The Defense Department plans to appoint a chief innovation officer to serve as a senior adviser to the secretary and lead programs such as the Defense Innovation Board’s suggested activities, DoD News reported Friday.

Cheryl Pellerin writes Defense Secretary Ashton Carter told a Center for Strategic and International Studies event that he will implement three practices from DIB’s recommendations in efforts to drive innovation at DoD.

Carter said the chief innovation officer could help build software and human networks to support technological development across DoD; sponsor contests and tournaments; and facilitate training and education to boost collaboration, creativity and critical thinking.

DoD also aims to launch targeted recruiting initiatives to hire computer scientists and software engineers into the military and civilian workforce, the report stated.

Carter added DoD seeks to build on its machine learning investments through challenges, prize competitions and a virtual center of excellence model that will work to encourage academic and private sector researchers to help the Pentagon achieve “stretch goals,” DoD News said.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. William Merz, head of the Defense Department‘s submarine warfare office, and other branch officials are looking to add more unmanned vehicles into the country’s undersea force, Navy Times reported Thursday.

David Larter writes autonomous drone developers have faced challenges in the collection of data from unmanned underwater vehicle sensors such as commercial fishing nets.

“I hope unmanned systems get there eventually but until then, give me what you have and I can plug holes that can unburden the [attack submarine fleet],” said Merz.

Vice Adm. Michael Connor, former head of the U.S. submarine forces, told Congress that UUVs can help guard select areas of the cable system to help free up attack boats for other tasks.

Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, U.S. Marine Corps deputy commandant for aviation, has said the service branch’s future Group 5 unmanned aircraft system may carry the same weapons and sensors as the F-35 fighter jet, DoD Buzz reported Thursday.

Davis told the Unmanned Systems Defense conference in Virginia that the Marine air-ground task force unmanned expeditionary platform or MUX will collaborate with the F-35B Lightning II aircraft and support manned-unmanned teaming, Hope Hodge Seck wrote.

“I think the Group 5 [unmanned aircraft system] for the Marine Corps will have [AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile] on there, will have AIM-9X [Sidewinder missile], will have all the weapons that an F-35 will carry, maybe even the sensors the F-35 will carry,” Davis said, according to the report.

Davis added he wants a technology demonstration flight of MUX by 2018 and early operational capability for the UAS by 2024, the report stated.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police has partnered with the FBI to provide a free online cyber training program for all local, state, tribal, territorial and federal law enforcers and first responders.

The Cyber Investigator Certification Program features nine modules on software, hardware, the internet and social networks, encryption, legal tools and digital evidence in an effort to train first responders to inspect and secure electronic evidences in a crime scene, the FBI said Oct. 19.

Participants will receive classroom-style lessons from cyber experts from the FBI, Carnegie Mellon University, prosecutors’ offices and other law enforcement agencies and will acquire a course certificate upon completion of the entire training program.

“The goal of the course… is to improve a first responder’s technical knowledge by focusing on best practices in terms of investigative methods specific for cyber investigations,” said Special Agent James McDonald from the cyber training and logistics unit within the FBI’s cyber division.

“The more first responders understand about technology, the less chance there is of errors being made while securing a crime scene involving digital evidence,” he added.

The course’s software session includes primers on metadata, operating systems and cloud, while its hardware deals with specific digital devices, electronic storage and networks.

The digital evidence module is designed to train participants to recognize potential sources of digital evidence, secure a digital device and document a crime scene, while the legal skills training offers lessons on the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and search warrants and consent searches for digital evidence.

The agency’s cyber division collaborated with the IACP and cyber experts from the Carnegie Mellon to develop and launch the CICP in October 2015 and has since garnered close to 5000 enrollments.

The FBI and the university are developing four Level 1 cyber training courses on cyber and digital cases for beginning to intermediate-level detectives, as well as three Level 2 training courses on network-based crimes, such as malware, worms and viruses for intermediate to advance detectives.

Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, deputy commandant for aviation at the U.S. Marine Corps, said in his speech at the Defense Unmanned Systems conference that the service branch’s newest unmanned aerial vehicle has performed its first combat mission, Seapower Magazine reported Wednesday.

Otto Kreisher writes an anonymous source from the Defense Department told Seapower Magazine that the MQ-21A Blackjack combat mission occurred in the Middle East.

Davis noted that Blackjack UAVs have been deployed in two locations including the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit that sails with the USS Wasp-led amphibious ready group.

He added the drone is built to support multiple missions, unlike most of the Marine UAVs that only perform ISR operations, and that the service branch wants its future unmanned aircraft to have the capacity to operate from ships and expeditionary land bases.

The RQ-21A UAV, manufactured by Boeing‘s Insitu subsidiary, is designed to offer persistent maritime and land-based tactical reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition data collection and dissemination capacity to warfighters.

Congress appropriated $53 billion in total funds to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence‘s National Intelligence Program during fiscal year 2016.

ODNI said Friday it will not disclose any “subsidiary information” on the NIP budget in order to protect national security.

The 2016 appropriated figure is higher than the $50.4 billion the agency requested for fiscal 2016 NIP-related activities.

NIP was established to support intelligence operations by various federal departments and the Central Intelligence Agency in efforts to protect the U.S. against outside threats.

The U.S. Army has appointed Brig. Gen. Robert Marion, head of the program executive office for aviation at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama since January 2014, as the military service’s deputy for acquisition and systems management.

Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley announced Marion’s new assignment in a Defense Department release published Friday.

Marion has led the procurement of aircraft weapon systems and equipment across the Army as well as supervised more than 3,000 military, government civilian and contractor employees during his tenure as aviation program executive officer.

He started his military career as an assignment officer within the acquisition management branch of the Army Personnel Command.

After that, he was assigned to the roles of assistant project manager for UH-60 Black Hawk A/L production and fielding at the Aviation and Missile Command, product manager for Black Hawk modernization and Comanche interoperability and chief of the acquisition management branch at the Army Human Resources Command.

Marion also worked in the theater high-altitude air defense battle management and weapons systems engineering, integration and test offices at Lockheed Martin‘s space systems segment as part of the Army’s Training With Industry program as well as held the position of joint commander at the Defense Contract Management Agency–Boeing Mesa.