Winners announced in Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance's innovation competition

Published 25 May 2010

The winners of the Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance’s 4th Annual National Security Innovation Competition (NSIC) are the University of Ottawa, University of Connecticut, and University of Colorado; top prize goes to U Ottawa for blast mitigation materials

Colorado Springs, Colo.—May 21, 2010—The Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance announced the winners of the fourth annual National Security Innovation Competition (NSIC). Seven finalists from U.S. universities competed in the day-long event, which ended with an award ceremony in which the three winning teams were announced.

The event was hosted by MITRE Corporation and was sponsored by the Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance and Colorado Springs Technology Incubator (CSTI).

The two-round competition featured entries promoting national security-related innovations. The final round competition consisted of oral presentations judged by a panel of industry and government experts representing DHS, MITRE Corporation, Dorsey and Whitney LLP, New Venture Resources, Raytheon, NORAD/US NORTHCOM, and the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC).

  • The University of Ottawa captured first place with its “Use of Advanced Composite Technology for Mitigating Blast Risk in Structures” project.
  • Second place went to the University of Connecticut for their project, “Providing for More Resilient Transportation Infrastructure Through Controllable Damping and Smart Sensing Technology.”
  • The University of Colorado was awarded third place for its presentation, “HELIOS- hybrid propulsion system (HPS) That Can be Integrated Into the Fuselage of an Unmanned Aerial or Ground Vehicles.”

Other finalists included:

  • Virginia Tech: A Tethered-Antenna CubeSat for Operationally Responsive Space
  • University of Alabama: Compressive Gait Biometrics with a Binary Pyroelectric Infrared (PIR) Sensor Network
  • Michigan Technological University: Automatic adjusting Sniper Scope
  • University of Massachusetts Amherst: GeoVault, a system to securely manage location information

“The students were extremely well prepared and showed a great variety of innovation in their projects,” said Mark Volcheff, executive director of the Colorado Homeland Defense Alliance. “They highlighted the very broad implications of national security and homeland defense and provided some innovative solutions. We were also very fortunate to have such a select group of judges from a wide range of industries. They brought exceptional insight and credibility.”

This is the first year the competition included a Canadian university. According to Volcheff, given the success of this year’s event and the potential for adding new partnerships and sponsorships, organizers anticipate even greater participation next year.