. Can you repeat that? I just in case the audience did not hear this, like, you know, things that you have to say slowly, that's one of them. Okay. So over the past three years, our work in the entrepreneurial space has netted over $200 million worth of government contracts and over 200. Dual use venture companies. Wow. Have been involved. Wow. I think that's enough to give it a try. I think that's enough to give him a chance. I, you know, from, from listening to what Wade saying, if you're already, if you already have a solution and you're already taking a solution to the commercial sector, why not bring it into the Ensign network and see if it solves, like you said, a dual use purpose, right? I think it's all a DOD need as well. Now, people also get concerned about like equity and, and like just the people want a piece of the company. How does that work? Okay. That's a very good question. So understand that companies that get involved with Ensign, we're not involved in any of that intellectual property. Okay. We're not involved in that. You get to retain it. Get involved with equity or trying to own part of the company. Neither does the government. So you get to, now, if you're seeking funding and you get that civilian means and you end up with a venture capitalist who has money, that's a whole heck of a different story. And they're going to want equity and they're going to want a piece, but we're not involved in that at all. Right. Right. Right. Absolutely. Through the Ensign network, you actually connect us with some of those people who have the resources that we may need. Absolutely. Yes. So again, if I'm, yeah, if I'm in that, if I, if I, I have my solution, like you said, I'm, it's not fully built out, but I need some money to, to continue to build it out to solve your problem. You connect me to those people as well. Yes. Absolutely. Well, again, this is part of the ecosystem. And there's a reason we call it an ecosystem. It's not just a department of defense clients and government. It's not just a department of defense. It's a department of executive executive. There's a lot of universities here. I mean, it's a whole gamut of people. Venture capitalist. People who can provide funding, maybe even chambers of commerce. Get involved. Again, that university program director is going to be keyed at the local level. To being able to make those connections. And where there is no university program director, then the regional director will get involved. So again, it's about establishing connections. I don't think you could say it enough, but I love it. I really, no, I enjoy these things. I learned a tremendous amount. And like you said, you're still a relatively new organization. And you're doing great work now. Do you, it's someone put in here, OTAs, BAAs. Do you guys, is there any connection there? Yes. So we do work other programs, OTAs. And again, it's about establishing those connections. The best advice I can give to you for your subscribers is if they have specific questions about specific programs, go to our website. They can ask their specific questions. And get down into whatever amount of detail you want. And we'll come back to you with answers and then work with you to get you involved. So what I'm hearing everyone out there from Wade is this, and by the way, we should all give him a round of applause because he did agree to come on to our show. Right. This is live. Okay. For the first time, we did not have no warm up call. We didn't have no preliminary call. This is not scripted. This is live. So that says to me that this particular organization is really seeking out to, to grow their ecosystem, to build upon their success, to expand it into new horizons, new areas. They really do want you small businesses out there who have potential solutions to talk to them. I can tell you this by him even agreeing to be on here says that he's accessible. They're not hiding from people. They want your phone calls. They want your emails. They, I showed you their website where they have their LinkedIn contacts on the website. They're asking you to connect with them. So, and I say this way, um, respectfully to all of my government agencies, sometimes they say that they're available and they're not. You won't find that problem here. Okay. I guarantee you people, we answer our mail. Uh, our local representatives, those UPDs, I mean, we're, we're active. We're, we're right in the thick of things and we're establishing connections on a daily basis. So, uh, you know, the only reason that we wouldn't respond is if somebody died. Right, right, right. But, uh, you know, ask us questions, get involved. Uh, look at our website. Uh, you'll see a variety of different means that you can contribute to the defense of our country without becoming, uh, a member of the department of defense. And you know, you know, it's what I like about that way is that it's really, uh, you know, you've, you've, and again, I don't know how much you've seen of me, but that's exactly what I share with people. Oh, look, look at you. Yeah. That's, look, there's weight. There's weight right there. Um, you know, I, I, you know, that's why my mission, and that's what I do here is I tell people that as a contractor for the government, we can still support our nation without having to actually, like I said, become part of the department of defense. So I, I really do believe in that and everything that we do. And that's why we are big on education and information. And that's why we invite great people like yourself to come out and speak to share with us all these things because again, we want to get the word out. Um, and I hope that everyone out there who's listening to this, who watches this, even if it's 2023. Okay. It's 2023. Right. All right. And you're hearing about, uh, COVID and that pandemic situation that happened a few years back. Okay. Still, uh, we want you to reach out because again, we don't know what the next, uh, global crisis is going to be. We don't know what the next, uh, cybersecurity situation scenario is going to be. Like you said, we're talking about exoskeleton. I know the government's looking for a robotic everything nowadays. So they have, so they have problems that they're looking to solve. And we have some smart people out here watching that want to get involved. This is a, I mean, I've never heard of anything like this before. I'll be honest with you. I've never heard anything like this. I never, I've never heard of anyone wanting us to reach out to them to see if we can help them solve problems. Well, uh, it's a great organization. We're, we're anxious and happy and, and, uh, ready to help the department of defense solve its biggest challenges. And we appreciate the opportunity, uh, to work with businesses, students and faculty across the nation to help us do that. Now, uh, there are people who are about to graduate from various, uh, colleges and universities across the nation who might want to join the department of defense of civilians and contribute their expertise on a permanent basis. And we have programs that enable that as well. Uh, so, uh, whether you want to do it from the outside and help the department of defense or you want to do it as a member of the department of defense, we have ways of, uh, getting that done. So if you want to join, uh, we have plenty of fellowships that would enable, uh, students and, uh, recent graduates an opportunity to work with, uh, department of defense, uh, executives and, uh, get a taste of what it's like to solve DoD problems. And then, uh, they can get, uh, hired. We have a special program called a high earth on where, uh, DoD, uh, entities come to us and say, Hey, I'm looking for a set of people, uh, who are, and I'm just going to use an example, uh, computer scientists into, uh, artificial intelligence or data, uh, visual visual visualization. That's a mouthful. I won't say that 10 times fast. Uh, we need these experts and then we advertise those positions nationwide and students from all across the nation can apply for those particular positions and get hired very, very quickly. So we'll advertise things over, uh, a period of four weeks, uh, then that military organization will interview people over a period of two weeks and then begin hiring people right then and there after that two week period. So this is not something that goes, you know, for months and months and weeks, right or anything. And, you know, everybody's all confused and all the rest of that. This, this is a fast streamline, innovative, uh, way of doing things. And it works. Wow. Are there any particular type of disciplines or backgrounds you're looking for? For the jobs piece? Uh, many of them are STEM related. Okay. Uh, no, not all, but many, uh, some are policy related. The bottom line is it all goes to the needs of that particular department of defense organization. So, uh, again, uh, it could be a social science kind of thing. They need policy people. It could be they need, uh, developers to work on artificial intelligence. It could be that they need somebody who understands, uh, manufacturing or research, a bunch of different things. So it's, it's wide open. But go ahead, please. No, no, no, no, that's great. No, that's great. I'm, I'm actually just reading the, uh, the feed for questions. Someone says, uh, wait, no, that they can help with services. Can he give us some examples of services that he has helped in the past? Okay. So, uh, you're talking about maybe what we've, what we've done in the past is a problem. Okay. Sure. Uh, so, uh, within the University of Nebraska, uh, we, we had, uh, an organization that came to us, uh, a recruiting organization. Now this is something that's definitely not STEM related. Right. Okay. Uh, they came to us saying that, uh, Hey, we have a problem with, uh, our recruits, some of them drop out for a variety of different reasons. And we want to decrease that dropout rate. How can we address this? And we had a group of students in the fall at the University of Nebraska at Omaha that looked at that question. And examined it and spoke to some people who were at the bleeding edge of, of creating programs. Uh, that, uh, helped pre-identify people who might be likely to drop out for a variety of different reasons. Uh, the students worked, uh, with those people, some of those experts. They did a lot of research and they came up with a custom tailored, uh, approach to reducing these recruiting problems. Now this approach was so good that the commanding general in charge of recruiting for this particular service, uh, branch of the armed forces was personally briefed on this solution. And they're going to, uh, they're going to do a trial run of this solution at one recruiting station. If that works, then they're going to start to implement it in wider and wider and wider, uh, uh, audiences and other, uh, units within that particular service. It could possibly affect the entire service and the way they do recruiting and the way they handle their recruits during boot camp. That's a real world non-technical, uh, version of what we can do. No, I think that's a great example. Um, I can, you know, we can all imagine picture that in our mind. So I think that's a great example. Wow. Nice. Nice. All right. Questions, questions. By the way, if you like what we're talking about, you like the chat, make sure you give them a thumbs up. Also again, uh, for all of those persons that are new, that are just coming on, um, let us know your industry. Let us know the city that you're in always, always, always use this as a way to network with fellow entrepreneurs and business folks out there. Like I said, we're building our own ecosystem. Wade has this ecosystem. Um, but I can tell you over the last four years of being online, um, so many people, persons have solutions that they've come to me with that again. Um, this, if I had known about ensign back then, I would have been sitting them right there to you. So this is, uh, incredible because again now, uh, you, you know, we have a place to send folks who have solutions, uh, that the department can help solve department of defense needs. And this is wonderful. Uh, can you just wait for some of the new folks that just came on, uh, tell us the organization and kind of just give them a brief about what you do. Just kind of the recap or rolling recap because, you know, we have some people that weren't here. Of course. When we started, you know, an hour ago, uh, even though we're at the end, we still want to just kind of remind people of what they do because, you know, folks coming on now, um, may have some different questions. All right. I'm Wade Watts and I'm with the national security innovation network, which is a department of defense organization designed to help the department of defense solve its. Most vexing and. Challenging, uh, problems and challenges. Now that's a double word. Okay. Anyway. That's okay. That's okay. Um, so our purpose is to help, uh, DOD organization solve problems. We do that by working with, uh, faculty at various, uh, universities throughout the nation, students and, uh, businesses, startup businesses, small businesses, early stage ventures, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs to, uh, work on department of defense problems and solve them. Now we're part of a nationwide network. So we have, uh, and we have agreements with 40, uh, universities and colleges nationwide. These are permanent working, uh, agreements partnerships as we call them. We call these universities partnerships partners, uh, with which to solve problems. Uh, we establish, uh, links and, uh, working knowledge of businesses all the time. And, uh, we've worked with our, uh, department of defense brethren who give us problems and attempt to take problems and match them up to solutions. Now within, uh, these partner colleges, uh, you have, uh, UPD's university program directors. I am one of them. I happen to serve over at the university of Nebraska and Obama. And the university program directors are the front line, if you will, of ensign nationwide. And they take care of their local ecosystem, which is an area of about 75 miles, uh, uh, within a 75 mile radius of where they work. And work with, uh, organizations within that 75 mile radius, department of defense organizations and take their problems and leverage their ecosystem, which they built up, composed of, uh, our partner universities, uh, the faculties, uh, the students, as well as, uh, the entrepreneurial base. Now, uh, it's important to understand that this is a network. So if one, uh, organization has a problem in Massachusetts, uh, we might know of people who can, uh, solve a problem in California and a university in California. Now here, what, uh, Eric is showing you on, on the screen here, we have three portfolios that help us do this. We have the national service portfolio, which gives people an opportunity to serve, uh, the department of defense, uh, to solve problems or become, uh, a member of the department of defense. So look at this national service portfolio as the gateway, uh, if you will, to the rest of our, uh, portfolios. And permanent, uh, a permanent employment, the department of defense, if you wish that. Now by serving in these various capacities or working with these different portfolios, you do not become a member of the department of defense. You're just helping us solve problems. We have a collaboration portfolio, which is dedicated to solving, um, problems on a nationwide basis. So we'll gather people from all across the nation to crash on a program as we do in hacks or, uh, we might do a boot camp or, uh, proof of concept, uh, kind of thing and, uh, work on solving those problems. Sometimes people working with, uh, collaboration portfolio programs and national service portfolio, uh, programs, uh, will want to form once they come up with a, an interim solution to something we'll want to form a company, uh, and then, uh, build a prototype or go into production or enter into, uh, a contract with a government, uh, through a variety of different means. This is what our acceleration program is all, all about. All of our entrepreneurial programs are part of that acceleration portfolio. In a nutshell, that's what we do. Uh, very well said. Uh, I just noticed that we had someone to hear that does, for example, the disinfection and cleaning is, was that a problem at one point? Do you know of for COVID? You know, uh, there are, I don't have details, but I do know that there have been COVID related, uh, problems that we have, uh, worked upon. I know that, uh, uh, the University of California, Berkeley had, uh, tackled or is in the process of tackling some COVID issues right now. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. No, no, I was, I just saw someone come on. So I thought I'd ask that question. Um, great question. Yeah. You want, you want to like to talk about this slide. So sure. What, what this slide basically says is we, we have three different ways. This talks about our three different portfolios in order to solve problems. We have our national service portfolio. So that's that square up at the top, uh, that you see there, um, where people can get involved with the DoD. Uh, we have our collaboration portfolio, which is, which emphasizes, uh, problem solving. And then we have our acceleration portfolio, which leverages, uh, our entrepreneurial community. All three of these programs work together to, uh, talk to overcome, uh, technical capability gaps, uh, to create new, uh, ventures that will solve, uh, DoD problems, uh, to provide a bevy of people to the DoD who would be interested in working up with them on a part-time or on a permanent basis, or, uh, collaborating and crashing on a problem to solve problems and all these work in tandem. They're mutually reinforced. Wow. Thank you. Thank you for that. Uh, again, I, I, I like to go over things a couple of times, just make sure, you know, people get it and they understand, uh, ask clarifying questions. I don't want people to leave here without getting all the information that they can. Hey, if you're on this chat, first of all, make sure to hit a thumbs up to share this information and content, uh, because as you know, the YouTube algorithms, they, they like that. Uh, the other thing is if you have any questions, uh, now's a great time to ask. But again, we have shared with you the website and email to ask, uh, there are how many regions, 12 regions? I think you said there are 10 regions, 10 regions. So again, there's a region that covers your area. Um, you know, reach out to your university program director, UPD, and again, they all on their website, incen.us, you will find all of the contact information for the UPDs as well as the, as well as the, some of the advisors for the program. And again, they want to hear from you. This is not a, um, empty promise. So to speak, uh, they really are working on trying to solve some of the department of defense press most pressing issues and they're turning to us, small businesses, technologists for solutions, the university that turned to faculty for solutions. So again, I know we have some smart people because I've talked a whole bunch of you out there. All right. I want to see, I mean, this is new. This is starting 2016. Okay. Three years in $200 million in contracts, 200 dual purpose ventures. I don't know what else this to me, um, speaks volumes out there, what's available. A lot of folks again, um, they're always asking me, Eric, you know, where do I go? Where do I start? Here it is. Okay. This is where you start. This is where you go. And if you're just coming on, they even talked about if you're a new business, a new company, a new product, a new service, there's a way for you to get involved as well. So they're looking for everyone who thinks you may have a potential solution for department of defense. Wait, it's looking for you. Right. Wait. That's right. That's right. And again, just, uh, I think just having him here with us tonight is evident of their commitment to really, uh, building their ecosystem, growing their ecosystem, wanting to tap out to the entrepreneurship community, wanting to tap out to the small business community, uh, to me that speaks volumes. So listen loud and clear. Uh, he's not on here for looks. Okay. He's, uh, I'm not going there. I'll leave that alone. Sorry, wait, I was silly. I got to make you laugh at some point. You're succeeding. That's okay. I have to have a good time. I mean, look, again, I tell people, um, we have a lot of hardworking folks out there. I mean, this is the end of the day and this actually a holiday for a lot of people. So, you know, at the same time, I do appreciate you coming in on a holiday. Uh, that's for most and, and sharing this information. Uh, let me, let me see if there's some questions out here in the room. Um, I can see an opportunity to develop a service that is already operating in the commercial space, but not operating in DOD space. That sounds about right. Yeah. We mentioned that if you've got a service or a product that you're selling in a commercial space that's not being, uh, done in a department of defense space, there's probably a need for it because whatever the commercial sector needs doesn't, I would imagine department of defense needs as well. Would you agree, white? Yes. You know, we've had several 5g project products, uh, and services, for example, uh, and problem sets that have come to us recently saying, Hey, we need help in this area. You know, how can we leverage best leverage 5g out in the battlefield? So that's, that's a perfect example of a dual use technology. Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Good. All right. Um, wait, uh, uh, this deck that you have with me, am I free to share that deck? Uh, You don't know yet. Okay. Okay. All right. As for mission, he said, we're not free to share it yet. Uh, what, what we will do is I will get with Wade and his team to find out what information that's publicly available to share and then we will share that. Is that fair? We can do that. Yes. Yeah. So let's, let's again, we are working with the government. So we have to be very, uh, cautious, uh, out there and we have to get their permission before we do anything. So again, um, as soon as we know, uh, what information, once he provides me with a deck that I am available, that's publicly available to share, we will share that one. Okay. Great. Okay. All right. Um, questions, we're going to, we're going to sign off. We're at the top of the hour. So we're going to close out, uh, hope everyone enjoyed this. Let me see. Is there any other questions? Um, if our products are already sold to DHS currently fulfilling a problem, is there room to grow within the NSI and ecosystem to help with other problems that, uh, we're not aware of. Absolutely. Yes. Uh, you know, uh, so the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense are two separate entities. So, you know, please spread the wealth, you know, if you, if you have something, uh, that you've leveraged for DHS and it works and you think it's a great thing by all means, come see us. There you go. Bernadita, that's your answer. Ain't a problem, Brian. Thank you. All right. Listen, I'm going to be respectful of his time today. Uh, I thank you guys so much. Um, thank everyone for participating. Again, make sure to share this with your folks. Uh, if you are in the space, I'm sure you have friends that are in this space. So definitely share this, spread the word, spread the love. Um, this is something, um, worth looking into for the majority of us out here. Um, again, he mentioned that we're not allowed to share this deck at this point, uh, but their capabilities are on their website. Also, if you have any questions about how you can get involved, definitely go to their website and send that us. I'll pull the website back up, visit their website and send that us. Their various programs are on there. If you have any question. Hold on. I'm going to pull it up for you guys. Here's their website. This is the team. All right. Look, portfolios. Here's their network. All right. Careers, events. They have a really extensive website. Go through it. Don't be lazy just because he didn't say that he has this particular problem. That doesn't mean it exists. Uh, he's human. He's not going to remember everything. Okay. Don't be lazy. Do your due diligence 200 million in the last three years to me. That's all I need to hear. Okay. Innovative, uh, rapid. Okay. They are looking for problems. They have problems that now that need immediate solutions in my correct weight. Yes. We have them all the time. So they're looking for immediate solutions. This is not RFP, RFQ, wait six months, wait for funding. Oh no. No, no. Okay. See, you're listening. People ask me, Eric, how do I get started? This is it. This is how this is it. This is a good place to get started. Uh, small right way. We could start out really small, right? Because we're just solving immediate needs. So it's nothing big. It's not 50 million or 22 million. It's, you know, right now a need, right? It's a, it's a coding, a solution, some research, right? It could be a variety of different things. Now we are, we are looking for products that we're not looking for vaporware. There you go. We're looking for, if you've, if you've got a product and you feel it would be a good thing, contact us. If you feel that would be abuse to the Department of Defense. Our regional directors, our UPDs, our staff can, you know, maybe what you have isn't immediately applicable. So that's great. We'll remember you. And when we get an appropriate problem that meets your solution, we can start working. Each UPD that's out there right now is building up his or her ecosystem and getting to know the businesses that are in their local areas. And this is important. Now, if you don't know who to contact, you're not sure which part of the webpage or which address or which thing on the website you should talk to us through. Very simple. Info at ensign.us, info at nsin.us email that address and we'll get started. And I'm going to, I'm going to put it back in the chat again for everyone. There it is. All right. I just dropped that in the chat. All of you to see info at ensign.us. I didn't see, okay, there it is. All right. Okay. All right. Good stuff. All right. Listen. Thank you so much, everyone for joining us tonight. Thank you, Wade, for being on. I hope that all the folks out here watching, they got a lot of benefit from this. Thank you for sharing. I know I learned a lot and we're happy to be able to showcase the organization and all the great work that you're doing. Thank you so much. Thank you, GovCon Giants family. Thank you all of our subscribers. Thank you, peers. Thank you, MTP, Ron, and everyone else out there listening to this. I hope that you take advantage. I hope that you go out, reach out to them. Let them know about your technology. Let them know about your solution. And I also encourage you to tell a friend, if not tell two friends as well. Or even three. Okay, three. All right. Tell three friends about it. Because again, listen, there is no shortage. I mean, we have needs every day, like you said. So we're looking for solutions every day. Make sure to give us a thumbs up. Make sure to like the video as well. Wade, some parting words, and we'll let you sign off. Thank you very much for the opportunity to share with everybody what Ensign does. Again, this is about the defense of our nation and improving our ability to protect our country. And we appreciate your interest and your willingness to step forward and say, hey, I can help out. So I look forward to hearing from you and so does Ensign as a whole. Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys. Take care. Thanks. I'll see you next week. Thanks, Wade.