Defence announces partnership with Common Mission Project

This week’s Defence announcement of its partnership with the Common Mission Project is the most significant milestone so far in the journey to bring Hacking for National Security (H4NS) to Australia. After completing a pilot program with the University of New South Wales we look forward to extending the program in the coming months.

Under the umbrella of the D.Start Catalyst program,  we will build on the success of similar established United States and United Kingdom programs to run fast-paced courses that give students the opportunity to solve real-world, government sponsored problems at speed.

The "Hacking for X" program was co-developed by serial entrepreneur and Stanford adjunct Steve Blank; Pete Newell, CEO of BMNT and a distinguished combat-leader; and retired Army Special Forces Colonel Joe Felter, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia. Started in the U.S. -- where it is called Hacking for Defense® -- it applies modern entrepreneurship tools and techniques and uses the experiential Lean LaunchPad™ entrepreneurship curriculum thinking to address real-world problems – creating change at scale around the world.

Since the first course at Stanford only five years ago, the “Hacking for'' methodology has grown from strength-to-strength. Common Mission Project now supports “Hacking for '' courses in more than 50 universities across the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. We have partnered extensively across a variety of government organisations and applied our methodology to solving problems such as deterring birds from flight paths, to improving search and response times, to reducing the environmental impact of deep-sea data collection, to helping to identify when multiple AI are ‘talking.’

But there are always more problems than there are solutions, and that is why we will continue to press hard to expand our network of partners and collaborators. Come and join us and make a difference for defence and national security.