A Problem in Want of a Solution: A Systematic Pursuit of Innovation at DPAA

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "A Decade of DPAA: Challenges and Opportunities to the Accounting Mission", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) remains committed to finding the best tools and technologies to achieve the personnel accounting mission. To that end, an Innovation Program was launched in 2021 through the Partnerships and Innovation Directorate. The Innovation Program aims to provide a flexibly structured, collaborative space for anyone in the Agency and through our partner organizations to help find, test, and transition transformative solutions for the Agency’s identified problems. This paper will introduce the Innovation Program, DPAA’s strategic innovation focus areas, the idea submission system, and the project selection and execution structure. This programmatic framework will be supplemented by case studies of current Innovation projects aimed to showcase the breadth of scope and depth of examination of Innovation’s at DPAA.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• A Decade of DPAA: Challenges and Opportunities to the Accounting Mission   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow