The Army‘s Rapid Equipping Force is using an online community platform to gather ideas from the public on how to improve equipment used by soldiers in the battlefield, Federal News Radio reported Friday.Jared Serbu writes the Army launched the public website CoCreate last fall to identify warfighters’ challenges when using tactical products and engage civilian innovators in addressing submitted issues.
“The idea of crowdsourcing is that you take from the crowd when the crowd submits a good idea,” Gary Frost, REF deputy director for futures, told the station.
“CoCreate suggests that you’re not taking from the crowd. Instead, you’re using the crowd, in a collaborative environment to build a solution that the crowd would also use,” Frost added, according to the report.
Through the program, the Army worked to redesign a commercial all-terrain vehicle from a warfighter’s perspective, Serbu writes.
The refurbished vehicle features a 4G cellular communications platform and a muffler system designed to reduce engine noise, according to the article.
