Tech and the Future of National Security

Join the Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Center for Security Studies for a conversation with Palmer Luckey, Founder of Anduril and Oculus VR, Trae Stephens (SFS'06), Chairman of Anduril, and moderator Professor Toni Gidwani (SFS'04, SSP'08), Adjunct Assistant Professor for the Center for Security Studies, as they discuss the technologies that will define the battlespace of the future, why and how the U.S. tech industry and defense community need to renew their relationship, and what’s at stake.

In the era of great power competition, the race for supremacy in technologies like AI, immersive systems, drones, and sensor fusion is paramount. In past generations, America won the space race and created the internet by mobilizing the best talent – whether in the government or at a company – towards a shared mission. But today, partly as a result of diverging cultures and worldviews, the relationship between tech and defense is fraying.

Accommodation requests should be made by January 23rd to Phoebe Koenigsberg, pbw7@georgetown.edu. A good faith effort will be made to fulfill requests made after January 23rd.

About the speakers:

Palmer Luckey

Palmer Luckey is the Founder of Anduril Industries. He is also the inventor and designer of the Oculus Rift, a virtual reality head-mounted display, and the founder of Oculus VR. Palmer founded Oculus in 2012 after experimenting with his own VR designs at the age of 16 in his parents’ garage. Oculus was acquired by Facebook two years later.

His deep interest in defense technology was driven by his time at the USC ICT MxR lab, where he built hardware used to research immersive PTSD treatment for US veterans. He continued to support various military applications of VR during his time at Oculus, informing his belief that radical modernization of US military technology is a prerequisite for preserving our competitive advantage.

This passion led to Palmer founding Anduril in 2017.

Trae Stephens (SFS'06)

Trae Stephens is the Chairman of Anduril Industries, and additionally a Partner at Founders Fund.

Before co-founding Anduril, Trae was an early employee at Palantir Technologies. At Palantir, he led teams focused on growth in the intelligence/defense space as well as international expansion, helping large organizations solve their hardest data analysis problems. He was also an integral part of the product team, leading the design and strategy for new product offerings. He simultaneously served as an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University.

Previously, Trae served as a computational linguist building enterprise solutions to Arabic/Persian name matching and data enrichment within the United States Intelligence Community. He also served in the office of then Congressman Rob Portman and in the Political Affairs Office at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C. immediately following the installation of Hamid Karzai’s transitional government.

Trae attended Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, where he focused on Arabic and Security Studies. Together with his wife and two sons, he divides his time between San Francisco, CA and Washington, DC.