It’s time for MIT students to disrupt the state of defense innovation.
What is the purpose of your business? Is there anything other than making money? Does your investment or product make it better for anyone other than shareholders, customers and employees? We ask because, just like you, we want jobs where we can make the world a better place. We need financial security, but we also need a sense of purpose.
And what we’re asking for is that the set of companies we typically look at labeled “social impact” doesn’t include the security tech companies we’re excited about. Most organizations with a social impact label serve underserved groups, such as families in their communities who are valued outside of affordable education, or help address broader negative market externalities, such as climate change. The impact of these mission-driven social impact companies is staggering. We thank you every day for the urgency of the problems being addressed on the front lines.
These companies are like security technology companies. A for-profit construction company with a mandate to build affordable green homes, a nonprofit with a mandate to help protect democracy, a drone that creates social impact. The perception of defense technology as a front line is not wrong. However, it is not (1) universal or (2) precluded from account of social influence.
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Security technology is much more than missiles and drones. We can trace the origins of modern “defense technology” back to early aviation and MIT’s success in developing technologies like RADAR. Cold War missile and space technology carried the industry through the 20th century, as did bomb disarming robots for the war on terrorism kit. But the ecosystem is very wide. Many of the startups we follow today are using analytics or cyber or hardware solutions to solve problems for more stakeholders than just the Department of Defense. MIT’s security technology startups are helping first responders, election officials, intelligence agencies, energy companies and the military.
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Making weapons doesn’t stop a company from doing good for the world. A similar radar developed at MIT—not a weapon, but a necessary upgrade for a “kill chain” to fight the bad guys—turned the tide at the start of World War II. Before that technology, U-boats raced across the Atlantic, sinking Allied ships indiscriminately, mostly civilian cargo ships. With RADAR, the United Nations detects and targets U-boats, ending their free reign. Without that defense technology, the Nazis could have starved Britain. Many more Allied sailors and civilians would die crossing the Atlantic. Today, Boston Dynamics’ spot robots help police and military units around the world by assisting in rescue operations, hostage rescues, and disorderly conduct.
To sum up, we are talking about not only ecosystem or industry lethal defense technology, but security technology in general. Moreover – especially with Ukraine under attack and tensions rising over Taiwan – the security challenges facing global democracies are enough to make the social network positive about the appropriate use of kill chain technology. As former co-presidents of the Sloan Defense Tech Club, we have renamed it the Global Security Tech Club.
We understand the objection that any technology that can be used to kill people or spy on people can be used for destructive purposes. This objection is strong and important in many respects. However, technological solutions can and should be used to strengthen our democracy. To prevent further attacks on sovereign democracies, the alliance’s technology ecosystem must continue to meet Chinese and Russian militaries in technical warfare. We must choose to shape technology to protect our intellectual property, our choices, our energy grid, the Internet, and our way of life. To achieve this, we need innovative leaders in security technology. If not at MIT, where would these leaders be? Democracy needs to think about the serious security challenges MIT students face and create a mission to address them. Democracy needs MIT students.
Damien Lewke is a Masters student in Systems Design and Management.
Austin Gray is an MBA-MPA student at the Sloan School of Management and the Harvard Kennedy School.
