Dcode on Wednesday won a 5-year contract with the Air Force’s technology accelerator, AFWERX, to provide “innovation-related educational and advisory services,” executives from the D.C. technology accelerator said in a statement.
The blanket purchase agreement award — which allows the agency to access services repeatedly as needed through the life of the contract — calls upon Dcode to provide “acquisition strategy, tech outreach and tech integration support,” and allows any organization within the Department of Defense to also access those services.
A Dcode spokesperson said the initial contract ceiling is $1.9 million, but could be modified to meet the DOD's demand for services.
Those services are meant to offer AFWERX and DOD customers training courses and advisory services on how to identify innovative technologies that could fuel new capabilities and to engage companies through the federal acquisition environment.
The award builds on the company’s business relationship with AFWERX, which had previously included contract work within the agency’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, a multistage effort that offers R&D contracts to potential innovative technologies with the goal of bringing them to market.
“We’re excited to continue partnering with AFWERX and other organizations across the DoD as they identify, adopt and scale the best-in-class commercial tech needed to help U.S. service members keep our country safe," said Lisa Gaisford, Dcode’s government managing director, in a statement.
Those services include identifying sector-specific mega-trends, outreach and engagement to attract emerging tech companies for contracting activity, tech scouting and vetting to source emerging tech solutions, and agile acquisition strategy and support to encourage nontraditional emerging tech participation.
Since its inception in 2015, Dcode has established curriculums to help innovative companies get into the federal market, while also educating agency officials on how to identify the next big technology tools.
Last year, it launched a new capital investment program, Dcode Capital, to help fund vetted technology companies looking to sell to the federal government.
