Who We Are
Innovation for Public Good
We are a tech foundation for public good
Born of the reality that R&D investments are shifting dramatically to the private sector, MITRE Engenuity was formed in 2019 as a part of MITRE Corporation. It is our fundamental belief that without guidance, nurturing, and radical collaboration, these critical industry investments might be lost in a sea of ideation without implementation. MITRE Engenuity addresses the realities of the ever-shifting landscape of American Innovation and the impact drivers who guide it, convening experts, organizations, and investors in a non-competitive space to drive generational impact for public good.
Our vision is to begin to work with industries to turn competition into a force for good that will challenge us to work together, to aspire toward greater productivity, greater impact – to find a common goal that is higher than the profits of one company.
Singular Capabilities
A focus on solving issues critical to national security and a healthy economy enables us to bridge the gap between competitors, tackling problems that no one organization can solve alone. Through this radical collaboration we create generational impact for public good.
Collaborative Innovation
United by the common belief that through collaborative ideation we can unlock the true capability of American Innovation, we break the mold with our unique workflow just as we break the mold in our groundbreaking industry partnerships.
Empowering Industry
Our process of accelerating innovation to deliver results for the public good means that we arrive at complex problems at different parts of their life cycle. For this reason, MITRE Engenuity views each project as Incubate, Accelerate, or Cultivate. Our work within these pillars is delivered in these innovative ways:
R&D Consortia
Bridging the gap between competitive organizations and thought leaders, collaborating for the public good leads us to groundbreaking discoveries in numerous industries from cyber to telecommunications.
Impact Projects
We work with industry to do special research projects that enable their advancement of technology that is in the public interest.
Grant-funded Studies
Strategic relationships with philanthropic foundations investing in public issues.
Subscription Platforms
Driving impact directly to individuals through fairly priced services.
Startup Incubation
Incubating MITRE IP and innovating external venture-backed start-ups.
MITRE Engenuity Leadership
Our team is comprised of experts from the industries and disciplines that drive our modern economy, from microelectronics to 5G to cybersecurity and beyond
Laurie Giandomenico, Ph.D.
SVP & Chief Acceleration Officer of MITRE Accelerator, and Managing Director, MITRE Engenuity
Laurie Giandomenico is senior vice president and chief acceleration officer. In this role, she positions MITRE to collaborate and engage with the private sector, government, and academia to advance our whole-of-nation approach to solving national problems.
Liz Witherspoon
Managing Director, MITRE Engenuity
As the managing director for MITRE Engenuity Liz leads commercial businesses and teams in cyber resiliency, workforce development, and public health and safety. In this role, Liz oversees operations and performance, strategic planning, product management and marketing, and collaboration across the organization to amplify the impact of MITRE in the private sector. She works closely with the Accelerator team to launch new initiatives that drive impact and growth.
She is an experienced P&L and operational leader of businesses across a range of revenue models and sectors. Her thirty-year career has been split evenly between coasts at entrepreneurial start-ups and traditional organizations. Most recently, Liz was a Vice President at Forrester Research where she managed the company’s Analyst Advisory and Total Economic Impact businesses. She led research, tool development, and identified frameworks to evaluate and communicate the impact of technologies. She began her career in telecom, e-commerce, and edtech startups in San Francisco and worked at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt prior to Forrester. She has conducted primary research on AI/ML, cybersecurity, enterprise digital transformation, and education equity.
Liz earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a master’s degree from the University of Michigan focused on university administration and instructional technology. She holds a certificate in HR Management and Analytics from The Wharton School.
Ajit Kahaduwe
Managing Director of Incubation and New Product Development, MITRE Engenuity
As the managing director of incubation and new product development, Ajit Kahaduwe leads the team responsible for discovering MITRE ideas which are scalable for the public good with private industry. His team members evaluate market opportunities based on financial and social return criteria and develop ideas using lean startup methodology. Kahaduwe has extensive global experience working with cellular and public safety systems from planning, deployment, optimization, standardization with a strong focus on regulatory and public requirements in E-911, Public Warning System, and the pre-cursor recommendations for FirstNet. Additionally, he led software development and innovation incubation teams in big data and analytics, cloud services, network health, drones, and location technologies. After a global career at Nokia and Motorola in addition to a network equipment startup, Kahaduwe joined MITRE in 2021. Prior to joining, he was a senior product management executive at a global SaaS web collaboration and unified communications as a services provider. He is also a Scrum Alliance certified scrum product owner and hold patents in location and security technology. Kahaduwe holds a BS in electrical engineering with minors in economics and international affairs from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Jon Baker
General Manager, Center for Threat-Informed Defense, MITRE Engenuity
As the General Manager for the Center for Threat-Informed Defense, Jon Baker is responsible for the Center’s strategy and its outcomes as he convenes the global cybersecurity community to advance the state of the art and the practice in threat-informed defense. Jon co-founded the Center as a privately funded research and development organization where he partners with sophisticated cybersecurity teams to systematically advance the global understanding of adversary tradecraft and apply that knowledge to improve the community’s ability to defend against those threats.
Jon has extensive experience leading research teams and collaborating with industry to advance cybersecurity capabilities. Most recently, he led MITRE’s Cyber Threat Intelligence and Adversary Emulation Department where he was responsible for advancing those critical capabilities across MITRE’s work program and overseeing MITRE’s work on CALDERA and MITRE ATT&CK®. Jon led MITRE’s team in the early development of the OASIS STIX and TAXII standards while supporting the Department of Homeland Security. Jon led MITRE’s security automation team through the development of SCAP and managed the CVE team. He was a cocreator of OVAL, a standard language for describing and checking for the presence of misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and other endpoint artifacts.
Jon holds a Master’s in Computer Science from Boston University and a Bachelor’s in Psychology from Tufts University.
William Booth
General Manager, MITRE ATT&CK® Evaluations, MITRE Engenuity
As General Manager of MITRE ATT&CK Evaluations, William Booth oversees the continued growth of an essential component of MITRE Engenuity’s Cyber Resiliency portfolio, serving the cybersecurity community with critical analyses of products and services through neutral, unbiased assessments.
Booth joins MITRE Engenuity following his work as the lead of CALDERA, MITRE’s open-source software project. In this role, he oversaw all product management, UX/UI, sales, customer support, finance, and marketing. As the lead of CALDERA (which included Pathfinder, the first Center for Threat-Informed Defense funded project), Booth worked alongside Jon Baker, forging a relationship that will continue to strengthen MITRE Engenuity’s Cyber Resiliency portfolio.
Booth earned his MBA from University of Chicago and holds a BS in both math and economics from The University of Kansas.
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