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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2018 (Revised September 2020)

  Testing Autonomy in Pittsburgh

  Mitchell Weiss and Brittany Urick

  Pittsburgh’s mayor had been among the first to welcome self-driving vehicles but was now one of many needing to react after a pedestrian fatality involving an autonomous Uber in Arizona. He had originally preferred to roll out “the red carpet” instead of the “red tape.” Now he found himself needing to balance technological advancement and the city’s economic trajectory against public health and safety concerns and, simply, citizens’ fears. Post-Arizona, should he allow AV firms to double down on experimentation? When it came to testing new technology, how safe was safe enough?

  Keywords: public entrepreneurship; government innovation; government experimentation; autonomous vehicles; mayor; mayor peduto; cities; mobility; automation; Uber; argo ai; aurora innovation; aptiv; Entrepreneurship; Public Sector; Innovation and Invention; Transportation; City; Safety; Business and Government Relations; Transportation Industry; Auto Industry; United States; Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh;

  Citation:

  Weiss, Mitchell, and Brittany Urick. "Testing Autonomy in Pittsburgh." Harvard Business School Case 819-059, October 2018. (Revised September 2020.)  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2019 (Revised September 2020)

  SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command (Abridged)

  Herman Leonard, Mitch Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik and Kerry Herman

  James "Hondo" Geurts, the Acquisition Executive for U.S. Special Operations Command was in the middle of his Senate confirmation hearing in 2017 to become Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition. Overseeing acquisitions in one of the most secretive parts of the U.S. military, Geurts had founded SOFWERX, an open platform to diversify and speed the rate of new ideas into Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, and the like. His approach helped source the idea for the EZ-Fly, a hoverboard, from a YouTube video. At his confirmation hearing, the Senators’ questions had a common theme: How should things like SOFWERX and protypes like the EZ-Fly find a place within the Navy writ large? How would Geurts's experience running an innovative procurement effort for U.S. Special Forces units enable him to change a much larger—and much more rigid—organization like the U.S. Navy?

  Keywords: open innovation; crowdsourcing; prototyping; Navy; Entrepreneurship; Public Equity; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Acquisition; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Public Administration Industry; United States;

  Citation:

  Leonard, Herman, Mitch Weiss, Jin Hyun Paik, and Kerry Herman. "SOFWERX: Innovation at U.S. Special Operations Command (Abridged)." Harvard Business School Case 820-047, September 2019. (Revised September 2020.)  View Details

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• Course Overview Note | July 2017 (Revised July 2020)

  Public Entrepreneurship

  Mitchell Weiss

  This course is rooted in the belief that there is a large opportunity for creating value and solving large public problems if there are more inventors and builders inside government and more inventors and builders outside government, building for it. The course was created to advance that opportunity. It is designed for students who anticipate founding or joining private startup companies that sell to (or around) government to solve public problems; for students who plan to be extreme innovators inside government; and for students who may lead in different parts of the connected ecosystem, as investors, advisors, etc.

  Keywords: public entrepreneurship; Public Sector; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention; Innovation Leadership; Government Administration; Business and Government Relations;

  Citation:

  Weiss, Mitchell. "Public Entrepreneurship." Harvard Business School Course Overview Note 818-006, July 2017. (Revised July 2020.)  View Details

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