Instructor
Erik Sander
Director, UF Engineering Innovation Institute
esander@ufl.edu
Class Period
Monday Periods 5-6
Draft Syllabus to be Updated
Registration
Departmentally Controlled and by Application Below Only
The UF Engineering Innovation Institute, in partnership with the US National Security Innovation Network, is offering a course that brings together multidisciplinary upper-division undergraduate and graduate students. The course leverages the most cutting-edge entrepreneurship education model to attack critical Department of Defense (DoD) and US Intelligence Community (IC) problems in real-time.
Innovating for Defense is a special section of Engineering Entrepreneurship (EGN4641/EGN6640; Monday Periods 5-6) that challenges student teams to engage with DoD sponsors and government contractors to fully understand a mission-critical problem through 50-100 stakeholder interviews over the semester. Student teams learn and use the Lean Startup methodology and the Mission Model Canvas to iteratively cut through the complexity of the problem, craft a business model and solution to meet the DoD/IC Mission Need and develop a prototype.
The course will be intense, and students should be prepared to dedicate 10-15 hours weekly outside class time.
The DoD sponsors this national program, which was initially developed at Stanford University. Over 2,000 students from 55 universities have evaluated 450 DoD / IC real-time problems. Sponsors report that over half the student team solutions are impactful or implemented in some fashion (see Success Stories), including 53 startup companies resulting from projects.
A student does not have to be a US citizen, and DoD problems are not Classified. No previous knowledge of the DoD structure is necessary, as this will be a crucial element of the student learning in this course.
For fall 2024, teams comprising 4-5 students will work on curated projects, each with a DoD project champion and manager with the students who will regularly engage.
Student learning will include the following:
- Learn and exercise the most cutting-edge entrepreneurship model (Lean Launchpad / iCorps) that Silicon Valley, Stanford University, NSF, DoD, and many others have championed.
- Attack DoD/IC-defined, mission-critical problems in securing our nation’s Defense today.
- Develop interaction and presentation skills with DoD/IC and civilian defense contractor decision-makers through weekly interviews of key stakeholders at multiple tiers in the command chain.
- Formally present critical workflow and outcomes weekly, culminating in a final presentation of the student journey and proposed solutions to an audience of DoD/IC and other stakeholders.
List of Projects for Fall 2024 – Full Projects Descriptions
- USAF Eglin AFB – Software Enabled Weapon
- USAF Eglin AFB – Base Integrated Mesh Management System
- US Southern Command – DRAMOC Normalization Roadmap for Uncrewed Autonomous Systems
- US Central Command – Autonomous Prime
- US Army – Unified Data Reference Architecture (UDRA)
Application
Registration for this section is Departmentally Controlled. Apply as soon as possible, as a maximum of 25 students (undergraduate and graduate combined) will be accepted for fall 2024.
Contacts
Students can email the course instructor, Professor Sander, at esander@ufl.edu with a copy and any questions to Ms. Lori DeLuco at ldeluco@ufl.edu.