PEARL HARBOR - U.S. Pacific Fleet’s ‘The Bridge’ program and Military District 5 (MD5) is accepting applications for a Pacific Fleet Industry Innovation Fellowship (PI2F) through June 15.

During the program, participants will work alongside industry professionals from August to mid-September, in order to improve their ability to think quickly and analytically to solve problems from within the Navy.

“This fellowship provides a unique opportunity for Sailors assigned throughout the U.S. Pacific Fleet to work alongside innovative partners in industry while working on issues relevant to the fleet,” said Cmdr. Tom Ogden, U.S. Pacific Fleet director of Strategic Initiatives Group. “In past years, Sailors from E-1 through O-10, active duty and civilian, have taken lessons learned from the fellowship, brought them back to their home units, and helped implement ideas that have yielded important insights and process improvements.”

The three companies sponsoring the PI2F fellows are:

Stardog (https://www.stardog.com) - Stardog is an enterprise knowledge graph platform that allows customers to query massive, disparate, heterogeneous data, regardless of structure with simplicity of implementation. They are based in Arlington, VA. They are looking for candidates with a technical background in computer science and software engineering/development, as well as those with an intelligence or geospacial background.

FieldWire (https://www.fieldwire.com) - FieldWire operates in the data interoperability space, synthesizing and outputting information of all types on construction sites--from files of plans and designs to communication tools and task management information. They have done some work for GSA and DOT previously and are located in San Francisco, CA. They are looking for candidates with or without technical skills, and have a slight preference for people with business experience. Their ideal candidate would be someone with construction experience.

HAAS Alert (https://www.haasalert.com) - Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, HAAS Alert connects public sector agencies performing critical operations with motorists, smart cities, and connected and autonomous vehicles. With a suite of products to connect cities and fleets, including mobile and internet of things sensors, it creates broadcast signals from indicators such as lights and sirens from vehicles at the source and distributes real-time data sets through the HAAS Alert mobility safety cloud service. Candidates should have a background in software and/or hardware development, particularly in telecommunications.

Last year one of PI2F’s selected applicants, Fire Controlman 2nd Class Chris Holley, conducted his fellowship at GreatHorn, a cloud communications security solutions startup company out of Belmont, Massachusetts.

“My experience with GreatHorn was fantastic,” said Holley. “I was able to brush up on my coding skills, adding experience with a language I hadn't used yet, and brought back a much more thorough understanding of analytics and metrics.”

Though the fellowship is likely to improve Sailors’ professional skill-set, some Sailors who attend find that they have much more to offer the fleet upon their return.

“This program helped me to become a more adaptable and flexible leader,” said Holley. “It not only helped my technical acumen, but also showed me a lot of useful time-management and delegation strategies. There isn't a doubt in my mind that this program directly helped me to become a better leader.”

Anyone interested in participating needs to fill out the MD5 Education Program Application by June 15, 2018. The applicant must have a command endorsement from an O-5/GS-14 or above and provide their sponsor’s contact information.

Applications can be found online at: https://education.md5.net/education/form/eduapplication.

Command endorsement forms can be found at: https://education.md5.net/education/educationapproval.

For questions about the fellowship, or the application process, please contact thebridge@navy.mil or Ms. Ashley Wang via phone at 808-474-0546/DSN 315-474-0546 or via email ashley.wang.ctr@navy.mil.

Please note: Cooperation and placement with companies does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Navy or USPACFLT of the services or supplies the company may offer.