📖Story

How we got started with this project.

The Defense Entrepreneurs Forum (DEF) launched the Project on Innovation in National Security (PINS) in 2022 to help address some of the problems we saw in the national security community:

1. Understanding the innovation ecosystem, including all of its Organizations, Groups, Activities, Artifacts, and Individuals.

2. Data literacy and related data applications, such as automation and various forms of artificial intelligence.

3. Supporting a learning mindset through iterative and exploratory approaches that encourage experimentation and new ideas.

Innovation is such a buzzword that using it without context or purpose can actually be more harmful than helpful.

With an increase in both resourcing for and evaluation of innovation efforts in defense, intelligence, and related national security fields, we believe this understanding is paramount to improving outcomes.

Because our tagline is to inspire, connect, and empower, we started asking ourselves the question "How might we?" about this observed challenge and realized one potential starting point was staring us right in the face: a network graph created in 2018 by several of our community members.

Thus was born this project, a data set and associated applications designed to help people explore, understand, and build a culture of innovation in national security through individual action.

Most of this project is free and open-source data in keeping with the values of our community - it is available for reuse and remixing under the conditions of our License.

We hope that you are as interested in what this project can contribute as we are and welcome your feedback and ideas! Check out the Workflow Overview section to find out ways to get involved and feel free to follow us and our Partners on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and more!