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This Defense Intelligence Agency reference document is dated 30 March 2010. The Defense Warning Office prepared it under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. It compares lone maverick inventors with corporate inventors who work in think tanks and other large organizations, focusing on unconventional energy and propulsion, including antigravity. It sorts inventors into five types. It concludes that formally trained mavericks (Types 3 and 4) are the most likely source of the next innovations. Untrained inventors are expected to contribute nothing substantial.
From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/30/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD compares lone “maverick” inventors with researchers working inside larger organizations in order to ask where major future breakthroughs are most likely to come from, especially in unconventional energy and propulsion. It concludes that the strongest candidates are technically trained, relatively independent, and flexible researchers working with some freedom from institutional constraint. Because that preferred profile closely resembles the kind of researcher who appears to have authored or shaped much of the broader AAWSAP DIRD effort, the document reflects a notable methodological circularity, validating the program’s operational model rather than neutrally assessing the innovation ecosystem.
UNCLASSIFIED/ }FOA OFFI€iIAb WSE ONblf • Individual with formal training and little money. • Individual with formal training and some money. • Small group (usually two or three) of knowledgeable inventors with money. "Formal training" is assumed to be in the specific scientific or engineering discipline in which the invention would naturally be situated. Of course, in the last entry in the above list, the maverick inventor begins to look more like the "corporate inventor," but the idea should be clear. Although this paper does not dwell on the personality of the maverick inventor, it is useful to remind ourselves that the maverick inventor is by definition a loner both in social and scientific/technical areas. In an online article (Reference 3), maverick inventor Dean Kamen 1 writes: "It's not that they're brilliant or well-educated ... They work all the time. They don't let failure demoralize or destroy them. They pick themselves up and keep going and eventually, every once in a while, one of your ideas actually breaks through and works, and it makes all that stuff seem worthwhile." Kamen's article goes on to state: "Stubborn, delusionally optimistic, creative, fearless, flexible and focused are some of the ways psychologists and business people describe the personality of the maverick ...'You need to be in denial or in ignorance about the huge challenges you face,' laughs Guy Kawasaki, a former Apple executive and entrepreneur who's starting the self-described "magazine rack" alltop.com. 'You have to believe that it wouldn't be hard for you to succeed."' Corporate Inventor The corporate inventor is a part of and relies on a large organization, conveniently labeled a think tank, to both stimu late and susta in him. There is constant interaction between like-minded innovators that serves both as a stimulus to explore new areas and as a much-needed "dead-end detector." Usually, sufficient cash and equipment are on hand, especially when the desired innovation is being funded externally. These think tanks may be government, military, academic, corporate, or private. The closest model to the freedom associated with the maverick inventor is usually found in a university setting, although a number of privately sponsored institutions exist (for example, Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Canada). At least until recently, academic institutions prided themselves in the freedom granted to their research scientists and engineers. Table 1 provides examples of the various types of th ink tanks. ' Dean Kamen Is an experienced Inventor In the medical field, where his Inventions Include the AutoSyrlnge . Among his many other inventions are devices using the Stirling cycle for energy generation and water purification and the Segway Personal Transporter. UNCLASSIFIED//FOlt err1e1At t,91! eNtt 2
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 19 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.