Scientists and engineers changed the world. - Regina E. Dugan

We want to make things. We want to make things with our hands. We crave it. It sparks something in us, feeds our urge to create. That's why were here. The future will be what we choose to build. We choose to build what we believe in. It's always been that way. A small group of people choose to believe in something, and then they make it so. In that order. They choose to believe in something, and then they make it so. That's the power of makers — the power to choose a new future, by believing, and making.

DARPA was created in 1958, shortly after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to reach space, sparking a national crisis in the United States. Concern that the Russians had achieved technological superiority led to the formation of the agency. Its founding mission was simple: "to prevent and create strategic surprise.”

Over the past 50 years, the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has produced an unparalleled number of breakthroughs. Arguably, it has the longest-standing, most consistent track record of radical invention in history. Its innovations include the internet; RISC computing; global positioning satellites; stealth technology; unmanned aerial vehicles, or “drones”; and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS), which are now used in everything from air bags to ink-jet printers to video games like the Wii. Though the U.S. military was the original customer for DARPA’s applications, the agency’s advances have played a central role in creating a host of multibillion-dollar industries. What makes DARPA’s long list of accomplishments even more impressive is the agency’s swiftness, relatively tiny organization, and comparatively modest budget. Its programs last, on average, only three to five years.