BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. – Over the past 6 months, the Beale Innovation Team attended multiple temporary duties (TDY) tackling innovation combat employment under the name Combat Innovation Task Force with the premise that if Airmen were in a contested environment on an island, would they be able to pivot and survive utilizing skills learned via innovation.
Since 2017, innovators from across the Department of Defense (DoD) have created education lessons to better understand skills that directly contribute to a culture shift and ultimately an adaptive way of thinking to solve DoD problems. Classes like ‘Design Warfare’ were created to help fill that gap and are backed by the Air Force Work Project (AFWERX). While innovation education still struggles to reach wings across the Air Force, such TDY’s are an invitation to build and alpha test the newest innovation education to allow participating service members to jumpstart into innovation without spending months and thousands of dollars on training that may or may not be properly effective.
From July 22-26, the Beale Innovation Team participated in building an Innovation Combat Exercise backed by AFWERX, Headquarters Air Force Strategic Studies Group (HAF/SSG), and the Air Force Research Laboratory. Members of Spark Cells from various Major Commands (MAJCOMS) and career backgrounds united to create and test a course to foster innovation utilized for combat capabilities. Beale members directly impacted the creation of a new standard of Air Force training.
![Beale Innovation Team Members Spark Course Impacting Force of the Future]()
