An official from the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) announced that, as of today, the DIU is on contract to launch its new Digital OnRamp platform this fall.
Digital OnRamp is a generative AI platform that allows private sector organizations to match their technologies and products to DoD opportunities, while also allowing DoD users to discover private sector tech capabilities.
“We are on contract as of today to launch a major platform to the United States, really broadly to the nation, and it is for users who are industry users and those who are DoD as well,” Cheryl Ingstad, DIU deputy director of digital platforms and developer ecosystem, said on Thursday at an event hosted by GovCIO.
“The problem that we’re trying to solve here is that small companies, medium size, large companies, academia, they have tremendous technology that we need in the Defense Department, but they don’t know where to find their DoD customer. They can’t find the opportunity,” Ingstad said. “So, what we’re providing is a digital platform that offers security.”
Ingstad said the platform will start at Impact Level 2 (IL2), allowing private sector users to enter queries into the latest GenAI tools to search “all of the databases” – such as SAM.gov – for DoD business opportunities.
“Most people in the commercial world … they don’t know what a BAA – a broad area announcement – is, and so, the easiest way for them to engage is on a platform like what we’re launching,” she explained.
Ingstad said commercial users can use the platform to simply state their technology and ask for a match. “Then, whatever opportunity comes back, we’ll give them online education and also physical offices near them that can help them through the next stages of response,” she said.
For DoD users, Ingstad said the platform will search DoD data sets, “which will be ever-growing,” as well as commercial data sets to see up-and-coming venture companies or “other established companies that you maybe never knew had that solution.”
She also noted that DIU held a technology demonstration for the platform in December 2024 with 100 test users. Despite the agency only asking the users to do one or two queries, Ingstad said “they really liked it” and performed 7,100 queries.
“They filled out 1,500 surveys, and some of the things they said were, ‘This is 1,000 percent better than what we have now,’” she said. “Just that quick little tech demo, two companies won a contract. So, one DoD user found a company to solve their problem, and one company found a DoD customer and got on contract.”
“It will be launched here in the fall,” Ingstad said. “We are on contract this summer, so plotting through every step to stand up this platform, and we can’t wait to launch it.”
Finally, Ingstad said DIU is welcoming new test users for the platform. Those who are interested in signing up to be a test user can do so here.