National Defense Magazine contextualizes the “Valley of Death” in the following manner:  “The defense technology community spends a lot of time grumbling about the “Valley of Death,” a term referring to the place where innovative technologies funded by the Defense Department fail to make it into warfighters’ hands because they can’t make the transition from prototype to a real product.” According to the DoD, the recently announced pilot program to Accelerate the Procurement and Fielding of Innovative Technologies (APFIT) is “an additional tool the DoD can use to propel innovative capabilities across the “Valley of Death” and into the hands of the warfighter.”