Hacking 4 Defense (H4D) – FaLL 2026
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Hacking 4 Defense (H4D) is a mission-driven, real-world problem-solving course where student teams work directly with the Department of Defense (DoD), military units, and national security organizations to address operational, technical, and human-centered challenges.
HOW THE COURSE WORKS ?
Hacking for Defense uses the same teaching methodology proven successful in Lean LaunchPad
and I-Corps classes taught at universities across the country.
The difference in this class is that instead of teams working on their own ideas for a company, they
address critical problems facing the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community.
The problems ¼ø»Æʦapp work to solve are submitted from problems submitted by various DoD
sponsoring organizations.
DURING THE COURSE
- Each week the student teams interview at least 10 beneficiaries-military/government end users and stakeholders—to deeply understand the sponsoring organization's problems and to develop a set of initial hypotheses about the solution to their problem.
- Returning to class, the teams give a weekly 8-minute presentation about what they learned and demo their latest minimal viable prototypes.
- Teams get feedback from the instructors, mentors and the classmates.
- Each team documents the details of their beneficiary discovery interviews on their blog.
- This enables teams, instructors and mentors to have immediate access to the progress of each team.
"The Nation's Brightest Minds,
Tackling The Toughest Problems"
850 Problems Addressed
3,750+ Participating Students
66 Participating Universities
62 Startups Formed
Learn about the national Hacking for Defense® program at the H4D website .
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