agile, business model, corporate innovation, customer development, h4d, hacking for defense, lean, lean launchpad, lean startup, stanford, steve blank, bmnt, diux

1. Skynet
Sam Gussman (creative generalist), Alvin Goh (hacker), Olga Musayev (project development),
Kevin Mott (project manager)
Mentors/Liasions: Steve Behmer, Ryan Blake, Mike Hard, Jooyong Lee, Wayne Chen, Brian CS
# Interviewed this week: 13 (2 pending)
11 Users, 2 Buyers
# interviewed total: 23
Developing autonomous drones for situational
awareness. Helping prevent battlefield fatalities by
pinpointing friendly and enemy positions.

2. Customer Discovery
Hypotheses 1) hybrid UI is the best, voice for the ease of use, and visual for clarity of information.
2) there are military/commercial systems out there that can solve (part of) the problem
already, but nothing well-suited for teams on the ground
3) Biggest pains in combat roles are fratricide and collateral damage
Experiments Experiment to test audio vs visual
Interviews to find out about current state of technology (both in/out of military)
Interviews to find out current methods and needs for situational awareness
Results 1) Visual UI led to better performance in accuracy and speed
2) Lots of technology in the market/military, solving various parts of the problem
3) But they are heavy, expensive, don’t integrate with current technology
4) Situational awareness is a “nice to have” for reconnaissance, but a “must-have” for
avoiding fratricide and collateral damage
Actions Validate pains and gains in noncombatant roles
Contact potential partners in DARPA, Sparrow, and private sector

3. Mission Model Canvas
- Threat/friendly/noncombat.
detection using visual
recognition light/sound/
motion/indicator/or marking
-HCI - feedback mechanism
-Making system easy to
use/learn/maintain
- Integration with prefered sit.
awareness platforms,
including smart phones (As a
Service)
- SOF, Rangers, AWG
- Law Enforcement Agencies
- Drone manufacturers (ex:
DJI)
- Sparrow (Stanford CS210
Autonomous Drone project)
- Haptic startups
- Augmented Reality
Visualization Companies (ex:
Google Glass)
-DARPA
COMBAT: SOF in a combat
environment (TIC)
--JTACs
--Team leader
NON-COMBAT: SOF in a
non-combat environment
DUAL USE: Search and
Rescue teams
COMBAT: Drone uses visual
recognition to separate
enemies, friendlies, and
noncombatants-- prevents
collateral damage and
fratricide
NON-COMBAT: Drone flies
route autonomously,
increases awareness of
surroundings, and could do
patrols
- Low cost alternative to
costly assets
Minimize new load that needs to be
carried
- Reduces human capital
needs-- frees up man to fight
-Improved situational awareness for small units in combat
-perform manpower intensive tasks in non-combat roles
-Reduce fratricide and collateral damage
- Identify program manager
- Secure funding + contract
from sponsor
- Field test small-scale
- Contract a manufacturer for
large scale production
- Deploy iteratively, for each
integrate with a new system
- Continue relationship via
maintenance + integration
service
Fixed:
- Equipment - drones, development toolkits,
- Hapkit: Haptic Starter kit ($50 x 4)
- Software design & engineering
- Augmented reality hardware & software (equivalent of Google Glasses and
relevant developer toolkits)
Variable:
- Costs of maintenance, updates, and training
-Need current methods used to mark
friendly forces
- Rank and file soldiers, unit leaders,
and commanders.
- Support of an automated threat
detection system
- Military engineers to facilitate
integration with systems
??????
Beneficiaries
Mission AchievementMission Budget/Costs
Buy-In/Support
Deployment
Value PropositionKey Activities
Key Resources
Key Partners
- Drones w/ camera
(provided by SOCOM)
- Augmented Reality
Visualizer with developer
tools
- Access to existing gear and
standard equipment
- Haptic Specialists to act as advisors
- Hapkit
- Drone pilots
- Soldiers / team leaders

4. Minimal Viable Product

5. Minimal Viable Product
Experiment - audible or visual information?
Task - Choose correct cone when given a verbal or
visual indication.
Results:
Visual + Hybrid groups performed the best.
Verbal had 9 average errors, while verbal and hybrid groups
had 3.5 and 4 average errors
Severity of Hybrid errors < Visual errors < Verbal errors
Conclusion - Users prefer verbal communication
because it is easiest. Visual and hybrid forms of
communication are more accurate, but require more
thought to use. A good comm. system must make
visual as “easy” as verbal communication.
Visual Group
“12:00, 105 meters”
Verbal Group
Hybrid:
Verbal + Visual Group
“12:00, 105
meters”

6. Hypothesis #2:
Military and/or commercial systems exist that address
aspects of situational awareness, but failed because they
didn’t integrate with existing systems and introduced new
pain points
Conclusion:
Military - expensive, difficult to use, badly implemented, not integrated into current capabilities, introduced
single points of failure, required specific (annoying) hardware
Commercial - affordable, feature-rich, offer API’s but fail to be integrated into existing military tech.
Next steps:
Contact potential partners at DARPA, Stanford (Sparrow), and private sector

7. SkyNet: Value Proposition Canvas
- Knowing the locations of
friends/enemies/civilians
- Reduced ambiguity
- autonomous assessment of
aerial perspectives and video
feed Customer
Jobs
Shoot bad
guys without
getting shot
- Cognitive overload from
existing tools
-Manpower losses
- Hassle of systems not
communicating
SOF Elements (combat)
Gains
Pains
Gain
Creators
Pain
Relievers
-Increased situational awareness on
the battlefield
- Reconnaissance of
inaccessible places
- Integrate with current systems
that soldiers are familiar with
- Frees up another soldier
Products
& Services
Situationally aware
drone with visual
interface

8. SkyNet: Value Proposition Canvas
- Automatic patrol
- Facial Recognition of people
identified in vicinity
- Automatic threat detection to
flag security threats
Customer
Jobs
Force protection
Day-to-day security patrols
are manpower intensive
Difficult to be always aware of
surroundings
SOF Elements (non-combat)
Gains
Pains
Gain
Creators
Pain
Relievers
- Reliable 24/7 Security Awareness
- Knowing who lives around you, and
who doesn’t
- Ability to respond quickly
to threats
- Swarms of drones can
replace patrol units
-24/7 situation awareness of
surroundings
Products
& Services
Situationally aware
autonomous drones

9. SkyNet: Value Proposition Canvas
Products
& Services
-Drones deploy immediately,
reducing strain on limited
emergency resources (like
helicopters)
-Drones provides immediate aid
(food/water) to trapped individuals
Customer
Jobs
Search and rescue
operations- Not able to access areas
after disasters
- Difficulty operating in tight spaces
- Hazard to human rescuers
Disaster SAR
Gains
Pains
Gain
Creators
Pain
Relievers
-Fast response to disasters
- Fast identification of trapped
and at-risk persons
-Efficient delivery of aid
- Increased agility
- Drones fly quickly through zones
humans can’t go
- using drones in unsafe zones
prevents risking lives of rescuers
Economical, low-cost
search drone fleet