Innovating for Defense

3 units

This interdisciplinary entrepreneurial course gives students the unique opportunity to solve real problems facing the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC). This course is open to all students who want to solve real problems for real stakeholders in real time. In consultation with course instructors, students will form their own interdisciplinary teams to explore a challenge experienced by a dedicated DoD problem sponsor who will be regularly engaged with the team. Student teams learn and use the Lean Startup methodology and the Mission Model Canvas made famous by Stanford University to iteratively cut through the complexity of the problem. Note: This course is sponsored by the U.S. DoD. It was originally developed at Stanford University and is now taught at 30+ U.S. universities. A student does NOT have to be a citizen of the United States to take this course; none of the DoD problems are classified.