Announcement of the United States Marine Corps (USMC) Innovation Challenge

1. Situation. This MARADMIN serves as the
announcement for the Deputy Commandant for Information's (DC I)
USMC Innovation Challenge. This challenge is about the service
solving service problems and the Marine Corps effectively scaling
those solutions for employment across the service. The Marine Corps
is filled with uniquely talented individuals with skillsets beyond
their designated MOS or billet. These Marines and DON civilians have
a talent for leveraging technology to solve problems with innovative
solutions. However, no permanent environment or community exists to
enable these Marines to network, collaborate, and crowdsource their
hidden skillsets to develop innovative solutions.
2. Background. Previous efforts to leverage the innovative spirit of
our Marines and DON civilians occurred through seasonal challenges.
There are vast opportunities across the FMF and HQMC to elevate and
streamline the way Marines accomplish missions or tasks and move
from analog, manual-intensive processes to user-defined,
data-centric, automated approaches that ensure accuracy, compliance,
and relevance to enable decision making and action. Individuals
capable of impacting their environments are seeking ways to shape
and improve the way their military occupational specialty community
or unit performs tasks or day-to-day operations. DC I will enable
these uniquely talented Marines' and DON civilians' skillsets and
drive, through the establishment of a permanent USMC
Innovation Challenge.
3. Concept of Operations. The USMC Innovation Challenge will be a
permanent challenge chaired by Information Command, Control,
Communications and Computers (IC4) with actions and assessments
executed through the USMCs Innovation Council. The USMC Innovation
Challenge will be accessible online and managed through the USMC
Innovation Challenge Portal:
https://usmc.sharepoint-mil.us/sites/DCI/USMC_Innovation_Challenge.
Within the USMC Innovation Challenge Portal, Marines, commanders,
and staffs will be able to submit issues for challenge participants
to develops solutions towards. Marines and DON civilians will be
able to form teams through the site, take on submitted issues,
and develop innovative solutions. A core tenant of the USMC
Innovation Challenge is to enable Commanders and their staffs to
serve as team sponsor. As a team sponsor, a commander, or staff
section lead will serve as the primary advocate for the issue and
provide direct feedback to the challenge participant or team for
features that yield an employable solution. Prioritization of issues
will be guided by Innovation Campaigns. Innovation Campaigns
communicate the theme for which issues and solutions will receive
prioritization for assessments and awards. 
3.a. Scheme of Maneuver. The USMC Innovation Challenge is enabled
through four core components:
3.a.1. Registration and Reception. The USMC Innovation Challenge
will be open to all active duty Marines, Reserve Marines in a duty
status, and DON civilians. Marines will be able to access the
portal, register as a participant, list their current skills,
view current teams in the challenge, request to join an active
team, or create a team and recruit from current
registered participants. Commands and staff sections will be able
register in the portal as sponsors as well as view or
submit ideas for the challenge.
3.a.2. Issue and Idea Submission, Innovation Campaigns and
Sponsorship. The USMC Innovation Challenge is a marketplace for
innovative ideas actioned by crowdsourced teams from across
the Service. Commands or staff section heads across the Service can
volunteer to serve as a sponsor and provide direct support and
feedback to participants for feature identification to guide
innovation challenge participants. Collaboration will additionally
be supported through a code repository and discussion forum in the
USMC Innovation Challenge Portal. To maintain tempo and drive
interest, "Innovation Campaigns" will set focus areas to center
innovation efforts on leveraging newly available tech or to enthuse
submissions by commands. Campaigns will be announced within the
USMC Innovation Challenge Portal. For the kick-off of the
USMC Innovation Challenge, the Innovation Campaign will focus on
leveraging the M365 Power Platform suite of tools to automate and
streamline command and staff day-to-day operations. An active
Innovation Campaign does limit the submission of non-aligned issues
but instead impacts the prioritization of assessments. Changes in
Innovation Campaigns will be decided by the IC4 Director. 
3.a.3. Collaboration, Development, and Solution Submission.
Within the USMC Innovation Challenge Portal, participants, teams
and sponsors will collaborate to identify required features and
other requirements to meet the issue need or idea. This component
will be enabled by a code repository and developer discussion forum
accessible through the USMC Innovation Challenge Portal. The final
step in this component is the project submission for assessment. 
3.a.4. Assess, Award, Advertise, and Scale. Based on the inventory
of submissions, USMC Innovation Council will hold assessments as
required. Sponsors and innovation teams will coordinate
presentations, demos, and briefs through the portal with USMC
Innovation Council. All assessment and award activities will be
posted on the USMC Innovation Challenge Portal. Post assessment,
talent will be screened for additional opportunities across the
service and successful solutions, when applicable, will be shared
with impacted Operational Advisory Groups (OAGs) and transitioned
towards organization that can scale the solution for wider
employment and standardization.
3.b. Coordinating Instructions
3.b.1. Scope. The USMC Innovation Challenge is restricted to the
unclassified network. Participants are prohibited from reverse
engineering, decompiling/disassembling, or working around any
technical limitations of any Microsoft product
(without pre-approval). Data injects to support applications
developed should only include sourcing data that is already within
the Microsoft M365 environment or provided through the sponsoring
command or staff section. The participants are limited to
capabilities included in the DoD cloud USMC Tenant M365 suite of
capabilities for the M365 environment. Changes to this scope will be
announced through the USMC Innovation Challenge Portal.
3.b.2. All participants will comply with any applicable terms of
service and system of record notice (SORN).
3.b.3. Awards and Financial Incentives. The USMC Innovation Council
will decide upon awards and financial incentives, as authorized by
REF A and REF B, based on the technical accomplishment, reach of the
application and the availability of funds.
3.b.4. Assessment Prioritization. The USMC Innovation Council
members will prioritize assessments of solutions based on the
solution's alignment to the current "Innovation Campaign" and
sponsorship. 
3.b.5. All sponsors and participants must register through the
Innovation Challenge Portal. Sponsors can be commanders or their
officer/enlisted staff at or above the rank of O4 or E8.
Any changes to sponsorship guidelines will be posted on the USMC
Innovation Challenge Portal. 
3.c. Timeline. 
3.c.1.  Upon release of this MARADMIN, the USMC Innovation Challenge
will be active. Commands, staffs, and participants can register for
the challenge, form teams, submit or sponsor issues and begin
development of their innovative solutions through the USMC
Innovation Challenge Portal. 
3.c.2. USMC Innovation Council assessments will be held based on the
direction of the IC4 Director and will be influenced based on the
quantity and quality of submissions of completed solutions. 
3.c.3.  All other timelines will be posted in the USMC Innovation
Challenge Portal.
4.  Admin and Logistics
4.a.  Innovation Challenge participants, to include DON civilians,
are authorized to compete in the challenge during official duty
hours and use government facilities, equipment, materials, property,
funds, and information. In consideration of the authorization for
participants to work on the challenge during official duty hours and
the permission for participants to use government resources, all
innovations, inventions, technical data, computer software,
products, items, and materials developed, created, generated, or
submitted for the USMC Innovation Challenge or associated with the
USMC Innovation Challenge, are the property of the USMC and will
be delivered to DC I.
4.b.  Participants will review the USMC Innovation Challenge Portal
for additional information, guidance, submission materials, and
shall comply with the terms and conditions associated with the USMC
Innovation Challenge. 
5.  Command and Control.  Commands and staffs are encouraged to
support participation of all Marines and DON Civilians that desire
to participate in this event.  Commanders are also encouraged to
permit participants to utilize duty hours for participation in the
challenge as able given mission requirements.
5.a. IC4 will serve as the chair and is responsible for the overall
conduct of USMC Innovation Challenge.
5.b.  Points of Contact. For questions regarding this message,
please access the USMC Innovation Challenge Portal website.
6.  Release authorized by Lieutenant General M. G. Carter,,
Headquarters Marine Corps, Deputy Commandant for Information.