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Office of Research and Innovation

Innovation Project Leaders

Soldiers in a classroom
Command Sergeant Major Veronica Knapp, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) Division senior enlisted adviser, serves on the senior leaders evaluation panel during the Soldier presentations of those who graduated from the H4X: Lean Acquisition Innovation Course at Fort Campbell.
Photo by Spc. Jacob Wachob, 40th Public Affairs Detachment

Course description:

The defense acquisition system can be slow and complex – it needs to be hacked! Innovation Project Leaders teaches students to apply lean innovation methodologies to defense acquisition problems. This five-week graduate-level course teaches soldiers modern innovation and entrepreneurship techniques while solving real defense acquisition problems. Soldiers will learn the same proven innovation skills taught to graduate students in over 50 universities across the country. This class focuses on filling a critical missing skill in the capabilities development process – defining evidence-based product features. Learning this skill provides soldiers with the ability to affect emerging capabilities across the development spectrum from the detailed product specifications of a project already in development to the requirements for a new Capabilities Development Document (CDD). Technical experts from the Army Research Laboratory, tech companies, universities and the capabilities development community will work with soldiers to develop real solutions to real problems that can really be implemented. Soldiers will present their final projects at the end of the course.

This continuing/lifetime education course is sponsored by NC State’s Office of Research and Innovation/National Security and Special Research Initiatives and BMNT Inc.

For more information contact Dr. Bull Holland, tjhollan@ncsu.edu