Finalists Named for NHDF 5th Annual National Security Innovation Competition

WOODLAND PARK, CO, March 30, 2011 (Press-News.org) The National Homeland Defense Foundation (NHDF) today announced the ten finalists for the Fifth Annual National Security Innovation Competition to be held at the United States Air Force Academy on April 29.

"The purpose of the competition is to stimulate college undergraduate and graduate student interest to address national security problem solving by exposing their university-sponsored projects to a broad audience including industry, academic, and government organizations involved in aerospace, defense, security, and first responder activities," said Don Addy, President of NHDF.

The universities and corresponding projects competing in the final round include:
• The Air Force Institute of Technology, "Enhancing Neutron Detection Capabilities with Solid State Devices"
• North Carolina State University, "Construction and Validation of Access Control Policies via Natural Language Processing and Policy Verification"
• University of New Mexico, "A Field Desorption Ion Source Based Neutron Generator for Active Interrogation Systems"
• University of Notre Dame, "Dilation Aware Multi-Image Enrollment for Iris Biometrics"
• University of Ottawa, "Innovative and Cost Effective Blast Strengthening of Wood Framed Structures"
• University of San Diego, "Image Correlation Based Video Tracking"
• University of Utah has two finalist projects: 1) "Low-­Cost, Portable Detection of Peroxide-Based Improvised Explosive Devices"; and 2) "Spatial-Information Approach to Analyzing and Planning Distributed Transportation Security Systems"
• The United States Air Force Academy, "Cool Clean Technologies"
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, "Dynamic Obscuration of IPv6 Addressees to Achieve a Moving Target Defense"
Twenty-five different projects competed. Forty-one different judges representing scientists and technologists from industry and government agencies assessed the projects to identify the top ten finalists for the final competition.

Preliminary judges evaluated the uniqueness of the projects and their relevancy to meet a national and homeland security need, the student ability to describe their understanding of major market factors and alternatives, how student teams described the evolution needed to mature their project across technology readiness levels and possible commercialization, and the overall clarity and quality of their written project summaries.

Finalists will make an oral presentation to a panel of national-level judges from government and industry on April 29.

The top three prizes to be awarded are $10,000 for first place, $5,000 for second place, and $2,500 for third place.

Mr. Sean Roche, Director for the Office of Science & Technology, Central Intelligence Agency, will be the keynote speaker at the luncheon.

"Our sponsors have also seen the incredible opportunity and value of this competition," said Mark Volcheff, Executive Director for the Competition. "The brightest student minds from across the US and Canada are able to present their research which serves national security needs."

"Our industry and government audience not only get an early opportunity to take these innovations the next step, but they'll meet the scientists and engineers that will fill their future workforce," Volcheff said.

The sponsors and partners include: Neumann Systems Group, Pikes Peak Chapter Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, Boeing, Booze Allen Hamilton, The Canadian Consulate General Denver, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, 5 Star Bank, The CENTECH Group, Raytheon, Merrick and Company, ARINC, El Pomar Foundation, Colorado Springs Technology Incubator, Perini & Associates, The Global Security Challenge Competition, INTECON, The Aerospace Corp, Homeland Security Solutions LLC, Rocky Mountain Technology Alliance, The Pikes Peak Chapter National Defense Industrial Association, the US Air Force Academy Association of Graduates, and Aerovation Products.

"All of the student entrants are doing cutting-edge research," Volcheff said. "While we only compete10 in the final round, we want to make sure all of the projects receive the broadest exposure and we'll do that through published Proceedings distributed after the competition."

About NHDA: NHDF was founded in 2004 with the mission of "Securing the Future of Liberty" and conducts the annual NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM on Homeland Security and Defense held at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

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