How .Edu and .Gov Ecosystems Work Together to Drive Innovation for the Defense Industry
Silicon Valley Start-ups Aren’t the Only Organizations Driving Change - Stanford University’s Hacking for Defense Project Incubates Unique Solutions
Last year, the U.S. Department of Defense awarded $445 billion in contracts. But while the majority went to well-known government contractors, a shift is starting to take place. The Department of Defense is interested — and excited — by new technologies and start-ups incubated in programs like Stanford University’s Hacking for Defense Project (H4D).
The Hacking for Defense Project recently hosted the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) where a contingent of top HASC officials learned how the H4D Project at Stanford University’s Precourt Institute of Energy solves the nation’s most challenging national security issues with emergent technologies. HASC members included Congressman Adam Smith,House Armed Services Committee chairman, Paul Arcangeli, majority staff director for the House of Representatives Committee on Armed Services, and Michael Hermann, professional staff member with the House Armed Services Committee and the staff lead for the Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems.
Other hosts of the event included Ambassador Mike McFaul,former Ambassador to Russia and director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and Dr. Joe Felter, Hoover Institution fellow, co-director of the Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, and former deputy assistant secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia.
Chairman Smith is concerned about the United States remaining competitive in a multi-polar world, and doing it cost-effectively.
Principally, he noted that the speed at which the military collects data, makes decisions, and executes those decisions is critical to battlefield effectiveness. Smith is working to shorten that cycle by acquiring emerging technologies (e.g., AI and machine learning, autonomy, sensor fusion) and accelerating the process taken to do so. Smith believes that home-grown American innovation and entrepreneurship from commercial companies and university labs have an important role to play, especially as traditional prime contractors are not leading experts in these technology fields. The DoD would like to develop tech domestically to offset the need to outsource capabilities with AI, command and control, attributable systems, intelligence and space capabilities. To do so, he noted we need to be looking locally — and looking at universities and programs like the Hacking for Defense Project to fill those voids.
Stanford’s Hacking for Defense course provides a model for how to achieve this vision. In the course, students work with defense and intelligence personnel to solve real-world challenges government personnel face. Students use Lean methodologies to deeply understand the problem before prototyping solutions. Deep student understanding of the problem and relevant commercial technologies leads to out-of-the-box solutions.
Chairman Smith stated that, “one of coolest things he saw” from students in the Hacking for Defense course, was that the problem DoD asked them to solve “wasn’t really the problem they had.” He implored that this is the cultural shift the Department needs to become “better, quicker, more nimble. The Pentagon tends to reward conformity, instead of ‘you saw a problem and you solved it.”
Dr. Jeff Decker, program director of Stanford’s Hacking for Defense Project, proposed that valuable defense-relevant research at Stanford is already deeply impacting the government. Professor Fu-Kuo Chang, professor of aeronautics and astronautics, demonstrated the advanced sensor and materials technology that he is developing to improve unmanned aerial vehicle capabilities. Dr. Decker and Dr. Nilay Papila are mapping the defense innovation ecosystem to help university technologies and early-stage startups solving defense and intelligence personnel challenges, as well as their commercial customers
Examples were given by professor Chris Ré, Stanford University associate professor of the Stanford AI Lab and the Statistical Machine Learning Group, who was able to transition DARPA-funded AI and deep learning research at Stanford into three unicorns used by the Department of Defense and intelligence community. Companies such as SambaNova, which is building AI hardware, is currently valued at $5.1B only three years from inception.
Army Research Lab West Director, Dr. Pete Khooshabeh, and ARL neuroscientist Dr. Javier Garcia reiterated Professor Ré’s call for support emphasizing how supporting incubator projects like Hacking for Defense make sense and helps build trusted relationships and cooperative agreements.
Steve Blank, professor of Hacking for Defense and Lean Launchpad founder, noted the need for “innovation Sherpas” who could shepherd emerging research opportunities and connect early-stage innovations to capabilities. HASC staff director Paul Arcangeli agreed and promised to discuss operationalizing the science and innovation.
Opportunities with the Department of Defense exist — it is handing out an unprecedented number of small contracts. In 2020, the Defense Department seeded 1,635 firms with more than $1.5 billion in early funding. Dozens of outreach programs across the military now offer quick revenue to early-stage companies. A startup could land a contract worth up to $3 million within months of entering the defense market. Commercial opportunities and relationships with the DoD are crucial to ensure the Pentagon has the best equipment to meet national security challenges.. Consequently, ensuring that commercial companies benefit from defense engagements is a necessity. Companies care about making money. Venture capitalists care about making money, and the government has to help companies make money so they can succeed. This is not a concept that comes natural to the government, yet programs like Hacking for Defense can help pave the way.
by Jeff Decker, program director and co-instructor of Hacking for Defense at Stanford University.