Hacking for Energy is a new semester-long course designed to engage graduate-level students towards learning about and helping to solve real-world technological and business problems facing the energy industry, while also exposing them to the “Lean LaunchPad” approach to entrepreneurship.

Based on Steve Blank’s Hacking for Defense class (recently taught at Stanford), Hacking for Energy features problem statements supplied by Industry Hosts for energy issues that need immediate solutions. Student teams will propose a solution to a problem statement and spend 13 weeks determining if it is viable using the Lean LaunchPad methodology for customer discovery.

Hacking for Energy is taught at Columbia University but is also open to students at NYU and CUNY. The course is sponsored by PowerBridgeNY.