Rapid and agile – ASCA is going head to head with the doubters

It’s been just nine months since the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator was formed. Few thought it would achieve anything worthwhile. Under its new head, Professor Emily Hilder, ASCA aims to prove the doubters wrong.

Professor Emily Hilder, Head of the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) addresses the Quantum Australia 2024 Conference in Sydney.

It’s been just nine months since the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator, ASCA, was formed following the Defence Strategic Review. Few commentators thought ASCA would achieve anything worthwhile – and certainly not quickly.

Under its new head, Professor Emily Hilder, ASCA aims to prove the doubters wrong.

Last month ASCA and its US and UK equivalents, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit and the UK’s Defence and Security Accelerator, announced the first AUKUS Innovation Challenge, focused on Electronic Warfare. Later this month ASCA will run a sovereign Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) trial of 11 Australian drones. And ASCA is sorting through responses to other problem statements and innovation challenges it released last year.

ASCA’s aim is to dramatically accelerate service entry for new technologies and equipment. It doesn’t do R&D and manufacturing but instead has systems and processes that enable others to do them at an accelerated pace.

ASCA has access to the Defence Science and Technology Group’s deep technical expertise when it’s needed but is designed to achieve rapid impact.

“When you’re starting something new the best way to work out how to do it is to actually do it,” Professor Hilder says.

“We came out with the sovereign UAS challenge and RFI at the end of July. We went out with the first Problem Statements for our first Mission in November, about the same time we went out with our first call for Emerging and Disruptive Technologies.

“All of this was about actually getting started – not worrying about being perfect, not worrying about having processes that wouldn’t change, but really learning by doing.”

Professor Hilder acknowleges ASCA is a little like DARPA, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency. Maintaining the US analogy, she says, “We’re a bit DARPA. We’re also a bit DIU. And we’re also a bit SCO – Strategic Capabilities Office. All of these organisations are not doing R&D – they are providing the processes, the funding, the connective tissue to be able to do that. ASCA is similar.”

ASCA, which has a budget of about $3.4bn over the coming decade and currently employs about 50 people, sits alongside DSTG, not under it. It is still at an embryonic stage, Professor Hilder points out.

“We need to grow some more and need to develop a methodology for working fast, repeatedly,” she says.

“Part of that success is putting up the systems and processes that allow us to do it again, and again, and again.”

A feature of the Defence Industry Development Strategy (DIDS) was the recognition of the importance of engaging private investment, such as venture captilists to support both the innovation and the development of the industrial base.

“That is going to be really important for ASCA and our programs and how we can help to support that further investment in defence technologies,” she says.

“Our success will be measured by what we’re able to transition to capability for the Australian Defence Force.”

– Professor Emily Hilder, director of the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA)

This month’s trial of 11 Australian-made UASs will be run by ASCA, which released the request for information to industry just a month after it was formed.

“As part of that fly-off, companies are delivering a prototype and a production plan to demonstrate how they can deliver at scale,” Professor Hilder says.

“We might find there are customers in Defence or other parts of government who are ready to buy these systems straight away.

“Another outcome is that we might offer development support to companies to help them increase production, to get from a prototype to a suitable production model.

“We want to be able to move rapidly and in an agile way to explore the full range of possibilities.”

The RFI generated 250 responses, which speaks to the breadth and depth of Australian capability in this technology area. But a focus was to identify companies that could deliver quickly.

No explosive “attack drone” payloads were sought, says Hilder: “At this point we’re thinking about general purpose and ISR drones. We chose something we really needed, and deliberately chose small drones because they’re an easy use-case to test. But we have of course asked companies to describe how they might be able to provide more advanced or robust systems with different capabilities.

“At the moment, we’re focusing on this approach to test the process.”

After a professional life spent as a research scientist and then as a leader in the university sector, working for DSTG and ASCA might seem an odd choice, but Professor Hilder disagrees.

“I’ve always been driven by taking good R&D and looking for opportunities for it to be used, getting it into the hands of somebody who can make the biggest impact,” she says.

Professor Hilder spent five years at the University of South Australia where she established the Future Industries Institute with several hundred people and a focus on building closer connection between the university and industry. She joined DSTG in 2020 as Chief of its Maritime Division then became Chief of Platforms before going sideways to establish ASCA.

So, why ASCA?

“I love challenge, but I’m also really excited about the opportunity to work closely with industry again, with Defence as a critical end-user. That deep engagement with industry and connecting R&D to industry to deliver a critical product for Australia is a great driver for me.”