About the Program
Enabling students to rapidly address emerging threats, security challenges, and foreign policy issues across the globe and the United States.
Since its inception, the Common Mission Project has demonstrated that students—through our methodologies—can rapidly understand, solve, and deploy solutions to urgent national security and foreign policy problems for agencies.
Our university programs enable students to solve real-world, public problems at start-up speed.
By connecting government, academia, and the private sector around critical public problems, we educate, connect, and build the next generation of mission-driven entrepreneurs to solve the complex, real-world problems that affect our safety and security.
How We Do It
Our National Security Entrepreneurship programs are innovative, semester-long university classes that bring together the brightest engineering, business, and policy students to work on some of our largest and most challenging security threats and foreign policy problems.
Based on the Hacking for Methodology (“H4”), classes are designed as a hands-on program that immerses student teams in Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of State problems by having them test their business model hypotheses outside the classroom.
Interested in seeing students take the CMP entrepreneurial mission to the next level?
Explore their stories to learn more about student experiences and the incredible outcomes from the H4 courses.
HACKING FOR DEFENSE
Hacking for Defense® (H4D®) is a university course that enables students to rapidly address real-world Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community (IC) problems facing the United States.
The Hacking for Defense course was piloted at Stanford University in Spring 2016 and has expanded to 60+ universities across the country. To date, over 850 problems have been addressed in H4D courses, thousands of students have been introduced to national service, and 54 dual-use ventures have been formed.
HACKING FOR DIPLOMACY
Hacking for Diplomacy (H4Diplomacy) challenges students to tackle problems that defy territorial boundaries and resist easy resolution. In this class, student teams address current U.S. foreign policy challenges, engaging closely with officials in the US Department of State.
This course has been taught at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, Stanford University, Rochester Institute of Technology, and James Madison University.
To date, students have addressed thirteen Department of State problems from the Diplomatic Security Service, the Office of Export Control Cooperation, the Bureau of Counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism, the Office to Monitor and combat Trafficking in Persons, The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, The Office of Space and Advanced Technology, and The Bureau of Political Military Affairs.
Read about Diplomatic Security’s partnership with the Hacking for Diplomacy course at Rochester Institute of Technology.
HACKING FOR HOMELAND SECURITY
Hacking for Homeland Security (H4HS) allows students to address some of the toughest problems that face the Department of Homeland Security using the H4 methodology. Over five semesters, four different universities have addressed 20 different homeland security and emergency management problems.
Agencies served include the Cyber and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
Ready to get involved?
The Common Mission Project is ushering the next generation of leaders to solve our planet’s biggest challenges, but we can’t do it alone. We offer a variety of ways to participate and support:
Partner With CMP
Are you looking for solutions to a challenging problem faced by your organization or community?
Bring a Program to Your University
Are you a university educator or administrator looking to bring innovation and thought leadership to your institution?
Join the Alumni Network
Have you completed an H4 program and are looking to engage with the course in new and different capacities?
Become a Mentor
Are you interested in gaining access to our innovative methodology while engaging with talented students passionate about the work you do?
Support our Common Mission
With your help, we can solve tomorrow’s critical national security, civic, and climate challenges today.
Become a mission-driven donor and make a difference.
