Steve Blank

Hacking for Defense is now in 70 universities, including 20+ in the UK – and this year in Poland and Germany – with teams of students working to understand and help solve national security problems.

This year’s problems came from the Navy, Air Force, Army Research Lab, Defense Innovation Unit, IQT, and NASA.

This quarter 9 teams of 42 students at Stanford collectively interviewed 1132 beneficiaries, stakeholders, requirements writers, program managers, industry partners, etc. – while simultaneously building a series of AI-driven minimal viable products and developing a path to deployment.

We opened this year’s final presentations session with a great talk about AI and defense – past, present and future – from (Ret) LTG Jack Shanahan. Jack was the Director of the DoD Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (JAIC). Watching his talk is a worthwhile use of your time.

If you can’t see Jack Shanahan’s video click here

During the quarter guest speakers in the class included Owen West – director of the Defense Innovation Unit, Mike Brown – partner at Shield Capital, (Ret) LTG Joseph McGee recent head of the Joint Staff J5 (strategy, plans, and policy,) and Hon Marise Payne Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.

“Lessons Learned” Presentations
Each of the eight teams gave a final “Lessons Learned” presentation along with a 2-minute video to provide context about their problem. Unlike traditional demo days where teams show off, “Here’s how smart I am, and isn’t this a great product, please give me money,” the Lessons Learned presentations tell the story of each team’s 10-week journey and hard-won learning and discovery. It’s a roller coaster narrative describing what happens when they discover that everything they thought they knew on day one was wrong and how they eventually got it right.

While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas, Customer Development and AI tools to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique.

This year we had the teams add two new slides at the end of their presentation: 1) tell us which AI tools they used, and 2) their estimate of progress on the Technology Readiness Level and Investment Readiness Level.

Here’s how they did it and what they delivered.

Team Noctua – Started with a problem that said, “Special operators can’t detect drones passively, without exposing their position.” They ended up understanding that a larger problem was, “Dismounted troops and base defenders lack a passive means to provide early warning detection of all types of drones, including those that are RF silent.

If you can’t see the Noctura video click here

If you can’t see the Noctura presentation click here

These are “Wicked” Problems
Wicked problems refer to really complex problems, ones with multiple moving parts, where the solution isn’t obvious and lacks a definitive formula. Most problems our Hacking For Defense students work on fall into this category. They are often ambiguous. They start with a problem from a sponsor, and not only is the solution unclear but figuring out how to acquire and deploy it is also complex. Most often students find that in hindsight the problem was a symptom of a more interesting and complex problem – and that Acquisition in the Dept of War is unlike anything in the commercial world.

Instead of admiring problems from inside a classroom our students get of the building and learn, discovery and iterate.

The figure shows the types of problems Hacking for Defense students encounter, with the most common ones shaded.

Team SwarmShield – The initial problem was framed as, the cost of using expensive interceptors to shoot down cheap drones. By the end of the class the Team realized the problem was building terminal guidance that lets a cheap, throwaway drone find and hit an attacker at night.

If you can’t see the SwarmShield summary video click here.

If you can’t see the SwarmShield presentation click here

Department of War Directory – This year the students had access to a Department of War Directory – essentially a phonebook of  ~5,700 names of “Who buys in the Dept of War?” The directory includes a tutorial on how the DoW buys and the various acquisition and funding processes and programs that exist for startups. It provides details on how to sell to the DoW and where the Program Acquistion Officers (PAEs) fit into that process.

Team Weapons Without Wait – The initial problem for this team was “Retool and scale defense manufacturing capacity to replenish critical munitions at the pace required by sustained, high-intensity conflicts.”  This is what I call a “boil the ocean” problem” – big and vast – and vague. By class end the team realized what was rapidly achievable (and needed) was affordable, certified munitions for small drones produced at the point-of-need.

If you can’t see the Weapons Without Wait video click here

If you can’t see the Weapons Without Wait presentation click here

It Started With An Idea
Hacking for Defense is built on the same methodology as Lean LaunchPad class I created at Stanford in 2011. It was adopted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as the NSF I-Corps (Innovation Corps) to train Principal Investigators who wanted an SBIR grant. Now in its second decade and in 100+ universities, I-Corps has become a standard for science commercialization at the NSF, National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy –  training 3,251 teams and launching 1,400+ startups to date.

Team IonX – IonX also started with a “boil the ocean” problem – The US needs a secure rare earth supply chain. They ended up with a problem more tangible and deliverable – Mineral processors across markets can’t identify and test better chemical reagent schemes.

If you can’t see the IonX video click here

If you can’t see the IonX presentation click here

Origins Of Hacking For Defense
In 2016, brainstorming with Pete Newell of BMNT and Joe Felter at Stanford, we observed that students in our research universities had little connection to the problems their government was trying to solve. We realized the same Lean LaunchPad/I-Corps class would provide a framework to do so. That year we launched both Hacking for Defense and Hacking for Diplomacy (with Professor Jeremy Weinstein and the State Department) at Stanford.

Team Cheese on the Moon – Started with a mandate to search for mineral deposits on the moon. By class end they realized that to do that lunar missions need to know what’s on and under the moon not only to mine, but to land.

If you can’t see the Cheese on the Moon video click here

If you can’t see the Cheese on the Moon presentation click here

Goals for Hacking for Defense
A decade ago, our goal for the class was to teach students Lean Innovation methods while they engaged in national public service. We wanted to familiarize students with the military as a profession and help them better understand its expertise, and its role in society. We also hoped the class would show our sponsors a methodology that builds problem understanding before writing requirements.

The class still does all this, but now that the DoW is buying from startups and defense venture capital is abundant, the class has turned into a national security incubator. Most of our teams form defense companies.