--- title: Building a Military of Hackers and Makers description: How to bring hackers and makers into the military, teaching code in school to close the digital divide, the racism of misdemeanors and more. canonical: https://time.com/3929924/building-a-military-of-hackers-and-makers/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-22T15:22:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:02:55.228Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Building a Military of Hackers and Makers og:description: These are today's best ideas. og:url: https://time.com/3929924/building-a-military-of-hackers-and-makers/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Building a Military of Hackers and Makers twitter:description: These are today's best ideas. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Building a Military of Hackers and Makers by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jun 22, 2015 3:22 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Jun 22, 2015 3:22 PM UTC **1\.** [**The Pentagon needs a military full of makers and hackers. Here’s how to start.**](http://www.defenseone.com/management/2015/06/what-pentagon-has-do-recruit-silicon-valleys-nerds/115552/) By Patrick Tucker in Defense One **2\.** [**Want to close America’s digital divide? See how Globaloria teaches through games.**](http://globaloria.com/research-shows-globaloria-reduces-digital-divide-effects/) By Rebecca Reynolds and Ming Ming Chiu in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology **3\.** [**Misdemeanors are the secret weapon of America’s structural racism.**](http://thesocietypages.org/trot/2015/06/10/misdemeanor-inequality/) By Evan Stewart in the Society Pages **4\.** [**The government agency that oversees industrial accidents is imploding.**](http://www.buzzfeed.com/danvergano/the-us-chemical-disaster-board-is-imploding) By Dan Vergano in Buzzfeed **5\.** [**The “welfare queen” is a myth. Doctors are the true face of Medicare fraud.**](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/06/this-is-what-government-fraud-looks-like/396317/) By David A. Graham in the Atlantic  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3929924/building-a-military-of-hackers-and-makers/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3929924/building-a-military-of-hackers-and-makers/"},"headline":"Building a Military of Hackers and Makers","datePublished":"2015-06-22T15:22:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:02:55.228Z","description":"How to bring hackers and makers into the military, teaching code in school to close the digital divide, the racism of misdemeanors and more.","url":"https://time.com/3929924/building-a-military-of-hackers-and-makers/","keywords":["Innovation"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3929924/building-a-military-of-hackers-and-makers/","name":"Building a Military of Hackers and Makers"}}]}] ```