competitions

robotics and autonomous systems

George Mason students fly into first place with no GPS, no grade, and (almost) no problems

tdonnel — Mon, 04 May 2026 18:53:10 +0000

George Mason students fly into first place with no GPS, no grade, and (almost) no problems tdonnel Mon, 05/04/2026 - 14:53

Driven by passion, persistence, and what they call “the love of the game,” a group of 91�� students affiliated with the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center (MARC) claimed first place at the 2026 Raytheon Autonomous Vehicle Competition at EagleBank Arena on April 24, 2026.

Meah Chambers and Gagan Manjunatha at the competition. Photo by Andani Munkaila/Office of University Branding

The competition challenged student teams to design and deploy autonomous aerial and ground vehicle systems capable of executing a series of increasingly complex missions. Unlike prior outdoor iterations, the 2026 competition eliminated access to GPS, forcing teams to rely on advanced onboard sensing and visual navigation techniques to orient themselves in space. EagleBank Arena has been hosting national robotics competitions since 2023 with support from an Office of Naval Research grant to transform the venue into a robotics experimentation and sporting venue.

George Mason’s autonomous robotics team rose to the challenge. Over the course of the competition, their system successfully completed all three mission objectives, earning the top overall score and securing first place. The win capped months of late nights and creative problem-solving by a team that was not competing for a grade, credit, or formal requirement, but purely out of enthusiasm for robotics.

“This isn’t even an official club yet,” said computer science major Gagan Manjunatha. “We’re here for the love of the game.”

For many teams at the competition, participation counts as a senior design project. George Mason’s team, however, had no such structure. “A lot of teams do use this as their senior design project, but the nice thing about us not doing it is that we have people that can come back year after year,” said team lead Meah Chambers, a junior majoring in electrical engineering.

Photo by Ron Aira/Office of University Branding

“I like the hands-on experience,” she said. This was Chambers’ third robotics team competition, each of which she found rewarding. “It’s like I’ve done three mini senior designs. I like the design team experience, working on a team for an end goal.”

The technical demands of the competition were steep. Challenge one required a drone to autonomously take off from a moving ground vehicle and land back on it. The second challenge layered on autonomous search and detection, requiring the drone to identify a visual tag, communicate its location, and guide the ground vehicle to the target. A third challenge added obstacle detection and avoidance for both aerial and ground systems.

To meet those demands, the team divided into drone and ground sub‑teams, with students specializing in software, hardware, mechanical design, and systems integration. Majors across electrical engineering, computer engineering, mechanical engineering, and computer science were represented. Visual‑inertial simultaneous localization and mapping (VSLAM) replaced GPS, allowing the drone to understand its position using cameras and onboard sensors.

“We were given the challenges in September and two semesters to plan and work on our system,” said electrical engineering major Emma Misevschi. Without senior design funding or course integration, students volunteered their time over the academic year to design, build, test, and refine their system. “Everything just happened to come together this week,” she said.

Some members of George Mason's 2026 Raytheon Autonomous Vehicle Competition team. Photo by Andani Munkaila/Creative Services/91��.

Funding constraints added another layer of difficulty. While funding for system components were provided by competition sponsor Raytheon, the money arrived late in the academic year, forcing the team to borrow equipment, lean on shared research lab resources, and compress months of testing into intense overnight sessions.

Despite many team members having stayed up testing into the wee hours of the night before the competition, spirits were high at the end of the first day of the two-day competition. Chambers joked, “Two hours is like a nice nap instead of sleeping for the night.”

Computer engineering major and ground team lead Logan Teyema added the (understandably tired) motto of hustle culture, “Water is life, food is fuel, and sleep is a crutch.”

In the end, their teamwork paid off. When the judges arrived, George Mason’s system performed cleanly and consistently, earning top marks across the challenges and finishing first overall.

The full team includes Luis Anchundia, James Daniel, Konraad Ludwig, Hassan Youssef, Emma Misevschi, Thomas Fletcher, Christopher Romero-Klevisha, Toan Do, Meah Chambers, Gagan Manjunatha, Connor Roberts, William Maynard, Logan Teyema, Ellie Kwon, Rico Rodriguez, Nick Kasa, and Yousif Alani. Faculty advisors include Cameron Nowzari, Xuesu Xiao, and Ningshi Yao.

Are you interested in joining the team? Learn more on the team’s website and watch a video about their experiences.

Learn about MARC

In This Story

Cameron Nowzari

Ningshi Yao

Xuesu Xiao

Topics

Electrical Engineering

Computer Engineering

computer science

Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center

robotics

Schar School Students Turn Language Barriers into Award-Winning Entrepreneurial Opportunity

Andrew J Schappert — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 19:44:15 +0000

Schar School Students Turn Language Barriers into Award-Winning Entrepreneurial Opportunity Andrew J Schappert Mon, 04/20/2026 - 15:44

Schar School senior Jayden Banks, left, and sophomore Anthony Even-Vaca pose with ceremonial checks at the Baylor New Venture Competition. Photo provided

Two Schar School of Policy and Government undergraduates took third place and an honorable mention award during the 14th Annual Baylor New Venture Competition in March for pitching a prototype of their medical language translation platform.

The Doctors United DPT/91�� sign at the Baylor New Venture Competition

The cofounders “really felt like the underdogs,” said Anthony Even-Vaca, a 19-year-old sophomore in the Schar School’s International Security and Law degree program at 91��. “I definitely was the youngest there.”

The national competition held at Baylor University’s Paul L. Foster Campus for Business and Innovation in Waco, Texas, drew student entrepreneurs from around the country eager to pitch their startup business ideas to panels of judges for cash awards and sage advice. Many of the competitors were doctoral students affiliated with established ventures, Even-Vaca said, heightening the sense of being underdogs in a field of seasoned innovators.

He and graduating government and international politics senior Jayden Banks took the $1,500 honorable mention prize and $500 for placing third in the elevator pitch competition for their self-funded platform, Doctors United DPT.

The idea for the language translation platform stemmed from Banks’s experience working for the last two years at the Inova Fairfax Medical Campus as a clinical technician, assisting the medical staff in patient care. He began building the app, he said, about a year-and-a-half ago after witnessing firsthand the difficulties of language barriers in a medical environment and how they can complicate even routine interactions.

“I started testing the prototype on the nurses, my coworkers, and they were super supportive of it,” he said. “I interviewed doctors, neurosurgeons, cardiac surgeons, and asked them how language barriers affect them specifically to their specialty.“

Banks and Even-Vaca became friends after working together as coaches at a swim school and then sharing a room for a week during a Schar School study-abroad program to Switzerland. Eventually, Banks recruited Even-Vaca to the Doctors United DPT project “and he immediately had ideas for it, like bringing it to refugee camps. And so we started working on it together,” Banks said.

It was during a second Schar School study-abroad trip, this one to Israel, where the work they were doing in translating medical terminology became real.

“I got sick, I couldn’t get out of bed for a day,” Even-Vaca said. “I was wondering, am I going to have to go to a doctor? I don’t know Hebrew or Arabic, and I felt a little bit hopeless.” (It turned out to be a bad cold. Still, the plane ride home was miserable.)

The app uses AI to render instantaneous translations of some 200 languages, Banks said. It was Even-Vaca’s idea, he said, to add a “confidence meter” to override AI’s sometimes questionable reliability in translations. “The judges loved it,” he said.

The cofounders are actively seeking George Mason alumni and business professors for guidance in building out the award-winning business.

“We’re trying to make more connections, networking, and raising capital,” Banks said. “We see a big demand for interpreter services in other areas, such as international forums and institutions as well as immigration law. We want to implement it around the world and bridge cultural gaps, help people, make a difference. That’s our hope, our vision.”

Request Schar School program information

Learn more about the Schar School

Topics

Class of 2026

International Security and Law

Government and International Politics

Schar School of Policy and Government

Schar School Featured Stories

entrepreneurship

Costello College of Business News

Fiscal Patriots take first place in national AGA Datathon

Katelynn C Hipolito — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 17:01:20 +0000

Fiscal Patriots take first place in national AGA Datathon Katelynn C Hipolito Mon, 03/09/2026 - 13:01

This year’s AGA Datathon—a nationwide competition challenging college students to apply their data science skills to solve real-world government accountability problems—drew talent from many of the nation’s top business colleges. The Costello College of Business at 91�� was well represented by the team known as the Fiscal Patriots, who rose above the competition to capture first place.

Fiscal Patriots receive the first-place prize check at Datathon. Courtesy of Fiscal Patriots.

The Fiscal Patriots formed quickly through existing academic connections. “I was introduced to this competition through Professor Mike Wetklow [instructor in accounting] when I took his class in advanced accounting analytics, Accounting 665, last year,” said Khaled Alkurd, an accounting analytics and forensic accounting student. “When I learned about it again this year, I knew I wanted to build a team and compete.”

Mariam Debas, an accounting and management information systems (MIS) student, had also expressed interest, so Professor Wetklow connected the two. Already familiar from a previous project, they expanded their team by inviting Andy Yaro, a cyber security engineering student, and Nikita Chandrasing, an MIS and business analytics student.

To round out the team, Chandrasing reached out to Pranavi Doodala, a business analytics student, who had been a finalist in George Mason’s capstone competition a few weeks prior. The five students quickly established a strong dynamic and a well-rounded foundation for the work ahead.

From left, Andy Yaro, Mariam Debas, Nikita Chandrasing, Pranavi Doodala, and Khaled Alkurd. Courtesy of Fiscal Patriots

During the month leading up to the first phase of the competition, the Fiscal Patriots focused on refining their responses to various prompts they could expect at the Datathon. Wetklow provided the team with initial guidance, helping them decide on which direction to take. Later, Clement Chen, adjunct professor in management, reviewed their work and provided crucial feedback to strengthen the team’s submission.

Presented with three options to choose from, the Fiscal Patriots selected the use case of visualizing government spending data in an interactive, innovative format that would make complex financial information more accessible to the public. The result was AuditsMadeSimple, a website that serves as a launchpad for understanding federal spending and audit data. Broken into four distinct features—exploratory visualizations, a 50+ term glossary of auditing terms, a dataset guide, and case studies—the platform allows users without a technical background to interpret, contextualize, and better understand government accountability data.

“We’re really hoping to showcase the accessibility of the features we’ve carefully curated on this website and how they effectively make federal spending and audit data understandable to the average citizen,” said Doodala.

“This achievement was a year in the making with George Mason's first advanced accounting analytics class a year ago,” said Wetklow. “From the time I first met Khaled, his skills were apparent. What’s equally impressive was the full team—each with a unique superpower that demonstrated the Costello-91�� edge.”

—Mike Wetklow, accounting instructor at the Costello College of Business at 91��

In the opening round of the AGA Datathon, the Fiscal Patriots made their presentation in front of the panel of judges. During the 20-minute virtual session, they walked through their website before receiving feedback on content, delivery, and other insights to keep in mind for the competition’s final round.

Polished and poised, the Fiscal Patriots delivered their final presentation on February 18 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. Winning the top prize validated their preparation and commitment, but the Fiscal Patriots had so many other takeaways from the competition. “I got involved in this challenge because I just wanted to apply my skills,” said Debas. “Coming from an MIS and accounting background, I’ve built a strong foundation across both disciplines. What really excited me about this competition was the opportunity to focus on real-world government financial challenges.”

Chandrasing found that the competition helped her experiment with future career pathways. “Because one of my career goals is to become a product manager, I think creating the documentation for what the requirements for that would be really aligned with that,” she said.

“This achievement was a year in the making with George Mason's first advanced accounting analytics class a year ago,” said Wetklow. “From the time I first met Khaled, his skills were apparent. What’s equally impressive was the full team—each with a unique superpower that demonstrated the Costello-91�� edge.”

Together, the Fiscal Patriots proved that when diverse skill sets unite around a shared mission, the results speak for themselves—and they speak loudly enough to earn the top spot on a national stage.

Topics

AGA Datathon

Fiscal Patriots

Accounting Area

Costello College of Business Students

Students use AI to solve everyday challenges at recent Fail-a-Thon

sbrown79 — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 17:35:24 +0000

Students use AI to solve everyday challenges at recent Fail-a-Thon  sbrown79 Mon, 01/12/2026 - 12:35

91�� is preparing students to transform setbacks into stepping stones with a “Fail-a-Thon," a hackathon event where failing forward is the goal.

The event, hosted by the College of Engineering and Computing, encouraged students to explore bold ideas under two themes: artificial intelligence (AI) for everyday challenges and tech for well-being and creativity.

Junior computer science major Oluwatomisin Badmus and his partner, junior applied computer science major Chesney Noye, working under the team name “AfroHacks,” took first place. 

Chesney Noye (center) and Oluwatomisin Badmus presenting at the Fail-a-thon. Photo provided.

Badmus and Noye are international students and wanted to emphasize the importance of checking in with one another within their community. The duo used an AI coding tool to build an application that allows users to log their current mood over the course of the day, and the system then uses the logged mood when responding to questions.

“You might describe it as a mood-aware AI chatbot,” explained Badmus.

They were able to complete a working version of the application to present to the judges. The team 808s won 2nd place and the Three Musketeers won 3rd. 

“I'm very passionate about AI, so I make sure to take advantage of every educational opportunity regarding AI. I hope to apply that knowledge in my work to make an impact both in and out of school,” said Badmus, an Honors College student. 

Badmus said he has participated in other George Mason hackathons and competitions at other institutions such as Morgan State, John Hopkins University, and online. Badmus encouraged Noye to participate in the event with him in hopes that he would also find the experience rewarding. 

“I’ve always wanted to participate in a hackathon, so when I saw the flyer for the Fail-a-thon, I knew it would be a great opportunity to gain experience in a relatively low-stakes environment,” said Noye, who has a concentration in software engineering.

Noye said hackathons always seemed too intimidating, but he was encouraged by the fail-a-thon's easygoing approach.

“Having an event centered around failing gave people room to go out there with their ideas, and getting to see all the projects everyone else came up with was great,” he said.

“Getting to share stories with the other participants there on where our projects failed, what weird bugs we had, and how different our initial ideas and final products ended up was a great bonding moment and really helped normalize the idea that failing is okay,” said Noye.

The students had two hours to build real-world practical projects using provided AI tools. Many of the project features were built and working, and judges and attendees could see them live during the presentations. 

Humaira Akhtari (left) with Christi Cartwright Wilcox, director, Office of Outreach Student Success and Engagement. Photo provided.

“Watching students turn ideas into functional solutions in just two hours was genuinely exciting and inspiring,” said Humaira Akhtari, a term instructor in the Department of Information Science and Technology and one of three faculty judges at the event.

Other judges included professors Socrates Dimitriadis and Maha Shamseddine from the Department of Computer Science.

“I kept telling the teams, ‘I would be the first person to use your app’ because their ideas were genuinely useful. Seeing students build practical solutions, collaborate across disciplines, and confidently present their work made the experience incredibly rewarding,” said Akhtari. “It brings me so much joy seeing my students grow beyond the classroom. Whether it’s capstone presentations, Fail-a-Thon, or Engineering Week, I love seeing how my students are thriving.” 

Students from electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer science, IST, and cyber security engineering participated. The mix of backgrounds really elevated the ideas and discussions, said Akhtari. 

When evaluating projects, judges looked at creativity, risk-taking, learning through failure, and how well teams communicated their ideas.  

“Rather than penalizing mistakes, we looked for evidence of iteration, reflection, and growth. The goal was to celebrate experimentation and meaningful learning,” said Akhtari. 

“Events like Fail-a-Thon create a safe space where students learn that failure is not something to avoid—it’s part of the process. This mindset is essential not only in academics, but also in entrepreneurship and real-world problem solving,” said Akhtari.

One team built a study management tool where students could upload their course syllabus, and the app would automatically generate a personalized study plan based on upcoming assignments and deadlines.

Another team designed a nutrition app that helps users track dietary preferences like Halal, vegan, and other restrictions.  

There were also projects focused on productivity, motivation, and wellness—apps that help users stay on track with their schedules, motivate them to stay consistent at the gym, or even guide users while grocery shopping based on their calorie goals.  

Topics

Hackathon

Applied computer science

computer science

Honors College

CEC students

In This Story

Humaira Akhtari

Socrates Dimitriadis

Maha Shamseddine

Artificial Intelligence at George Mason

Students S.E.R.V.E. those who have served

Jennifer Pocock — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 20:47:53 +0000

Students S.E.R.V.E. those who have served Jennifer Pocock Tue, 10/28/2025 - 16:47

91�� students take third in competition to help veterans maintain their quality of life.

Team 7 shows their prosthetic liner solution after winning third place at the Project S.E.R.V.E. National Design Competition. From left, Kunaal Jindal (student), Steve McMillian (Project S.E.R.V.E. Northeast Program Manager), Cassidy Worzalla (student), Dibyashree Basu (student), Shani Ross (senior design instructor), and Gabriel Gibson (student). Photo provided

Miami-based nonprofit Project S.E.R.V.E. (Student Engineering for Resilience of Veterans and Emergency Responders) helps wounded responders get back on their feet and gives bioengineering students valuable hands-on experience in the prosthetics field at the same time. It has sponsored prosthetic limbs for more than 1,300 veterans and first responders from more than 2,000 students since its founding in 2009.

In May, the nonprofit (formerly known as Quality of Life Plus) brought eight teams together for a national competition in Blacksburg, Virginia. Universities from Ohio, Florida, New Jersey, and Virginia gathered to see who could design a prosthetic socket and liner that would mitigate heat and moisture for lower limb amputees.

George Mason’s team comprised Gabriel Gibson, Cassidy Worzalla, Dibyashree Basu, and Kunaal Jindal, all bioengineering majors. Over the course of two semesters, they developed, tested, and evaluated multiple prototypes. They also had to present their progress and proposed solutions twice in fall and once in spring to a group of stakeholders, including prosthetic wearers, for feedback. 

On May 3, the day of competition, Team 7 presented their solution: a silicone liner made with a thermal conductive polymer and containing moisture-absorbent strips. They were judged on two different real-time tests: how much the design lowered the temperature, and how the design helped control temperature and humidity levels when a test subject performed a physical activity.

“The judges liked the innovative design and thought their idea was creative and promising,” said Shani Ross, the senior design instructor and bioengineering associate professor. “We are very proud of the work that the team did. They showed ingenuity, tenacity, and teamwork and represented 91�� well.” 

Their product helped them take third place—and contributed to the science of prosthetics, and a better quality of life for affected heroes.  

In This Story

Shani Ross

Topics

Bioengineering

Veterans

Forged in passion, not just fire: This alum is on a hot streak

sbrown79 — Mon, 27 Oct 2025 18:20:46 +0000

Forged in passion, not just fire: This alum is on a hot streak  sbrown79 Mon, 10/27/2025 - 14:20

Keeping his nose to the grindstone is not just how Andrew Hutsell approaches his academic career in engineering—it's how he cut a small slice of fame.  

The 91�� alumnus recently put his engineering skills to the test on national television, competing in an episode of the History Channel’s Forged in Fire, a competition show that challenges bladesmiths to create weapons under tight deadlines.  

Hutsell (second from right) and the Forged in Fire judges. Photo provided.

Hutsell, BS Mechanical Engineering ’23, appeared on the episode “Junkyard Meltdown” on September 17 (S10E27).  

 Hutsell’s journey began when one of the show’s judges posted a casting call on Instagram.  

“I was still a student at the time, so they asked what I do at George Mason, what I do in my free time, and to provide examples of the knives I’ve made,” said Hutsell, who also was president of George Mason’s club baseball. 

Hutsell has been a fan of the show since 2016 and started bladesmithing in 2019.  

“Ever since I started making knives, I have only had one goal with each knife I make: learn at least one new skill or method [for the trade]. With this mindset, it is easy to see how my skills have improved over time,” said Hutsell. 

After multiple rounds of interviews, he got the call to appear during a midterm exam.  

Filming took place in March and April 2023. Hutsell described the show’s format as similar to Chopped, but instead of cooking, contestants forge knives through three rounds of competition.  

One of Andrew Hutsell's knives. Photo provided.

For the last round, judges pick a historical weapon, such as a broad sword or katana, and then contestants go back to their hometown to forge it with their own equipment.   

"I traveled back home to Newport News. When I came back, they tested it to determine the winner,” said Hutsell.  

“They tested the knives by chopping through bone for strength, then slicing sugar cane to see how well the edge held up. It was surreal to compete on a show I’d watched for years,” said Hutsell, who came in second place.  

Hutsell is currently a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University working on similar topics such as fluids research.  

“The research that I’m doing is for thermal hydraulics—the cooling system—of molten salt [nuclear] reactors, researching the gas sparring of fission products of molten salts for molten salt reactors,” said Hutsell.  

Hutsell was influenced by Jeffrey Moran, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, who Hutsell describes as a “a big influence on my work with heat and mass transfer,” as well as Juan Cebral, an associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering.  

“It is always very rewarding when a student demonstrates this passion for learning and dedicates substantial time and effort to master the material to reach high levels of achievement,” said Cebral. “Andrew was one of those students who is dedicated to solving complex problems. His perseverance and motivation will certainly help him make important contributions in his field.”  

Connect with the Alumni Association

In This Story

Juan Cebral

Jeffrey Moran

Topics

Alumni

mechanical engineering

Bioengineering

Department of Cyber Security Engineering

A one-woman team puts many eyes in the skies

Nathan Kahl — Wed, 01 Oct 2025 19:37:27 +0000

A one-woman team puts many eyes in the skies Nathan Kahl Wed, 10/01/2025 - 15:37

Fatima Majid, a 91�� senior majoring in cyber security engineering, was not just the only one-person team in the top 10 award winners at a recent National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) cyber competition, she was the only student team. Majid placed ninth out of 51 teams, most of them comprising industry experts.

“I went in, and they were all professional teams, like from Lockheed Martin. I thought, ‘I want to go home,’” said Majid with a laugh, describing her initial cold feet. “But I told myself I could do it. It helped that it was hosted at George Mason, and I had professors there giving me support.”

Her project focused on how the Department of Defense (DoD) can protect critical U.S. infrastructure against low-cost drone attacks at scale, informed by Ukraine’s “Operation Spiderweb,” which used 117 drones to attack Russian air bases in June 2025.

Majid spent the summer in Richmond during a public policy internship. Photo provided

Majid’s lightbulb moment came with a flash as bright as a Virginia speed camera catching a lead-footed driver. Considering the significant network of traffic cameras in the commonwealth, she conceived SkyEyes. This applies an artificial intelligence (AI) model to the live feed of the Virginia 511 camera network, which provides real-time traffic information to citizens and transportation officials. SkyEyes demonstrated how a low-cost, AI-enabled surveillance layer could differentiate threats from non-threats, employing geofencing logic to define safe versus threat zones around sensitive sites.

“I understand how drones work because of what I’ve done at George Mason’s MIX lab—and since I know how to build it, I also know how to jam it. I trained the AI model on a data set provided from a contest sponsor, and that data set had drone imaging and drone prototyping,” she said. “The camera feeds can find objects flying, but what if it’s an Amazon drone, for example? Then I added geofencing and threat analysis to observe the behavior of the drone—if it's a drone at 2 a.m., for example, maybe that's sketchy. So, the model gets smarter.”

Majid said that to access the cameras, all she had to do was make a phone call to the right person and explain her project. She cited time spent this summer at the Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in the Undergraduate Policy Program (VASEM UPP) in Richmond as giving her confidence and exposure to how government works.

K. L. Akerlof, an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason, said, “The VASEM UPP is a unique opportunity for undergraduates to learn about opportunities in science policy at the state level. The immersive experience of spending a week in Richmond visiting the General Assembly and state agencies, while getting a crash course in how research evidence relates to public policy, can open new doors and career pathways.”

Majid said the strong showing gave her tremendous exposure to influential professional contacts. She fielded several questions about her simulation and future professional plans from a man she only later realized was Retired Brigadier General and NDIA Executive Vice President Guy Walsh.

“Because he showed interest, after he walked away, a crowd of people gathered around to ask me questions. It was very validating.”

She also had a long conversation about her project with Harley Stout, acting chief digital and AI officer at the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Majid is still pleasantly shocked by her top-10 finish. She is working with Mohamed Gebril, an associate professor in Cyber Security Engineering, on expanding the research. She is confident that such a cost-efficient solution for critical infrastructure protection against drone attacks will attract more funding opportunities.

She credited the supportive culture at Mason—and her family—for keeping her grounded and encouraging her throughout, saying their support made the accomplishment even more meaningful.

In This Story

Mohamed Gebril

Topics

Cyber Security Research

Drones

The MIX

Defense and Security

CEC students

91�� students ran with the big dogs at defense hackathon

Jennifer Pocock — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 16:22:00 +0000

91�� students ran with the big dogs at defense hackathon Jennifer Pocock Thu, 09/11/2025 - 12:22

When the National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) convened the first round of its high-tech competition at Fuse at Mason Square, they should have known it would end with a strong George Mason showing.

From left to right: Ricardo Vega, Chris Martin, Noah Kabiri, Van Tran, Phuoc Nguyen, and NDIA judge. Photo provided.

The NDIA Hackathon is an internationally renowned competition that welcomes teams from every sector—not just colleges. That means that some of the country’s greatest minds in professional national defense industries and the military line up against ambitious young students to see who has the best vision for securing our future.

In this case, that project came from a team of George Mason students led by Noah Kabiri, a newly minted sophomore in computer science, with an idea for context-based visualization. How the team came together was kismet.

Kabiri met Chris Martin, a senior in cybersecurity engineering, when looking for someone to join him. The two happened to be working at the same table as Ricardo Vega, a George Mason PhD student in electrical engineering, who had teamed up with Major Phuoc Nguyen from the Department of Defense (DoD) and Van Tran, CEO of Advanced Cambridge Technologies.

“Halfway through the competition we realized that we were all doing similar things and using similar platforms. We decided that we would be a more competitive team if we combined,” Karbiri said. “We got together and swept the competition.”

Each team in the hackathon had to come up with a product that would be marketable and meet some need for the DoD. They then had to market, present, and sell the product to a panel of non-technical judges from the industry and military. Kabiri’s team, SpecDOps Force, addressed a need in the ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) category.

Their product was an SaaS (software as a service) that takes footage and video feeds from anywhere—drone surveillance video, infrared, geospatial satellite images, security cameras, body cams, and more—and analyzes the environment.

“We had machine learning detection models pick up objects like vehicles, weapons, and faces,” Kabiri said. Their software is important because it can determine threat levels based on environmental contexts. “For example, if you were deploying it on a mission in the desert, detecting firearms would be normal because everyone has firearms in war. If you put it in an airport, however, seeing firearms would be bad.”

Out of the 683 registered participants, the George Mason-led team took third place. They were separated from second place by hundredths of a point—it was extremely close. This is gratifying, considering that first place went to a well-established corporate team from a major tech company and second place went to a mix of government contractors. Compared to that, an ad-hoc team headed by George Mason undergrads is nothing short of incredible.

Kabiri hopes that there is a future for their innovation. While the competition only looks for proof of concept over the 72-hour project period, he thinks that he can take it forward. “I don’t see any other products out there that are context-driven. It’s also really adaptable,” he said. “Right now I’m researching how to add walking gaits onto it, where you can determine who someone is based on how they move.”

Though Kabiri is still deciding exactly where to specialize his studies or whether he should pick up a second major in math (it’s only the beginning of his second year, after all), he seems to be headed in a productive direction.

Topics

Hackathon

U.S. Department of Defense

Military

invention

CEC students

Five George Mason cybersecurity students hack their way to Boston

Jennifer Pocock — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 14:38:39 +0000

Five George Mason cybersecurity students hack their way to Boston Jennifer Pocock Thu, 07/31/2025 - 10:38

The Country to Country (C2C) Capture the Flag (CTF) contest is an international competition that issues challenges to code, decrypt, search, hack, and reverse engineer their way through as many challenges as possible.

(C2C) CTF contestants gathered from across the globe to solve pernicious problems. Photo provided.

About 500 students from nearly 100 countries, ranging from inexperienced freshmen to PhD candidates in cybersecurity, competed individually in the qualifying rounds. Only the top 100—including five from 91��—were accepted into the finals. Four went to Boston for the competition, held this year at Northeastern University.

The College of Engineering and Computing students Gael Abboud, Sanjay Kumar Samala, Nhat Le, and Jonah Wilbur represented the green and gold, but were all placed on different teams. (Amaan Abbas also made the cut but could not attend.)

“The organizers were amazing,” said Abboud, who is a graduate student pursuing her master's in systems engineering through the Accelerated Master's Program. She explained that they try to make it a truly international and cooperative competition. Ideally, each team would contain people from different countries.

“Somehow, I ended up on a team with two other people from Virginia,” Abboud said with a laugh. “They came from Virginia Commonwealth University and William and Mary.”

Her Virginia-strong team did the state proud. Over a day of competition, they sometimes worked together and sometimes apart to solve as many problems as possible from across various skill sets.

It’s not just coding. Abboud described one of the challenges. “It was open-source intelligence, which is really just fancy Googling. They set a scene where we had to find a very certain scooter repair shop in Boston. They told us that it was near a metro stop and in sight of an Indian restaurant. Seems like it should be easy, but it wasn’t!”

They also had to track down things like the price of the building and the vice president of the company that sold it more than 60 years ago. “No one solved that one.”

In the end, Abboud’s team landed in fourth place: an admirable showing when the contestants represent some of the best from around the globe. “I was so disappointed,” she sighed. “There was less than one point separating us from the third-place team.”

Abboud said that she loved every minute and would tell anyone curious about hack-a-thons to try qualifying for this Capture the Flag event.

“It may seem intimidating, but there are challenges for any skill level,” she said. “You don’t know what it will be like if you don’t try. Don’t stress if you don’t know something. People are happy to walk you through how they solved it.”

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