Tag Archives: Military Innovation

Win Your Way to an AI Job

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Anduril’s AI Grand Prix: Racing for the Future of Work

LAST UPDATED: January 28, 2026 at 2:27 PM

Anduril's AI Grand Prix: Racing for the Future of Work

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

The traditional job interview is an antiquated artifact, a relic of a bygone industrial era. It often measures conformity, articulateness, and cultural fit more than actual capability or innovative potential. As we navigate the complexities of AI, automation, and rapid technological shifts, organizations are beginning to realize that to find truly exceptional talent, they need to look beyond resumes and carefully crafted answers. This is where companies like Anduril are not just iterating but innovating the very hiring process itself.

Anduril, a defense technology company known for its focus on AI-driven systems, recently announced its AI Grand Prix — a drone racing contest where the ultimate prize isn’t just glory, but a job offer. This isn’t merely a marketing gimmick; it’s a profound statement about their belief in demonstrated skill over credentialism, and a powerful strategy for identifying talent that can truly push the boundaries of autonomous systems. It epitomizes the shift from abstract evaluation to purposeful, real-world application, emphasizing hands-on capability over theoretical knowledge.

“The future of hiring isn’t about asking people what they can do; it’s about giving them a challenge and watching them show you.”

— Braden Kelley

Why Challenge-Based Hiring is the New Frontier

This approach addresses several critical pain points in traditional hiring:

  • Uncovering Latent Talent: Many brilliant minds don’t fit the mold of elite university degrees or polished corporate careers. Challenge-based hiring can surface individuals with raw, untapped potential who might otherwise be overlooked.
  • Assessing Practical Skills: In fields like AI, robotics, and advanced engineering, theoretical knowledge is insufficient. The ability to problem-solve under pressure, adapt to dynamic environments, and debug complex systems is paramount.
  • Cultural Alignment Through Action: Observing how candidates collaborate, manage stress, and iterate on solutions in a competitive yet supportive environment reveals more about their true cultural fit than any behavioral interview.
  • Building a Diverse Pipeline: By opening up contests to a wider audience, companies can bypass traditional biases inherent in resume screening, leading to a more diverse and innovative workforce.

Beyond Anduril: Other Pioneers of Performance-Based Hiring

Anduril isn’t alone in recognizing the power of real-world challenges to identify top talent. Several other forward-thinking organizations have adopted similar, albeit varied, approaches:

Google’s Code Jam and Hash Code

For years, Google has leveraged competitive programming contests like Code Jam and Hash Code to scout for software engineering talent globally. These contests present participants with complex algorithmic problems that test their coding speed, efficiency, and problem-solving abilities. While not always directly leading to a job offer for every participant, top performers are often fast-tracked through the interview process. This allows Google to identify engineers who can perform under pressure and think creatively, rather than just those who can ace a whiteboard interview. It’s a prime example of turning abstract coding prowess into a tangible demonstration of value.

Kaggle Competitions for Data Scientists

Kaggle, now a Google subsidiary, revolutionized how data scientists prove their worth. Through its platform, companies post real-world data science problems—from predicting housing prices to identifying medical conditions from images—and offer prize money, and often, connections to jobs, to the teams that develop the best models. This creates a meritocracy where the quality of one’s predictive model speaks louder than any resume. Many leading data scientists have launched their careers or been recruited directly from their performance in Kaggle competitions. It transforms theoretical data knowledge into demonstrable insights that directly impact business outcomes.

The Human Element in the Machine Age

What makes these initiatives truly human-centered? It’s the recognition that while AI and automation are transforming tasks, the human capacity for ingenuity, adaptation, and critical thinking remains irreplaceable. These contests aren’t about finding people who can simply operate machines; they’re about finding individuals who can teach the machines, design the next generation of algorithms, and solve problems that don’t yet exist. They foster an environment of continuous learning and application, perfectly aligning with the “purposeful learning” philosophy.

The Anduril AI Grand Prix, much like Google’s and Kaggle’s initiatives, de-risks the hiring process by creating a performance crucible. It’s a pragmatic, meritocratic, and ultimately more effective way to build the teams that will define the next era of technological advancement. As leaders, our challenge is to move beyond conventional wisdom and embrace these innovative models, ensuring we’re not just ready for the future of work, but actively shaping it.

Anduril Fury

Frequently Asked Questions

What is challenge-based hiring?

Challenge-based hiring is a recruitment strategy where candidates demonstrate their skills and problem-solving abilities by completing a real-world task, project, or competition, rather than relying solely on resumes and interviews.

What are the benefits of this approach for companies?

Companies can uncover hidden talent, assess practical skills, observe cultural fit in action, and build a more diverse talent pipeline by focusing on demonstrable performance.

How does this approach benefit candidates?

Candidates get a fair chance to showcase their true abilities regardless of traditional credentials, gain valuable experience, and often get direct access to influential companies and potential job offers based purely on merit.
To learn more about transforming your organization’s talent acquisition strategy, reach out to explore how human-centered innovation can reshape your hiring practices.

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons, Google Gemini

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The Future of Military Innovation is Analog, Digital, and Human-Centered

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The Hybrid Advantage

The Future of Military Innovation is Analog, Digital, and Human-Centered

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

In the high-stakes world of defense and security, the innovation conversation is often hijacked by the pursuit of the most complex, esoteric, and expensive technology — hypersonic weapons, next-generation stealth fighters, and pure AI command structures. But as a human-centered change and innovation thought leader, I argue that this obsession with technological complexity is a critical strategic mistake. The future of military innovation isn’t a matter of choosing between analog or digital; it’s about mastering Hybrid Resilience — the symbiotic deployment of low-cost, human-centric, and commercially available technologies that create disproportionate impact. The best solutions are often not the most advanced, but the ones that are simplest to deploy, easiest to maintain, and most effective at leveraging the human element at the edge of the conflict.

The true measure of innovation effectiveness is not its unit cost, but its cost-per-impact ratio. When simplicity meets massive scale, the result is a disruptive force that can overwhelm even the most sophisticated, closed-loop military industrial complexes. This shift is already defining modern conflict, forcing traditional defense giants to rethink how they invest and innovate.

The New Equation: Low-Cost Digital and The Power of Speed

The most devastating innovations often come with the smallest price tags, leveraging the widespread accessibility of digital tools and talent. The goal is to maximize chaos and damage while minimizing investment.

Operation Spiderweb: Asymmetric Genius Deep Behind Enemy Lines

The coordinated drone attacks known as “Operation Spiderweb” perfectly illustrate the principle of low-cost, high-impact hybrid warfare. This was not a cyberattack, but an ingenious physical and digital operation in which Ukrainian Security Services (SBU) successfully smuggled over 100 small, commercially available FPV (First-Person View) drones into Russia, hidden inside wooden structures on trucks. The drones were then launched deep inside Russian territory, far beyond the reach of conventional long-range weapons, striking strategic bomber aircraft at five different airbases, including one in Eastern Siberia — a distance of over 4,000 km from Ukraine. With a relatively small financial investment in commercial drone technology and a logistics chain that leveraged analog disguise and stealth, Ukraine inflicted an estimated sizable financial damage — potentially billions of dollars — on critical, irreplaceable Russian military assets. This was a triumph of human-centered strategic planning over centralized, predictable defense.

This principle of scale and rapid deployability is also seen in the physical domain. The threat posed by drone swarms that China can fit in a single shipping container is precisely that they are cheap, numerous, and rapidly deployable. This innovation isn’t about the individual drone’s complexity, but the simplicity of its collective deployment. The containerized system makes the deployment highly mobile and scalable, transforming a single cargo vessel or truck into an instant, overwhelming air force.

The Return of Analog: Simplicity for Survivability

While the digital world provides scale, the analog world provides resilience. True innovation anticipates technological failure, deliberately integrating low-tech, human-proof solutions for survivability.

Take, for example, the concept of drones connected with physical connection (optical fiber cables). In an era of intense electronic warfare and GPS denial, a drone linked by a physical fiber-optic cable is uncorruptible by jamming. The drone’s data link, command, and control remain secure, offering an unassailable digital tether in a highly contested electromagnetic environment. This is an elegant, human-centered solution that embraces an “old” technology (the cable) to solve a cutting-edge digital problem (signal jamming). Similarly, in drone defense, the most effective tool for neutralizing small, hostile drones is often not a multi-million-dollar missile system, but a net gun. These net guns in drone defense are a low-tech, high-effectiveness solution that causes zero collateral damage, is easily trainable, and is vastly cheaper than the target itself. They are the ultimate embodiment of human ingenuity solving a technical problem with strategic simplicity.

The Chevy ISV: Commercial Off-the-Shelf Agility

The Chevy ISV (Infantry Squad Vehicle) is a prime example of human-centered innovation prioritizing Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) solutions. Instead of spending decades and billions designing a bespoke vehicle, the U.S. military adapted a proven, commercially available chassis (the Chevy Colorado ZR2) to meet the requirements for rapid, light infantry mobility. This approach is superior because COTS is faster to acquire, cheaper to maintain (parts are globally accessible), and inherently easier for a soldier to operate and troubleshoot. The ISV prioritizes the soldier’s speed, autonomy, and operational simplicity over hyper-specialized military complexity. It’s innovation through rapid procurement and smart adaptation.

The Human-Augmented Future: Decentralized Command

The most cutting-edge military innovation is the marriage of AI and decentralized human judgment. The future warfighter isn’t a passive recipient of intelligence; they are an AI-augmented decision-maker. For instance, programs inspired by DARPA’s vision for adaptive, decentralized command structures use AI to process the vast amounts of sensor data (the digital part) but distribute the processed intelligence to small, autonomous human teams (the analog part) who make rapid, contextual decisions without needing approval from a centralized HQ. This human-in-the-loop architecture values the ethical judgment, local context, and adaptability that only a human can provide, allowing for innovation and mission execution at the tactical edge.

The Innovation Ecosystem: Disruptors on the Front Line

The speed of defense innovation is now being set by agile, often venture-backed startups, not just traditional primes. Companies like Anduril are aggressively driving hardware/software integration and autonomous systems with a focus on COTS and rapid deployment. Palantir continues to innovate on the data side, making complex intelligence accessible and actionable for human commanders. In the specialized drone space, companies are constantly emerging with highly specialized, affordable solutions that utilize commercial components and open-source principles to achieve specialized military effects. These disruptors are forcing the entire defense industry to adopt a “fail-fast” mentality, shortening development cycles from decades to months by prioritizing iterative, human-centered feedback and scalable digital infrastructure.

Conclusion: The Strategy of Strategic Simplicity

The future of military innovation belongs to those who embrace strategic simplicity. It is an innovation landscape where a low-cost digital intrusion can be more damaging than a high-cost missile, where resilience is built with fiber-optic cable, and where the most effective vehicle is a clever adaptation of a commercial pickup truck. Leaders must shift their focus from what money can buy to what human ingenuity can create. By prioritizing Hybrid Resilience — the thoughtful integration of analog durability, digital scale, and, most importantly, human-centered design — we ensure that tomorrow’s forces are not only technologically advanced but also adaptable, sustainable, and capable of facing any challenge with ingenuity and strategic simplicity.

Disclaimer: This article speculates on the potential future applications of cutting-edge scientific research. While based on current scientific understanding, the practical realization of these concepts may vary in timeline and feasibility and are subject to ongoing research and development.

Image credit: Pexels

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We Have the U.S. Military to Thank for the Internet and Other Key Technology

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Why We Thank the US Military for the Internet

GUEST POST from Howard Tiersky

From the computers that are used to develop your app to the AI that’s incorporated into your chatbot, many of the technologies that are foundational to our digital world were either massively moved forward or funded by the military. Let’s go over some of those technologies.

Microchips

The microchips that we know today are composed of millions of transistors which were first developed by Bell Labs in 1949. Through military funding, microchips were further improved and incorporated in airplanes and missiles for complex communication and guidance systems.

Today, microchips are one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics, from calculators and cameras to hearing aids, pacemakers, and spacecraft guidance systems, they’re found almost everywhere electronics exist.

Computers

Did you know that the very first computer was funded by the US Military? The ENIAC, built between 1943 and 1945, was the first large-scale computer to run at electronic speed without being slowed by any mechanical parts. It enabled the military to calculate complex wartime ballistic tables, decryption, etc.

Apart from our phones and laptops, computers can be found in our cars, washing machines, manufacturing companies, 3D printers, power plants, banks, and more.

Cellular Technology

The original versions of cellular phone technology were heavily backed by the military for point-to-point soldier communication on the battlefield since they were more beneficial and secure than conventional radio technology.

Today, 80% of the US population owns a smartphone, and our ability to text, call, and video chat with others is a direct result of improved cellular technology.

The Internet

What we know as the internet today started out as the ARPANET. Backed by the US Military, it was initially used for military and academic communication for joint development projects and as a means of communication in the event of a nuclear attack.

As of 2020, 4.66 billion people around the world are internet users. This interconnectivity gave rise to our digital world and serves as the backbone behind almost all digital transformation initiatives today.

GPS

Originally developed for the military to help them navigate terrain and develop weapon targeting systems, the first 20 satellites launched for GPS were funded and driven by the military.

Without GPS technology, we wouldn’t have Google Maps, Waze, or Uber. Depending on your business, there are many ways you can incorporate GPS technology to streamline processes and collect data.

Digital Cameras

The digital sensors used by cameras were developed by the military because of their need to capture and send images wirelessly from satellites in space for terrain mapping and espionage operations.

DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, product advertisements, and face recognition technology all came as a direct result of these digital sensors.

Drones

While there are a lot of non-military applications for drones today, the development of drones was initially funded by the US military to avoid any risk to pilots, fly undetected, and provide real-time footage of an area.

A common use for drones is to help farmers scatter seeds, deliver goods to customers, and collect photos or videos of different places, but there are plenty of other ways we can incorporate them into media, architecture, construction, and emergency response.

Artificial Intelligence

The defense sector is projected to spend about $2 billion in Artificial Intelligence this year. The ability to play out simulations, analyze and understand satellite communications, and improve disaster preparedness are just a few of the many ways AI can be utilized by the military.

Commercially, we see AI in digital assistants like Siri, Bixby, and Google Assistant; chatbots on websites and messaging apps; disease mapping; automated financial investing; virtual booking; and social media monitoring.

So the next time you use your smartphone, Alexa, computer, or GPS, remember to say thank you to a soldier!

In my Wall Street Journal bestselling book, Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance, I walk you through a simple five-step process to successful digital transformation. This methodology is proven and has worked for many companies that I’ve helped in the past. You can access the first chapter for free here or purchase the hard copy here.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

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Challenging Orthodoxies – Flying High

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Challenging Orthodoxies - Flying High

With a new Top Gun movie coming out soon, I thought this might be an appropriate share.

It used to be in the early days of military aviation that a pilot’s head only served as some level of protection during a crash or a battle. Then with the introduction of radio communications an additional function was added to allow the pilot to communicate with the ground and then eventually with other pilots. The arrival of jet airplanes necessitated the integration of breathing capabilities via a facemask attached to the helmet.

Things remained relatively unchanged for many years until miniaturization and advancing computer science and display technologies made it possible to introduce heads up displays for pilots, first into the cockpit and then into the visor of the pilot, allowing pilots to see key flight data in their field of vision without having to find the relevant instrument on their instrumentation panel.

But pilots still had to look out all of their different windows and event turn the airplane in order to see what was going on around the aircraft.

The latest helmet for pilots of the F35 changes all of that now however. Designers have challenged this orthodoxy that a pilot has to look out the window or turn the airplane to see what is going on outside the airplane AND the orthodoxy that a pilot must put on night vision goggles to see what is going on at night by creating a helmet that uses sensors on the outside of the airplane and feed the visual data to the pilot in their new $400,000 helmet for the F35 that allows them to see in every direction just by looking around, day or night. The pilot can now effectively see right through the walls and floor of the airplane with this helmet.

This helmet challenges orthodoxies, but it also leverages two other lenses from Rowan Gibson’s Four Lenses of Innovation to achieve the solution – harnessing trends (sensors, etc.), and understanding needs.

Despite Lockheed Martin holding the primary contract for the F35 Lightning, the helmet will be manufactured primarily in Israel by Elbit Systems with some final assembly work done by Rockwell Collins in the United States.


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