Details

Overview

Hacking for Defense (H4D) is designed to provide students the opportunity to learn how to work with defense agencies to better address emerging domestic challenges. Unlike traditional practices that can slow decision making and thwart rapid innovation, this course will provide a proven platform to develop prototypes that meet users’ needs in weeks. Government, nonprofits and other organizations may provide follow-on funding to these student teams for further refinement and development of prototypes.

This class moves fast! Student teams quickly develop an understanding of the problem and a vision of a solution they’d like to build. To be clear: Hacking for Defense is not a product incubator for a specific solution. Instead, it provides teams with a deeper understanding of selected problems and the host of potential solutions that might be arrayed against them. Using the Lean LaunchPad Methodology the class encourages teams to:

1. Solve complex real-world problems
2. Rapidly iterate solutions while searching for product-market fit
3. Understand all the stakeholders, roll-out issues, costs, resources, and ultimate mission value
4. Deliver minimum viable products that match customer needs in an extremely short time
5. Produce a repeatable model that can be used to launch other potential solutions

This class is inspired by and builds on a class developed by Steve Blank and Pete Newell at Stanford University. You can see more about their approach at http://hacking4defense.stanford.edu/ and is part of the national network of Hacking 4 Defense classes (see https://www.h4di.org/ for more info).

Students

• Priority is given to UC Berkeley students. Non-students can serve as advisors to the teams.
• Exceptions for team size and external (non-Berkeley) members will be made on a case-by-case basis.
• ​There are no remote options for this course – you must take the class on campus, with no pre-excused absences allowed. Class meetings require team engagement.
• This is an intense class with a high workload (much like a start-up). We expect each team member to invest at least 15 hours per week. While a heavy workload, your team will be conducting fulfilling work on real problems, hand-in-hand with real sponsors.

Challenges

The teaching team is working closely with defense partners to identify and refine challenge statements for the class. As problem statement become available, the site will be updated. Below are the initial challenges that could be available in the class (please note, projects may change without notice and are not guaranteed to be offered):

TBD