U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross today announced that 40 organizations — including nonprofits, institutions of higher education, and entrepreneurship-focused organizations — from 28 states and two territories will receive $21 million to create and expand cluster-focused entrepreneurship and technology transfer programs, and early-stage seed fund support under EDA’s 2018 Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program competition.

The full list of 2018 i6 grantees can be found on the EDA RIS 2018 i6 Challenge webpage. 2018 Seed Fund Support Program grantees are highlighted on the 2018 Seed Fund program page.

The 2018 group of RIS awardees expands the RIS portfolio to five new states and territories. Selected from a pool of more than 230 applicants, the awardees include a defense commercialization project led by the Maryland Department of Commerce, a global food systems technology accelerator led by Kansas State University, a healthcare innovation initiative led by the Northern Kentucky Tri-Country Economic Development Corporation, a community-oriented, rural-focused proof-of-concept center led by the North Idaho College Venture Center and new efforts led by StartUpNV to expand and increase angel investment activity across the state of Nevada.

You can learn more about how our 2018 RIS cohort plans to engage to boost innovation and support entrepreneurship in their regions by reading these new i6 Challenge and Seed Fund program blog posts.

The Secretary also announced that EDA will open the 2019 RIS competition on February 1^st, 2019, when the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is scheduled to be published on grants.gov.

We encourage you to start thinking NOW about how you can plug into the RIS program to help support your innovation and entrepreneurship growth activities. Prospective applicants can find more information, including information on eligibility and how they will be able to apply, on EDA’s RIS webpage.

By Debbie Gregory.

It looks like the IT system failures that resulted in 340,000 GI Bill students being shorted on their fall semester Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) has not been fixed. As of November 8th, the backlog was currently impacting at least 82,000 GI Bill students, it doest look like a fix will happen before the beginning of the spring semester.

Two sections of the Forever GI Bill, which extends or expands many benefits, change the way the VA pays a monthly housing stipend. Previously the stipend was based on the ZIP code of where the veteran lived — now it’s based on the ZIP code of where he or she goes to school.

This, apparently, upended the entire system, and left the VA with a huge backlog of claims to be processed.

According to John Lawrence, the undersecretary at the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), the VA is working on “fallbacks” for the likelihood that problems will continue past the start of the spring semester.

Based on testimony, Rep. Phil Roe (R-TN) chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said “we have no earthly idea” when veterans can expect the system will be functioning, or how much the fix will cost.

Many are frustrated that there is no solution in place. No cases as yet have been filed of veterans who have been unable to enroll because of the system failures.

Retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert M. Worley II, the director of education services at the VBA,  noted that about 1,000 veterans had been waiting more than 60 days for housing allowance payments that could exceed $2,000 per month. He said about 11,000 had been waiting for at least 30 days.

Worley appeared to be first in line to take the fall for the VA’s failures. He is slated to be removed as director of education services and is being re-assigned within the VBA.

For the time being, benefits claims-processing employees are working mandatory overtime, and the agency has brought on an additional 202-person processing staff. The VA said it is processing an average of 16,000 claims per day, but expects that the backlog will continue through the rest of the year.

By Debbie Gregory.

Silicon Valley and the U.S. military have built their successes on completely different cultures: tech companies have a culture of rapid innovation, while the Pentagon is slow-moving. And recently, a wave of anti-government sentiment has driven several prominent technology firms to cancel major Washington contracts. But much to the disappointment of many of their employees, there are still many Silicon Valley companies that are eager to sell artificial intelligence (AI) products to the U.S. military.

Despite pressure from many in the tech world to keep their products off the battlefield, there is a less vocal but still sizable group of companies that argue that working with the government can help save lives.

The concept of lethal AI is just one area where hundreds of tech workers are trying to influence corporate behavior and ethics by signing a pledge not to work on lethal autonomous weapons. A group of Google employees protested the company’s involvement in Project Maven, the Defense Department’s flagship AI program, which uses sophisticated algorithms to analyze drone footage. Microsoft has pledged to have a dialogue with the Defense Department and policymakers about ethical issues surrounding AI, including autonomous weapons.

But companies such as Intel, IBM, GE, Oracle and Raytheon have expressed interest in providing AI for the military.

The Pentagon has spent the last few years trying to cultivate deeper ties with firms in Silicon Valley that are building the technologies needed to maintain its battlefield edge.

“If big tech companies are going to turn their back on U.S. Department of Defense, this country is going to be in trouble,” said Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

Bezos’ eagerness to cooperate with the Pentagon stems from his desire to keep America safe. “I know everybody is very conflicted about the current politics and so on,” he said, and added, “This country is a gem.”

By Debbie Gregory.

The VA Disability Compensation Rates will increase 2.8 percent in 2019. This is the largest increase since 2012. These increases are tied to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures a broad sampling of the cost of consumer goods and expenses. The CPI is compared to the previous year’s numbers. If there is an increase, a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is made. If there is no increase, there is no COLA. The COLA affects about one of every five Americans, including Social Security recipients, disabled veterans, federal retirees and retired military members. In 2018, the COLA was 2.0 percent; in 2017, retirees saw a 0.3 percent increase. There was no increase at all in 2016; the last time COLA increased by more than 2.8 percent was 2012, when compensation rates got a 3.6 percent hike.

The VA has strange computation rules that make working out the exact rates impossible. Therefore, the final amounts are not yet available but we can approximate the 2019 benefits based on the cost of living increase. These benefits are paid the first of each month for the prior month. Below is an unofficial approximation of the increases for various levels of VA Disability just for the Veteran and not including spouses or dependents:

10 percent – $140.05
20 percent – $276.84
30 percent – $428.83
40 percent – $617.73
50 percent – $879.36
60 percent – $1,113.86
70 percent – $1,403.71
80 percent – $1,631.69
90 percent – $1,833.62
100 percent – $3,057.13

We are grateful to every Veteran who served and sacrificed.

By Debbie Gregory.

It scours the bottom of Navy ships, invades the crevices of Air Force jets and costs the Pentagon more money annually than many of its most expensive weapons systems—up to $21 billion per year, according to a Defense Department-commissioned audit.

Corrosion happens to anything exposed to weather, including the metals that make up modern weapons systems like fighter jets, ships, ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

In 2002, the department established the Office of Corrosion Policy and Oversight to ensure big-dollar weapons systems weren’t taken offline by oxidation and to help branches determine how much money ought to be spent on rust prevention.

Technically, the problem is bigger than just rust. Rust is only the most commonly known type of corrosion, and occurs when iron reacts with water or moist air. The broader category includes any type of metal broken down or disintegrated by a chemical reaction. Data being reported by the military branches has been inconsistent and the office has yet to issue guidance on how funding levels should be categorized, according to a related audit released Thursday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

“The Army data GAO received did not reconcile with data presented in the Corrosion Office annual reports to Congress for five of eight fiscal years,” auditors wrote. “The Navy data did not reconcile for two of eight fiscal years, and there was no supporting documentation identifying how these figures were calculated. Air Force officials did not provide any figures or supporting documentation for four fiscal years, stating that these figures were not available.”

Army officials told GAO they’re not able to accurately report how much is spent preventing or combating corrosion because many of those duties are performed by personnel who do many other things, as well.

“The corrosion-related costs of conducting the corrosion executive role are not separated from this other function,” they told GAO.

The GAO has made the following recommendations to the Defense Department:

• Issue guidance for identifying and reviewing funding levels for performing corrosion executive duties.
• Ensure that the Corrosion Office develops a process to maintain documentation of its reviews of corrosion planning.
• Ensure that corrosion executives establish guidance on reviewing the adequacy of corrosion planning.

While the military is looking into more coating options – from aluminum- to polyurethane-based waterproofing – there are some alternatives. Cathodic protection is an electro-chemical process that prevents corrosion entirely, and super-finishing is a surface treatment process that prevents damage from friction.