Mission problem owners
Bring a challenge, explain the operating context, and help teams understand what success should mean for the people who will use the solution.
AI Labs FutureWorks / Partner pathways
Mission challenges · university talent · venture creation
NSA–NRL FutureWorks
Real mission challenges. Student-built products. Pathways to careers and companies.
Start a FutureWorks conversationWork is underway
From mission need
to student opportunity.
AI Laboratories is already supporting the flow of challenge problems from the National Security Agency and the Navy into university teams through NSA–NRL FutureWorks.
The program connects students and faculty with mission problem owners, product builders, commercialization mentors, and investors. Hacking for Intelligence provides a practical curriculum for understanding a real need, developing a solution, and exploring how it can become a useful product or a new company.
The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) pathway brings students into this work with university and intermediary partners. FutureWorks connects the challenge, the learning experience, the engineering support, and the people who can help carry a promising solution forward.
The program in practice
A challenge becomes
something people can use.
Students learn by working with the people who experience the problem—and by building, testing, and improving a real solution.
- 01
Bring the challenge
NSA and Navy problem owners contribute challenge problems suitable for university collaboration. Together, the team defines the user, the need, and what a useful result would look like.
- 02
Learn through discovery
Students use the Hacking for Intelligence curriculum and lean startup methods to interview stakeholders, test assumptions, and understand the mission before choosing a solution.
- 03
Connect research and IP
Faculty, researchers, and industry mentors help teams explore relevant technology and research. FutureWorks connects promising ideas with appropriate licensing and commercialization pathways.
- 04
Build and test a product
Student teams work with engineering and product mentors to develop prototypes, gather user feedback, and improve the solution around evidence from the challenge.
- 05
Bring investors into the work
Investors and venture mentors engage with teams around product potential, business models, and paths to market. Showcases connect promising work with potential collaborators and capital.
- 06
Create a path forward
The work can lead to employment, a product carried into further development, or a student-founded company. Teams define the next step, the people involved, and the support needed to continue.
Experience from prior programs
≈90%
Program-reported combined student outcome rate
Jobs. Products.
Companies.
Across prior NSA- and NRL-connected FutureWorks work, program leadership reports that approximately 90% of participating students achieved an outcome in employment, product creation, or company formation.
The measure brings together three ways the program can create opportunity: helping a student secure work, develop a product, or build a company. That experience informs how we connect today’s university teams with mentors, mission needs, and investors.
Approximate combined outcome reported by AI Laboratories leadership, November 2026, covering prior program experience.
A foundation in applied learning
Experience that
shapes FutureWorks.
FutureWorks builds on Dr. Benjamin Harvey’s earlier work connecting university students with federal mission problems and technology commercialization.
While leading AI Squared, he helped pilot NSA’s Hacking for Intelligence curriculum with university students, including participants connected through Bowie State University and NSA ORTA. Students worked on mission problems, applied lean startup methods, and presented their work to industry and government leaders.
The Federal Laboratory Consortium’s 2025 ARISE recognition also describes Hacking for Intelligence as a way for students to work on unclassified NSA challenges and explore patented technology with industry collaborators. This history supplies a practical foundation for today’s challenge-to-product approach.
Read the program background
Dr. Harvey’s earlier Hacking for Intelligence work FLC: ARISE and Hacking for Intelligence, 2025Build the next opportunity
A role for every
part of the team.
Mission needs, university talent, product expertise, and investment come together around work that matters.
Universities and students
Contribute research, faculty guidance, student teams, and the curiosity to discover, prototype, and develop a product or founding opportunity.
Engineering and venture mentors
Support product design, development, evaluation, IP pathways, and the practical steps needed to move beyond the classroom.
Investors and industry partners
Explore emerging teams and products, share commercial insight, and help promising work find a path to customers and growth.
Explore the
other pathways.
NSA–NRL FutureWorks sits alongside Latimer and CAA within the same AI Labs FutureWorks ecosystem.