Hacking for Defense

Solving National Security Issues with the Lean Launchpad

The Application Cycle for this year has closed.

Learn Lean Startup techniques for startup success and solve real problems.

Tackle complex problems critical to the government around national security, energy networks, cyber security, AI and invent new technologies with a team of engineers, scientists, MBAs, and policy experts. See a few of our success stories.

Application is by teams of four Stanford students from any school or department. Limited enrollment by application.

To learn about the projects from last year’s class, take a look at Steve Blank’s post: “Hacking For Defense @ Stanford 2020”. Click for the video recording of the 2020 Final Presentations, with guest speaker James Mattis.
Learn More about the course

Application

Admission is by teams of 4 Stanford students. Limited enrollment by application.

Team

Teaching Team

Steve Blank, Steve Weinstein, Joe Felter, Tom Bedecarre

Industry Masters

Pete Newell, Jeff Decker

Course Advisors

Sally Benson, Tom Byers, Arun Majumdar, John Mitchell, Bill Perry

2022 TAs

Joel Johnson (jajohn@stanford.edu)
Katherine Miller (millerkd@stanford.edu)
Andrew Fang (afandrew@stanford.edu)
Andrew Radford (radford4@stanford.edu)
Theo Velaise (tvelaise@stanford.edu)

Success Stories

H4D 2020 Team: Anthro Energy

Anthro Energy was part of the 2020 H4D cohort, aiming to develop better power sources for ground-based warfighters. Throughout the course, the team worked closely with their project sponsor at the Joint Chiefs of Staff to identify a need for flexible, safe batteries that could integrate directly into uniforms and equipment. After the course, Anthro Energy participated in H4X Labs, raised a seed round of funding, and formed partnerships with several military contractors who they met in H4D.

H4D 2019 Team: Learn to Win

Learn to Win initially focused on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of pilot training in conjunction with the team’s sponsors at Air Combat Command. The team won the national H4D pitch competition at Founders Fund, participated in H4X Labs, won a Direct to Phase II SBIR with the Air Force, won a Direct to Phase II SBIR with the Navy, and became the first-ever H4D team to win a Phase III SBIR in the fall of 2020. Powered by those funding streams, Learn to Win has been adopted in a diverse variety of unit-level and classroom training environments across the Navy and the Air Force.

H4D 2017 Team: Librarian

Team Librarian began as a part of the 2017 H4D cohort. During the course, the team identified their first customer which provided $70,000 in funding to develop their solution just three months later. After the class, Librarian formed a company in September 2017 and built their business with help from their Hacking For Defense mentors and instructors. Librarian has been featured as one of the top student startups at SXSW and built an enterprise chatbot.

H4D 2016 Team: Capella Space

Capella Space began as a part of the 2016 H4D cohort and quickly raised funding following the class. The company was founded to enable a richer understanding of our planet by miniaturizing Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) satellites, capable of Earth observation in all-weather 24/7 conditions. Capella Space launched the first U.S. SAR sensor, Capella-2, in August 2020 and has released the highest resolution imagery commercially available at 50 cm x 50 cm. Capella Space has several more satellites in development for its growing constellation capable of 24/7 all-weather monitoring of the planet. The company has raised over $80M to date. See their class video in the 2016 archive.H4D 2017 Team: Librarian