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| MITRE Colorado Springs Hosts National Security Innovation Competition May 2010
Government officials, industry experts, and university teams from across North America gathered at MITRE's Colorado Springs site on May 7 for the fourth annual National Security Innovation Competition, sponsored by the Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance. Founded in 2007, the Innovation Competition is designed to stimulate student interest in national security and to share student-designed technologies with organizations and businesses involved in aerospace, defense, security, and first responder activities. Student teams submit written papers describing their research; these preliminary submissions are judged by a panel of experts and the top teams are selected to compete in the finals. In the first year of the competition, participation was limited to the Colorado Springs area; MITRE took on the role of host in 2008 as interest grew. At the all-day event, seven university teams—including one from the University of Ottawa, the competition's first-ever international participants—orally presented their research to a panel of judges led by Steve Dennis, director of Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency, Department of Homeland Security, Science & Technology Directorate. Other judges included representatives from U.S. Northern Command, Raytheon, Los Alamos National Labs, Dorsey & Whitney law firm, and MITRE. "This was a very impressive set of ideas," said Colorado Springs site leader Spurgeon Norman, associate executive director for the Command and Control Center's Warfighter Integration Division. "The students who presented were very professional and knowledgeable. The University of Colorado held its graduation on that same morning, so that team went to the ceremony and then had to rush down here for their presentation. They really went the extra mile." The competition's $5,000 first-place prize went to the University of Ottawa team for its work in strengthening concrete with fiber-reinforced polymer, which helps it withstand the force of a bomb blast or improvised explosive device (IED) detonation. Second place went to the University of Connecticut, which studied the creation of a more resilient transportation infrastructure through the use of smart sensing technology, and the University of Colorado at Boulder took third prize for its hybrid engine for unmanned aerial vehicles. "The students were very well prepared in facing the panel—what's important is not only the outcomes of the research, but how well a team can express them and respond to questioning, and these teams showed a great deal of maturity. Each of them had something important to add," said Gerardo Garcia, a senior principal systems engineer in the Homeland Security Systems Engineering and Development Institute (HS SEDI™) and MITRE's representative to the judging panel. MITRE judges in previous years have included HS SEDI chief engineer Kim Warren and Darren Hild, associate head of the Air Force/COCOM department. "Involvement with this event is good for MITRE, particularly as we support science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education issues," Norman said. "I would encourage all sites to get involved with their communities; it raises awareness of what MITRE is and the work we do, and is in keeping with our commitment to the public interest." —by Tricia C. Bailey Page last updated: May 21, 2010 | Top of page |
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