OUR VISION
To build Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs to solve critical national security, civic, and social challenges.
From national security to natural disasters, from energy to the environment, the critical challenges we face today have common elements:
They cut across government, private, and non-profit sectors
Are constantly evolving in a fast-moving world
Require a problem-based approach to ensure solutions are relevant, grounded, and implementable in the real world.
No one can insulate themselves from the effects of these challenges — they impact all of us.
HISTORY
The Common Mission Project is a 501(C)(3) nonprofit organization formed following the successful pilot of the Hacking for Defense® course at Stanford University in 2016.
Since its inception, the Common Mission Project has demonstrated that students can tackle some of the toughest government problems and, in doing so, create vibrant and diverse ecosystems where government, academia, and industry build partnerships around problems, prototypes, and solutions to urgent challenges facing our nation.
At the Common Mission Project, we realize the role that our methodology has—addressing the most challenging issues facing us.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Col. Pete Newell (Ret.) is the CEO of BMNT, an innovation consultancy and early-stage technology incubator that helps solve some of the hardest problems facing the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community.
Pete Newell
Chairman of the Board
Tim Newell is the President of Quovadis Technologies. Prior to joining Quovadis, Tim led financial technology teams at Tesla, as a Director of Financial Products and at SolarCity, as Vice President of Financial Products.
Tim Newell
Board Member
Steven Weinstein is the General Partner and Executive Vice President of Technology Innovation at America’s Frontier Fund, where he is a leader on the investment team focused on building early-stage companies and new regional ecosystems.
Steve Weinstein
Board Member
TEAM
As Interim Executive Director, Tom Nelson is responsible for overseeing, delivering and scaling university programs while also synchronizing CMP efforts across partnerships & community development, course content evolution, communications execution and talent recruitment and development.
Tom Nelson
Interim Executive Director
As Senior Operations Manager, Ashley Bayana is responsible for overseeing, delivering, and scaling the Common Mission Project’s operations and financial management.
Ashley Bayana
Senior Operations Manager
Ty is responsible for maintaining current and developing new strategic relationships with universities and corporate sponsors on behalf of CMP. Additionally, he is responsible for providing leadership for the CMP Impact Fund, designed to provide funding to student teams looking to scale their mission-focused solutions into sustainable businesses.
Tyrome Smith
Director of Partnerships
Jessica supports the Common Mission Project’s education programs as a University Program Lead.
Jessica Knocklein
University Program Lead
As a senior analyst, Sean is responsible for supporting business operations and financial management for Common Mission Project.
Sean Holland
Senior Operations Analyst
Dr. James Santa is the Senior Director of Academic Partnerships at the NobleReach Foundation, where he is responsible for the Innovate for Impact curriculum and academic support.
Dr. James Santa
Academic Advisor
BOARD OF ADVISORS
The Board of Advisors is a group of defense, entrepreneurship, policy and technology experts who support the Common Mission Projects’s goal of building mission driven entrepreneurs to solve critical national security, civic, and social challenges.
ACADEMIC ADVISORY BOARD
The Common Mission Project Academic Advisory Board serves the purpose of uniting thought leaders across the H4 ecosystem in order to generate ideas, tools, and broader pedagogical advancement of Lean LaunchPad.
PARTNERS
