DEVCOM opens office in Israel, fosters partnerships with foreign allies

By Argie Sarantinos, DEVCOM Public AffairsOctober 18, 2021

Col. Mike Fleming, ITC-Mediterranean director, tests a multirotor aircraft in a flight simulator during a technology scouting visit. UrbanAero, an innovative aircraft company, developed the aircraft with a vision of safe autonomous urban flying vehicles.
1 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – Col. Mike Fleming, ITC-Mediterranean director, tests a multirotor aircraft in a flight simulator during a technology scouting visit. UrbanAero, an innovative aircraft company, developed the aircraft with a vision of safe autonomous urban flying vehicles. (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL
XTend, an Israeli start-up company demonstrates its small unmanned aircraft during a recent demonstration with Col. Mike Fleming, ITC-Mediterranean director.
2 / 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption – XTend, an Israeli start-up company demonstrates its small unmanned aircraft during a recent demonstration with Col. Mike Fleming, ITC-Mediterranean director. (Photo Credit: U.S. Army) VIEW ORIGINAL

The Israeli-U.S. technology partnership got a boost recently when DEVCOM stood up its newest International Technology Center, ITC-Mediterranean, in Tel Aviv, Israel. The two-person team is small, but its core mission – to find innovative companies in Israel with cutting-edge technologies – is large.

U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, or DEVCOM, reaches across international borders to ensure Soldiers have the best technology available by leveraging ITCs strategically located around the world. The ITCs seek opportunities to partner with foreign companies on technologies that support the Army’s key priorities.

“My main goal is to establish DEVCOM, AFC and the U.S. as the research and development partner of choice for the highly innovative technology companies located in this region. We are committed to ensuring U.S. warfighters have access to the world’s best technologies,” said Col. Mike Fleming, ITC-Mediterranean director.

DEVCOM ITCs are located in Europe, Asia, South America, and North America. The ITCs, which are managed by DEVCOM’s three Forward Elements – DEVCOM Americas, DEVCOM Atlantic and DEVCOM Indo-Pacific – are part of the DEVCOM Global Enterprise. The ITC-Mediterranean’s area of responsibility includes Israel, Turkey, South Africa, and United Arab Emirates.

“One of our biggest challenges was establishing relationships with the Israeli Ministry of Defense, the Israeli Defense Force, and the Defense Attaché Office. We also had to become familiar with the technology ecosystem in Israel and learn how to connect DEVCOM with Israel industry partners,” Fleming said.

The ITCs work closely with DEVCOM and the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Defense Exports and Cooperation on the Army’s Engineer and Scientist Exchange Program, or ESEP, which pairs DOD civilian scientists and engineers with embedded positions in partner nations. The yearlong assignment creates opportunities to work collaboratively using laboratories, personnel, facilities, equipment, and other partner technology resources that support the Army’s modernization priorities.

“While we continuously look for new ways to partner with industry, we also identify research grant and cooperative agreement opportunities with international scientists and across the Army research enterprise. These partnerships form the basis of the Basic & Applied Research mission,” said James Mullis, ITC-Mediterranean technical director.

In addition to scouting for foreign technology, the ITC’s facilitate the international armaments cooperation mission by providing boots on the ground to meet fact-to-face with leadership of partner nations. The ITCs connect personnel from these nations with U.S. researchers and technical project officers and facilitate sharing research, development, and test and evaluation information on defense technologies, systems, and equipment using data exchanges agreements. Their mission also includes supporting cooperative projects and procuring foreign technology and equipment and logistics.

Collaborating with international partners is a critical part of the DEVCOM Global Enterprise mission, and the ITC-Mediterranean office is a key part of this effort. These partnerships will ultimately play a role in providing the best technology available to Soldiers.

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The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, known as DEVCOM, is home to thousands of the Army’s scientists, engineers, technicians, and analysts located around the globe that leverage cutting-edge technologies to empower the American Warfighter with the data and abilities to see, sense, make decisions and act faster than our adversaries – today and in the future.

As part of the Army Futures Command, Team DEVCOM takes risks to find new solutions every single day. Our experts drive innovation, improve existing technologies, and engineer solutions to technical limitations. Our work goes beyond theory to simulation and prototyping. We take potential S&T solutions from the lab “into the dirt” for experimentation alongside Soldiers. DEVCOM prides itself as a global ecosystem of innovators, from world-class universities and large defense contractors, to small minority-owned businesses and allied international partners.