Learn to Win

Stanford University

---

Microlearning software for results-driven trainers

The Team

Andrew Powell

• Cofounder, CCEO at Learn to Win
• MBA, Stanford

Sasha Seymore

• Cofounder, COO at Learn to Win
• JD/MBA, Stanford

Sam Lisbonne

• Advisor at Learn to Win
• Former Principal Materials Scientist at Itron
• MS in Engineering, Stanford
• BS in Mechanical Engineering, Stanford

Phil Stiefel

• JD/MBA, Stanford

Problem Sponsor

Lt Col Niewiarowski

Original Problem Statement

Combat Air Force (CAF) instructors need improved and expedited training procedures in order to reduce phase duration and information loss of trained student personnel.

Beneficiary Discovery Interviews

107

The Innovation

Hacking for Defense students leveraged their experiences with learning science and college sports to train U.S. Air Force pilots more efficiently, but their innovation has since expanded to a variety of organizations, from Chickfila to the Los Angeles Rams.

H4D alumni and H4X Labs participants from team Learn to Win developed a platform to improve training quality and efficiency for a variety of organizations, including Fortune 200 companies, NFL teams, the US military, and more. Three years after completing the course, Learn to Win has raised $14 million and is the first H4D team to receive SBIR Phase III funding.

The Learn to Win team was formed in the Spring 2019 term of Stanford’s Hacking for Defense course. The original H4D team included MBA student Andrew Powell, JD/MBA student Sasha Seymore, JD/MBA student Phil Stiefel, and Engineering student Sam Lisbonne. Andrew’s background in learning science and education, coupled with Sasha’s experience as a college athlete and his time in the Navy Reserves, proved to be the perfect primer for catalyzing the development of Learn to Win.

Reflecting on his time as a college athlete, Sasha recalled the stacks of photocopies containing hand-drawn plays that he used to receive each season. After learning about this, Andrew remembers thinking “there are so many better ways to learn this than memorizing a three-ring binder.” These issues were not exclusive to collegiate athletes, however, as Sasha noted that his onboarding into the Navy Reserves also consisted of a three-ring binder full of instructions that he was told to memorize. After sharing their experiences, Sasha and Andrew realized that there was a systemic lack of consistent, quality training across a variety of industries. This realization gave Sasha and Andrew the momentum they needed to begin the process of developing Learn to Win.

In the summer of 2018, Andrew and Sasha prototyped what would later become the Learn to Win training program through their work with student athletes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. When Andrew and Sasha learned that one of the problems for the upcoming semester of H4D at Stanford sought to improve training procedures for pilots, they identified parallels between their work with student athletes, which challenged them to explore how their platform could be adapted and applied to matters of national security within the Department of Defense.

The team was originally tasked with improving and expediting training procedures for Combat Air Force instructors. After 107 interviews, however, the team discovered that the true problem was more deeply rooted in the wide-spread lack of modern learning tools, which prevented students and pilots in the United States Air Force from accessing consistent, on-demand content.

The ability to visit various Air Force bases was paramount to the team’s discovery during the course. In particular, the team’s visit to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma gave them the opportunity to explore the limitations of Computer Based Training (CBT) on a first-hand basis. Following their visit, the team concluded that the obsolete method by which CBTs are graded likely resulted in functional loss for both pilots and instructors. In particular, the current method of grading CBTs at the time of the team’s discovery made it nearly impossible for instructors to identify significant knowledge gaps amongst their pilots. This led to their key thesis: “greater accessibility will lead to greater usage, which will lead to greater learning.”

By the end of the course, they had developed an Minimum Viable Product with three key elements:

1. An interactive mobile learning experience,

2. A user-friendly, templatized authoring platform for building the content, and

3. An analytics suite that more efficiently identifies performance and knowledge gaps.

After the course, Learn to Win participated in BMNT’s H4X Labs. H4X Labs helped them focus on partnering with dual-use, Deep Tech companies to match their solution to a database of active government requirements, and access non-dilutive funding to bring their solution into the commercial market.

In collaboration with university, industry and defense organizations supplemented with H4XLabs weekly coaching sessions, Learn to Win fast-tracked their understanding of funding programs, like SBIR, and helped them get their materials in prime shape for a strong application.

The result was a funding turnaround so fast any VC firm would be surprised; one month from proposal, they received $750,000. Making Learn to Win the very first H4D alumnus to transition to SBIR Phase III.

Presentation

Learn to Win’s
Hacking for Defense Experience

Andrew credits the H4D course with giving the team a head start in navigating the defense innovation space. He learned that selling a contract and getting an upsell is not as simple as solving a user problem and demonstrating value, but has so many factors, like having the user problem, identifying the person with money, having a contracting vehicle, having the right color of money, and the timelines. By leveraging the expertise of mentors from the H4D ecosystem who had done it before, the team was able to navigate the complex process.

The course’s focus on user problems and emphasis on “getting out the building” and talking to people was also transformative for their understanding of the DOD landscape. The course methodology was so influential to the team that they still conduct customer interviews now when looking into breaking into a new industry in order to quickly get a broad understanding of a market.

Andrew recommends H4D to anyone who is interested in working on consequential problems, especially those interested in entrepreneurship and/or national security and defense.

“In Hacking for Defense, there is an amazing set of opportunities where you can work on amazing and important problems. Applying your talent toward those things in the long run is a lot more fulfilling than just pursuing the highest-paying job or the easiest path. Intellectually stimulating experience that might expose you to some opportunities to make an impact that you might not otherwise come across,” said Andrew.

CausalTwin

Stanford University

---

Improving Ballast Tank Inspections for the U.S. Navy

The Team

Kyle Orciuch

• Co-Founder & CEO, CausalTwin, Inc.
• MS in Computer Science (2024), UT Austin
• BS in Computer Science, Stanford

Ghassan Oueidat

• Co-Founder & CTO, CausalTwin, Inc.
• BE in Mechanical Engineering

Karim Tabaja

• MBA Candidate, Stanford

Philip Lambert

• MS in Statistics Candidate, Stanford 
• BS in Mathematics and Computational Science, Stanford
• BS in Symbolic Systems, Stanford

Shubh Gupta

• PHD in Electrical Engineering Candidate, Stanford

Problem Sponsor

Kirk Jenne and Vinoj Zachariah of NAVSEA 21, Washington, D.C.

Original Problem Statement

The NAVSEA21 maintenance team needs an automated way to inspect ballast tanks in order to accurately predict the level of repair required and maintenance timelines.

Beneficiary Discovery Interviews

95

The Innovation

Background

Kyle studied computer science with a concentration in artificial intelligence at Stanford. The summer going into his senior year, Kyle interned as a data scientist at veteran-owned start-up Second Front Systems. There, he learned about the painstakingly difficult US government acquisition and software accreditation processes. During his half-year internship, he built a data-mining tool to supplement Second Front's acquisition decision support system, Atlas Fulcrum, in order to identify and evaluate brand-new US-based start-ups before adversarial investors could get their hands on them.  

Ghassan received his Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering from the American University of Beirut and specialized in Control systems, robotics, and mechanical design. In addition to experience as a researcher and engineer, Ghassan founded Asymptotic Robotics Inc. to produce modular structural maintenance robots aimed at facade cleaning for high-rises and skyscrapers while eliminating the use of water and detergents.

Kyle and Ghassan, along with Karim Tabaja, Philip Lambert, and Shubh Gupta, formed "Team Ankabot” for the Spring 2022 H4D course at Stanford.

The Solution

The team took on an Office of Naval Research-sponsored problem headfirst to investigate methods of improving ballast tank inspections. The 10-weeks of Lean Launchpad problem validation, customer discovery, and rapid prototyping processes unexpectedly revealed that the US Navy was experiencing a crisis of vessel maintenance availability delays. 

After over 100 interviews with over 25 organizations, the team determined that an unmanned underwater vehicle deployment could realistically enable the Navy to perform ballast tank inspections—both impromptu and planned—during a pierside availability when the tanks are filled, thus removing the requirement for dry-docking period. Implementing this fleet-wide still to this day has the potential for significantly increasing operational readiness, reducing sustainment and maintenance costs, and empowering personnel at regional maintenance centers across the country.

Presentation

CausalTwin’s
H4X Labs Experience

Filling In the Missing Piece

While the team thought that they had achieved product-market fit with their concept by the end of the class, they quickly realized that the hardware already existed and could be bought from established providers such as Deep Trekker and Video Ray. However, Kyle realized that what lacked was a hardware-agnostic software component to securely and easily store the captured data and accompanying inspector annotations.

Fast-forwarding to summer of 2022, the team entered BMNT's H4X Labs summer accelerator to continue studying the problem and finding a path towards commercialization of a software solution. Using a grant from the Common Mission Product, the student team incorporated as CausalTwin, Inc. in July with Kyle as CEO and Ghassan as CTO and made it as finalists in the NSIN Starts Naval Tank Inspection Challenge in September 2022.

The demo days for this challenge involved inspecting an unfilled void inside the USS Midway aircraft carrier in San Diego, CA. To simulate a submersible solution, the team flew first person view drones to perform corrosion and structural assessments with data being handed off to an off-site inspector for analysis.

The team discovered from its improvised workflow on the carrier that indoor localization and navigation, obstacle avoidance, video file management, and report generation were the main pain points in the process. This is why Kyle and Ghassan are now pushing for building a cloud-based software platform to better streamline the aggregation of different sensory streams from unmanned aerial and underwater vehicles to better automate computer vision analysis pipelines and the subsequent generation of maintenance reports.

Moving Forward

H4D alumni Kyle Orciuch and Ghassan Oueidat are now continuing their H4D work to help the US Navy improve ballast tank inspections with their new startup, CausalTwin, Inc.

To learn more about CausalTwin, Inc., you can visit their website.

Natrion

University of Illinois

---

Paving the Way With Solid-State Ion Batteries

The Team

Alex Kosyakov

• CEO of Natrion
• Materials Science and Engineering major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Tom Rouffiac

• COO at Natrion
• Finance major at Indiana University Kelley School of Business

Duke Shih

• CTO at Natrion
• Former Principal Materials Scientist at Itron
• Ph.D. in Materials Engineering from Imperial College London

Problem Sponsor

Harlan Kefalas of the 69th Forward Support Company, Fort Sill, Oklahoma

Original Problem Statement

Support platoons need reduced reliance on fuel for generators in order to free up valuable resources and reduce the risk of enemy action during resupply missions.

Beneficiary Discovery Interviews

33

The Innovation

Young entrepreneurs are increasingly becoming catalysts for grand new ways of thinking. In the case of recent startup Natrion, an alum of the national Hacking for Defense program, the team’s innovation is revolutionizing batteries and power supply as we know it. 

The opportunities before them are far beyond anything they could have imagined when they started. It took getting an in-depth and personal understanding of modern power supply shortfalls to awaken them to the true potential for change on both the commercial and Defense levels.

In 2017, a high school student named Alex Kosyakov won an internship at a materials engineering lab. There, he was given the freedom to tinker in his off hours, and he used his time wisely. Alex developed early-stage prototypes of what would become the first solid-state lithium and sodium ion batteries, discoveries that would make batteries safer and improve performance. The trouble was, though clearly advanced beyond his years as an engineer, he didn’t immediately realize his inventions carried such far-reaching potential. 

Kosyakov patented his early concepts when he started his undergraduate studies at University of Illinois. Under the guidance of his lecturer and advisor, Alex Gorsuch, he decided to try the school’s iVenture accelerator and eventually pursued Hacking for Defense. Here, he and his small team of material engineers and business students gained insight into the vast applications their inventions could have in the Defense industry. In 2018, still undergraduates, the team founded Natrion. In that capacity, they have continued to develop solid-state batteries with a state-of-the-art ceramic-polymer composite solid-state electrolyte called Lithium Solid Ionic Composite, or LISIC.

Traditional Power Pitfalls

When he began his research, Kosyakov had little concept of the existing depth of need for a better battery and power sources. He knew the common shortcomings of traditional power sources, including fire risks, weight, noise, maintenance and limits regarding recharging. But in his time with H4D, Kosyakov began hearing first-hand the stories that gave true meaning to his creation.

He spoke to personnel being evaluated in drills on stealth yet forced to rely on portable diesel generators that roared to life the moment they were turned on. They'd already failed in the stealth criteria before they’d begun. This, he knew, corresponded to in-theater scenarios in which maintaining a low-profile means the difference between life and death. 

He spoke to armed servicemen serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who drove resupply trucks into austere forward operating bases, lugging heavy, broken generators over bomb-strewn roads knowing that the generators could not be fixed because the necessary parts weren’t available. 

He spoke to a scouting unit in Afghanistan that carried a heavy generator to support their radios for maintaining communications, yet found themselves far ahead of their squad, in hostile territory, with dead radios and a generator that wouldn't start. 

Diesel generators exist to provide on-site power, albeit loudly, but they only work if supplied with enough fuel. According to the U.S. Army 52 percent of all US military casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan occurred during attacks on land-based resupply missions – resupply convoys bringing the very fuel upon which those generators depend.

“We didn't realize that generators have been dictating how Warfighters have operated since the World War II era,” said Kosyakov. “We learned that if we could deliver a way to carry power through energy storage versus relying on generation, the expeditionary capabilities of Warfighters and the DoD in general would be greatly enhanced, not to mention the opportunities for the public. We were awe struck by how huge the problem is right now, but also at how huge the potential is if we can make energy storage work for the DoD,” he said.

Presentation

Natrion’s
H4X Labs Experience

From DoD-Minded to Dual-Use

Natrion started with a plan to build stationary energy storage systems like microgrids to replace generators for both commercial and Defense customers. After further research, the team unveiled an opportunity to do even more to solve safety and performance issues in portable electronics, radios, and communications equipment in consumer electronics. This led to the electric vehicle market which is currently the biggest market for batteries in the commercial space. 

Electric vehicles, in turn, led to concepts for improved drones for the DoD. 

“Our experimenting has created an interesting cycle between Defense and commercial opportunities. They’ve been happening in tandem, with one idea leading to another, but everything began with the DoD, in terms of tech validation. We reach new milestones with the DoD, then translate those capabilities to the commercial side. That has worked really well for us,” said Kosyokov. 

Another major shift in the design concept for Natrion was in the size and usability of the batteries once created. Initially, they embarked on developing a large battery that could replace and mimic traditional diesel generators. After speaking with end users and customers, team members realized the impracticality of these large, heavy and burdensome machines. The team pivoted to a revolutionary idea for a modular battery suite that could be large and powerful, or broken down into smaller, lightweight components, including cargo pocket batteries for radios. 

”Walking into H4D, we thought, ‘What could the DoD possibly want with more batteries?’ But once we completed the customer discovery, we found that it was one of its highest priorities. We also understood the applications to the commercial side as well. We really started working in a dual-use way,” Kosyakov said.

A Future for Safer, Better Power

Looking ahead at uses for Natrion’s solid-state batteries, the company hopes the world will soon be ready to embrace its solid-state sodium ion battery as well. Sodium ion batteries are compelling for ecological and humanitarian reasons, as they don’t rely on the harmful mining of dwindling resources, like lithium, or cobalt, two critical components often linked to human rights abuses and environmental pollution. These resources also can’t be sourced in the U.S, demanding a reliance on potential adversaries. 

Kosyakov and his team are already working with local, American manufacturers and factories, and waiting until the market matures to accept sodium. Their goal is set for 2025 and beyond. The change would give Natrion something it strives to become: a truly American battery company. While countries such as China vie for power over cobalt mines and lithium salt beds around the world, Natrion envisions an America that sources, produces and builds its own battery materials domestically. It’s a future they can believe in, as they lay the groundwork for it, one battery at a time.

To learn more about Natrion, you can visit their website.

Team Anthro Energy

Stanford University

---

Changing the Future of Battery Technology

The Team

David Mackanic

• Founder of Anthro Energy
• Former Partner at Dorm Room Fund
• PhD. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University
• B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Chemistry from Virginia Tech

Michael Kao

• Head of Product at Anthro Energy
• Battery Engineering Intern at Natron Energy
• B.S. in Material Science and Engineering Candidate at Stanford University

Problem Sponsor

Joint Staff Office

Original Problem Statement

Isolated personnel (IP) such as downed fighter pilots need an integrated power source on their person to ensure access to power for necessary electronics and to increase rescue probability.

Beneficiary Discovery Interviews

143

The Innovation

Gone are the days of bulky batteries weighing down Soldiers on missions. H4D alum and H4X Labs participants in team Anthro Energy have created “human-compatible” batteries that are flexible and foldable.

The Anthro Energy team was formed in the Spring 2020 term of Stanford’s Hacking for Defense course. The original H4D team included PhD student and Battery Engineer David Mackanic & Michael Kao (B.S Battery Engineer), along with dual MS-MBA students Jonathan Hess and Adreína Mesalles who came together to support challenges faced by the Joint Staff Office.

The team was originally tasked with addressing power shortages for ejected fighter pilots. However, after conducting over 143 beneficiary discovery interviews, the team realized that battery life was not a priority for this group; most beneficiaries stated that their priority in this situation was surviving, not battery life.

Through further beneficiary discovery interviews, the team identified a new group they could serve: the “Guardian Angels”, who carry out life-saving rescue missions for Soldiers. These operations typically involve jumping out of a plane while carrying sufficient batteries to power the variety of devices required for a successful mission. The team realized that a battery integrated into their backpack or body armor would dramatically improve the efficiency of rescue operations. Many beneficiaries told the team: “You are doing something that is going to save lives.”

During their time in Hacking for Defense, the team was able to verify the need for this product and prove the technology in the lab. However, as the term came to a close, the technology and a fully functional prototype wasn’t ready. They realized that in order to reach a deployment ready state, they would need to pursue a dual-use venture and utilize commercial funding in addition to government resources to create a functioning prototype.

In H4X Labs, the team focused on bridging the work they had conducted in the lab and the technology to make their product a reality. H4X Labs allowed the team to specifically focus on building commercial buy-in. David Mackanic graduated from Stanford University in May 2020, and is committed to working full time on pursuing Anthro Energy. Michael Kao is currently on a leave of absence, also working on Anthro Energy full time. For David and Michael, working on Anthro Energy full time was always the goal.

Presentation

Team Anthro Energy’s
H4X Labs Experience

Making Goals a Reality

David says they “knew the start-up playbook in the  abstract, but through H4X Labs we had the opportunity to build relationships to get the buy-in we needed to make it a reality.” The team cites the most rewarding and valuable part of H4X Labs were the mentors that supported them in building a dual-use customer base and taking the tactical steps toward building a successful start-up.

Anthro Energy founder David Mackanic was honored as a Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient. Forbes describes the innovation as: “Anthro has developed a flexible, non-flammable lithium ion battery that can be stretched and flexed like rubber thanks to an innovation in ‘polymeric solid-state ion conductor’ technology. There's endless applications for flexible batteries.” You can view Forbes’s feature here. 

David offers advice to future H4X Labs teams: “Put in the time to be very clear about what you want help with each week.” He encourages teams to utilize the H4X Labs and BMNT network, as it plays a critical role building buy-in and a potential customer base.

After H4X Labs, the team continues to work toward identifying product-market fit and move toward production in the new year. To learn more about Anthro Energy, you can visit their website and engage with them on LinkedIn.