This content is produced by The Australian Financial Review in commercial partnership with BAE Systems Australia.

Back in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik into space, the president of the United States at the time, Dwight D. Eisenhower, oversaw the creation of what has become known as the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Its mission was to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for US national security and work with stakeholders ranging from universities to large and small business.