Undergraduate students from The University of Texas at Dallas had an opportunity last fall to work with the U.S. Department of Defense on real problems facing the U.S. Armed Forces.

Fifteen students from the Naveen Jindal School of Management and the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science enrolled in Special Topics in Entrepreneurship — Hacking4Defense (ENTP 4v000), a course created to align with the U.S. Department of Defense program Hacking for Defense. They teamed up and partnered with military and intelligence leaders to fully understand their assigned problems and then utilized Lean Startup methodologies to develop solutions. On December 7, the students presented their solutions at the Blackstone LaunchPad.

“The students encountered problems in the military that are not unique to the military, but are found in all organizations — how to increase diversity, improve the culture, schedule complex technical training and improve innovation,” said Dr. Emily Choi, a professor in the Organizations, Strategy and International Management Area who taught the course.

Sponsored by the DOD and piloted at Stanford, Hacking for Defense is a program of the National Security Innovation Network. It seeks to leverage the talent of the brightest entrepreneurial university students to rapidly address emerging national security challenges. Working directly with the DOD and U.S. Intelligence Communities, students from 55 schools across the country participate in the program annually with projects geared toward making the nation — and the world — a safer place.

On the first day of class last August, four student teams were matched up with military “problem sponsors” to learn about their assignments. During the next 16 weeks, the students conducted interviews with beneficiaries and stakeholders at all levels to gain a deeper understanding of their assigned problems while working simultaneously on a series of potential solutions, or minimum viable products. The process involved validating issues, making discoveries, improving the initial ideas and then restating the problem — or pivoting — when initial hypotheses they had made regarding their problem statements were proven incorrect.

The Problems And Their Sponsors

Measuring Unit Health at Fort Bliss

The team’s objective was to identify a method of measuring and expressing unit health based on cohesion, inclusion, well-being and belonging to address corrosive behaviors — sexual assault, sexual harassment, extremism, racism and suicide. Problem Sponsors: Maj. John Asselin and Maj. Andrew (Red) Powell.

Innovation in the Army Reserve

The team’s objective was to create a process for identifying and innovating solutions for capability gaps between the U.S. Army Reserve and the Active-Duty Army. Problem Sponsor: Maj. Vikram Mittal.

Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTAC) Training Trouble

The team’s objective was to address issues associated with completing the large-scale training exercises necessary to keep Tactical Air Control Parties (TACPs) fully prepared to provide better close air support for ground forces. Problem Sponsor: Master Sgt. Ron (Paul) Tyson.

Diversifying the Army Officer Corps

The team’s objective was to find better tools for recruiters to use to discover college-ready candidates from a variety of backgrounds, in order to address the disproportionately low number of African- and Hispanic-American officers in the Army, compared to the racial makeup of the U.S. Problem Sponsors: Col. Stephen Ruth and Lt. Col. Mai Lee Eskelund.

Getting Out Of The Building

The Lean Startup approach utilized in the class was developed largely by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Blank, who worked with the DOD to develop the Hacking for Defense program. A key component of the process is “getting out of the building” to interview beneficiaries to identify requirements and desired characteristics of problem solutions.

Measuring Unit Health at Fort Bliss was presented by students Irvin (Gio) Orellana, a business administration senior; Andrew Kocsis, a mechanical engineering senior; Corresta Galaviz, a business administration senior; and Jonathan Steele, a business administration junior. They pivoted numerous times as they worked to clearly identify, and restate, the actual problem.

“We really tried to understand the problem from different angles,” said Orellana, a 5 1/2-year active-duty Marine Corps veteran who served in various posts abroad as a combat engineer and Marine security guard. “I think by the end of the semester we had interviewed over 30 people from all military perspectives — officers, enlisted and retired.”

The team’s revised problem statement proposed a method to measure and strengthen the overall health of a unit by directly contending with toxic aspects of the current culture through increasing the consistency of consequences for corrosive behavior to create a level playing field. Their final, comprehensive solution involved enhancing an existing app with new features to make telemedicine, advocacy, education and information more readily available.

Sarah Romanko, a business administration senior, and Nikolas Hamon, a mechanical engineering junior, presented Innovation in the Army Reserve. They conducted 23 interviews during their discovery process, which resulted in a significant pivot on their original problem statement based on a new understanding that risk aversion was obstructing innovation. The team’s final MVP proposed incorporating a mentoring program as an add-on to the existing Captain’s Career Course (for aspiring officers) to provide classroom instruction on innovation and risk-taking and a pitch competition as a means for personnel with innovative ideas to earn how to present them effectively. The most important thing Romanko learned from the experience, she said, “was not to be afraid to change paths.”

The JTAC Training Trouble team consisted of Brandon Byrd, a mechanical engineering senior; James Benefield, a mechanical engineering senior; and Jackson Burns, a business administration junior. The team interviewed more than 35 Air Force Special Operations personnel to fully comprehend the complexities of the coordination problem on large-scale training exercises. Their final MVP proposal involved a highly specialized scheduling software to track training needed by TACPs and pilots to pull information from other databases.

Diversifying the Army Officer Corps was presented by students Alvin Hsieh, a mechanical engineering senior; Eryc Smith, a finance senior; Jackson Barrett-Cuetara, a business administration senior; and Jacob Slade, a finance junior. They conducted interviews with — and obtained surveys from — about 20 military personnel, which resulted in a restatement of their problem to recognize that the Army ROTC is suffering from a lack of public awareness and a shortage of recruiting resources and retention in the Cadet Corps. Their final solution included the creation of an ROTC newsletter, the addition of diversity recruiting specialists in areas where minority representation in the ROTC is underdeveloped and a mentorship program for the development of cadets.

Feedback – And Further Inquiries

The team problem sponsors attended the presentations virtually and offered feedback during the event. Col. Ruth, director of Task Force Strategic Officer Recruiting Detachment, U.S. Army Cadet Command, and one of the problem sponsors for the Diversifying the Army Officer Corps team, thanked the entire group.

“These students tackled a very complex problem that the army is wrestling with, to really try to help us in our efforts to make a more perfect union,” he said. “If our army doesn’t reflect the society that it serves, we lose our relevance and our integrity that we must maintain with the American people.”

Throughout the process Choi said she gained a deeper appreciation for the people who serve our country. Following the presentations, she received positive feedback from all the problem sponsors and some further inquiries about taking the projects to the next step. She hopes student teams in other courses can work on implementing the proposed solutions.

Choi said she was very impressed with the students. She said they worked hard, learned lifelong skills and tools to lead innovation wherever they go in their careers.

They learned to ask questions and think critically to get to the roots of problems; and to develop the confidence to design and then redesign solutions that end up truly innovative and valuable, she said.

Choi said the project was such a success that it will be offered in fall 2022 as a part of UTDsolv, the Jindal School’s capstone senior project program.

Bringing Hacking For Defense To UT Dallas

Late in 2019, representatives from the DOD contacted Rod Wetterskog, UT Dallas assistant dean for corporate relations and program coordinator for UTDesign, who introduced them to Paul Nichols, executive director of the Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship and program director for Innovation & Entrepreneurship. Nichols said, “I used my existing ENTP 3301 ‘company pitch course’ in Fall 2020 to try out the curriculum, but I realized it needed its own course, which we created and launched in Fall 2021, and so we could attract non-JSOM students to take it as well.” Nichols tapped Choi to teach the first dedicated H4D class.

To prepare, Choi took a training class offered by the Common Mission Project, a nonprofit that works in tandem with the DOD and in partnership with Lockheed Martin, to focus on building missiondriven entrepreneurs to solve critical national security, civic and social challenges through the Hacking for Defense nationwide academic course. The Common Mission Project and Lockheed together provided UT Dallas with a $15,000 grant to help support the new course.

For Choi, teaching this course was something of a full circle experience.

“While in grad school, I took a side job to be a facilitator for MBAs to apply design thinking and lean innovation approaches to solve real business problems for companies,” she said. “It was so much fun! Now here I am, teaching students to apply those innovation methods — for national security to boot. I’m grateful for the opportunity and for the support from my colleagues.”

The course will be offered in the fall and will be listed as ENTP 6381: Lean Innovation for Public Services: Hacking for Defense.