Austin Community College District (ACC) and the U.S. Army announced recently a $16 million, 10-year Intergovernmental Support Agreement (IGSA) to scale the Army Software Factory. The partnership enhances how the military develops innovation and technical talent.

What started as a pilot has become proof of concept at a national scale — demonstrating how higher education can work with the military to build talent, accelerate innovation, and strengthen readiness for the challenges ahead.

“At ACC, we believe education should be as dynamic and mission-driven as the people it serves,” ACC Chancellor Russell Lowery-Hart said. “This partnership works because it’s built on trust, shared purpose and a deep respect for learning. Our role is to create environments where soldiers can grow their skills, test ideas and do meaningful work that matters. When we love learners to success and give them space to belong, incredible things happen — and this partnership proves what’s possible when education leads.”

The agreement builds on an $8 million, five-year pilot that has emerged as a national model for best practice, delivering mission-ready software while redefining how soldiers learn, collaborate and build advanced technical skills.

“This project has saved the country and the community hundreds of millions of dollars. That is possible only because the people involved in this project are approaching it selflessly,” said Colonel Vito Errico, director of the Army Software Factory. “I would like to accelerate the types of outcomes we see here. I believe we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. As technology becomes more and more a part of everybody’s everyday life, special and unique partnerships can serve as a blueprint for others to raise their competencies as well.”

A partnership built on trust and shared purpose

The Army Software Factory pairs real operational needs with academic instruction. Soldiers work on live missions while learning software development, platform engineering, and product design to create operational tools for the Army while developing high-demand technical skills to advance military readiness and precision.

ACC’s Tech Accelerator assists the Software Factory in delivering academic programming through the college’s computer science and visual communications departments.

More than facilities or space, the partnership leverages ACC’s instructional expertise, agile curriculum, and ability to rapidly design responsive learning programs tailored to soldiers’ real-world missions.

Partnership in action with agile curriculum

Late last year, ACC began assisting the Software Factory to identify a new and unexpected need: technical training that required soldering skills.

Within weeks, ACC faculty adapted existing coursework, tailored the instruction to the soldiers’ specific mission requirements, and launched a modified training program. Soldiers were trained, certified and back to work—without procurement hurdles or months-long development timelines.

“That moment says everything about why this partnership works,” Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives Garrett Groves said. “They trusted us enough to ask, and we were agile enough to respond. That kind of speed and collaboration is rare — and it’s exactly what modern learning and modern missions require.”

“It has been critical to our success to have the pipeline and go from zero to hero. ACC has been very accommodating and very helpful in moving our work forward,” said First Lieutenant Johnathan Riemerspeters, Software Factory engineer. “Previously, when we looked at a problem in the hardware space, we looked at people who worked on it on the side. When it comes to operational needs, we can’t do that. ACC’s ability to build that pipeline in real time for us for this specific need helped us move forward in what would usually be a huge blocker.”

Redefining what military learning can look like

The Army Software Factory demonstrates how higher education can move at the speed of relevance, designing curriculum alongside practitioners and evolving in real-time as needs change.

This approach aligns with ACC’s long-standing commitment to workforce readiness and upward mobility.

By serving as the educational backbone for this work, ACC is helping redefine what modern military learning can look like—and what community colleges can contribute at a national scale.

A model that’s already scaling to the U.S. Marine Corps

The impact of the Army Software Factory has extended beyond the Army itself. Inspired by its success, the U.S. Marine Corps partnered with the Army and ACC to replicate the model and launch their own Marine Software Factory at the college’s Rio Grande Campus, which they are now exploring how to expand further in Austin. This model underscores ACC’s ability to convene partners, scale innovation, and create replicable models that benefit learners far beyond Central Texas.

Looking ahead, ACC and the Army are exploring how to develop a national learning and training network that could serve soldiers across the country.

This article was originally posted here.