MORE and more, government access to cutting-edge technology, skills, and business models involves tapping into the advances being made by outside players—essentially engineering a “reverse tech transfer.” Historically, government has fostered technological leaps, from space flight to GPS to vaccines, and the tech-transfer process then helped commercialize these new capabilities. Now, leading capabilities are often already commercial: Consumer facial recognition technology may prove valuable for law enforcement,1 commercial mapping tools have become part of the arsenal used by military special forces,2 and commercial genetic testing could offer public health data and insights beyond what research studies are likely able to recruit.3
