Innovation communities within the Air Force now have an online forum to learn, collaborate and collect ideas relative to their daily needs.

The new "Innovation and Technology Knowledge Management" site will be available April 15 via the Air Force Portal and is part of the "Air Force Knowledge Now" infrastructure.

“The new system brings together the segments of the Air Force responsible for solving technology problems and for developing more efficient warfighting technology,” said Maj. Gen. Gregory H. Power, Air Force director of operations and support integration. "This powerful site will further its reach across other services, DOD agencies, other U.S. government departments and eventually industry and academia in order to expedite the technologies needed by the warfighters today.

"What we are developing is a comprehensive knowledge management system where we are going to accumulate innovation ideas, techniques, and new technologies into a one-stop shopping area for those interested in technology and innovation," he said. "It will allow our warfighters real-time information they don't have today.”

Currently, many of the innovation communities in the Air Force -- those organizations that are chartered to develop new technology or to solve problems -- all use separate venues or websites and databases to store their ideas. Under the new system, those sites will be joined into one location, so Air Force innovators can come to one place to collaborate with others focused on the similar activities.

“Air Force battlelabs are involved with exploring new technology, new techniques, tactics, procedures, and anything allowing the Air Force to improve warfighting,” the general said. “Air Force battlelabs specialize in areas of study such as air warfare, air mobility, command and control, force protection, info ops, space, and unmanned aerial vehicles. These labs will be one of the many organizations to benefit from the innovation and technology knowledge management site.”

General Power said eventually all Airmen will benefit from the site. For instance, he said an Airman working convoy operations in Iraq could visit the site to read about the latest developments there and even find an expert for an idea he has to improve his day-to-day operations.

"An operator could type in 'convoy operations' and the website would use a powerful engine to search for that topic in our database to find information about convoy operations, and it could also find a person he could talk to on the telephone or via e-mail who is a subject matter expert on convoy operations," General Power said. "This is an information exchange allowing that Airman to access the database and get information on the subject he is interested in or needs to know."

The innovation and technology knowledge area will benefit from the interaction of thousands of users and access to volumes of information already on the Internet. Users will participate in the "Wisdom Exchange" to interact with subject matter experts. They will also have access to interactive, online training modules for Air Force action officers.

Initially, the data available on the site comes from Air Force organizations, but the site will eventually pull information from other services, agencies, industry and academic databases. The site will also benefit from input by Airmen and other innovators who participate, General Power said.

"We have found over time that some of the best innovation comes from our younger folks who see how we are operating, or a technique or procedure that we have used for years, and because we have used it for so long we are comfortable with it," he said. "A younger person can see where we can make improvements. Those are the people we want to target -- the people coming on board now who are extremely information technology literate and are involved in and understand how our technology works."