During the Cold War U.S. diplomatic and military alliances existed to defend freedom around the world. Today, these alliances are being reshaped to respond to Russian threats to the Baltics and Eastern Europe and to China’s economic, military, and technological influence worldwide.
Hacking for Allies
The U.S. Department of Defense works with our allies to expand their industrial base. We benefit because it helps the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) standardize on equipment and our allies’ industrial capacity, capability and workforce can complement those of the United States. Allied countries benefit under the Global Capabilities Program which offers allies opportunities to partner on research and development, with the goal to build prototypes and eventually co-produce systems.
The goal of Hacking for Allies, (which will launch a second cohort next week,) is to connect dual-use startups (those that sell to companies and government agencies) in allied nations to the U.S. defense ecosystem.
Startup ecosystems in many of the smaller NATO countries don’t enjoy the long-established expertise or funding opportunities we have in Silicon Valley or other innovation clusters. For example, today it takes 7 to 10 years for a company in Norway to sell into the U.S. defense market. To shorten that time, we wanted to teach them the best practices of Hacking for Defense/Lean Startup/I-Corps (customer discovery, MVPs, pivots, business model canvas, etc.) And give them a roadmap for how to play in the U.S. defense market.
Hacking for Allies – Norway Edition
Norway is a founding member of (Read more…)