Schar School News for November 2023

Schar School BA in Government and International Politics

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Mason Students, Grads Claim Top Prizes in TraCCC’s 2023 Anti-Counterfeiting Hackathon

Andrew J Schappert — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 21:27:32 +0000

Mason Students, Grads Claim Top Prizes in TraCCC’s 2023 Anti-Counterfeiting Hackathon Andrew J Schappert Tue, 11/14/2023 - 16:27

In This Story

Louise I. Shelley

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Trading under the team name of CyberCrustaceans, ��AV students Anthony Perry and Daniel Horvath—both Honors College students—defeated five finalist teams to win the $20,000 top prize at the Bring Down Counterfeiting Hackathon 2023 (BDC 2023). The hackathon, a nationally advertised competition that began in September, brought together individuals and teams to develop technology-based solutions for combating counterfeiting.

From left, Anthony Perry and Daniel Horvath, aka Team CyberCrustaceans, won the top prize in the Bring Down Counterfeiting Hackathon 2023. Photos by Ayman Rashid/Office of University Branding

BDC 2023 was organized by the Schar School of Policy and Government’s Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) in partnership with strategy and analytic firm Blue Clarity, which administered the competition. Major sponsors included e-commerce and technology company Amazon.com Inc. and the Global Innovation Policy Center, a department within the U.S. Chamber of Commerce devoted to promoting innovation, creativity, and strong intellectual property protections.

CyberCrustaceans’ $20,000 winning entry, called Veritas Ex Machina, was deemed by a panel of practitioner judges to be a breakthrough combination of X-ray technology, optical scanning, and artificial intelligence designed to sift through enormous volumes of small parcels to detect the likelihood of counterfeit product.

The $10,000 Student Prize, SafeURL, was won by a team of Mason graduate students called Tech Titans who tackled the digital domain of counterfeiting with a system designed to uncover fraudulent websites. By employing sophisticated machine-learning algorithms, they crafted a user-friendly platform that helps users discern the legitimacy of URLs, enhancing online security and trust.

The Tech Titans team, which also took home the $2,500 Crowdsource Prize, included Siva Satyanarayana Raju Pusapati, Sampath Sai Yelleti, Hemanth Kumar Reddy Tiyyagura, Chandra Kiran Viswanath Balusu, Anusha Bhavanam, and Poojasree Keerithipati.

The $10,000 CINA prize for research, sponsored by Mason’s Criminal Investigations and Network Analysis Center (CINA), went to Mason students Salem Abdul-Bak and Krishna Purohit (also an Honors College student) and for the Legitima project, which bridges technology with policy. The program uses serialized tokens and a Chrome extension that functions as a digital passport for products, enhancing consumer trust and enabling verification of authenticity. In addition to $10,000, the students receive a semester of mentoring by CINA experts and the opportunity to present their project to a wider audience.

Three other teams with promising concepts won honorable mention prizes worth $1,000 each, bringing the total prize money to $45,500.

Support and prize money came from a variety of organizations including Amazon, Statista, Mapbox, the National Crime Prevention Council, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Global Innovation Policy Center, and the International Coalition Against Illicit Economies.

TraCCC founding director Louise Shelley converses with Patrick Kilbride, senior vice president of the Global Innovation Policy Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Hackathon With Purpose

This is the second Hackathon TraCCC has hosted. The competition featured some 80 contestants—faculty and students from many different universities—registering as teams or individuals and working for more than two months to perfect their ideas. Six competitors making the finals were non-Mason.

The competition has two goals: Bringing attention to the serious harms caused by counterfeiting, and encouraging students and others to develop solutions using technology and policy to address the problem.

Counterfeiting is a global problem: The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates that pirated and counterfeit products make up 2.5 percent of world trade or roughly $464 billion a year. Many if not most of those counterfeit goods present a danger to the public. As an example, during the COVID-19 crisis, TraCCC researchers were able to prevent 67 million counterfeit masks for frontline workers from entering the U.S. market.

“We need the data to show how this problem operates so we can begin to address it,” said TraCCC founding director Louise Shelley of the Hackathon. “And working together, we need public, private, and research partnerships to begin to solve it.”

She added that an additional—and unexpected— benefit of the exercise is to involve technology-oriented students who discover an affinity for policy. She said the participants praised Mason and appreciated the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

Six finalist teams presented their solutions at Mason Square in Arlington, Virginia, on November 4 during Hackathon Demo Day, defending them under questioning from a panel of judges that included leading practitioners from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Customs and Border Patrol, and Amazon. While the judges deliberated, a series of notable speakers, including Summer Kostelnik, policy advisor from the White House Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement, offered their views on trends in counterfeiting and what needs to be done to counter them.

Hackathon 3 will be announced later in 2024.

Topics

Hackathon

Schar School of Policy and Government Terrorism Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC)

Campus News

entrepreneurship

Mason Square

Tech Talent Investment Program (TTIP)

Schar School Undergrads Get a Surprise Visitor: A North Korea Defector

Andrew J Schappert — Fri, 10 Nov 2023 15:24:11 +0000

Schar School Undergrads Get a Surprise Visitor: A North Korea Defector Andrew J Schappert Fri, 11/10/2023 - 10:24

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North Korea defector Justin Seo: ‘There is no one message that could solve the problems of North Korea, but if the people can stay strong, perhaps positive change lies ahead.’

North Korea currently presents both direct and indirect security concerns for the U.S. and, indeed the world. Its nuclear arsenal and missile capabilities pose a direct threat to specific regions, while its potential to influence other nations is strong.

Former South Korea navy captain Joshua Park is a visiting research fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government at ��AV. He is also an adjunct professor, teaching a course called North Korea Security (GOVT 444) that calls on his extensive military experience in conveying a robust foundational understanding of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and a thorough examination of its intricate network of foreign relations. Ultimately, Park delves into the intriguing dynamics between North Korea and the broader strategic competition among nations.

On a Thursday in September, Park introduced to the class a guest speaker who provided exclusive insight to contemporary life in North Korea and its foreign relations. The speaker, Justin Seo, is a defector from North Korea, having escaped from North Korea to China with his family in 2005.

Seo vividly narrated a detailed PowerPoint presentation that illustrated the concepts they have been studying as only someone who lived there could.

Seo stated how the propaganda implemented by the North Korean government runs rampant in the news, and civilians have essentially no choice but to believe it. Additionally, most civilians are required to spend a minimum of 10 years in the military, unless their status is deemed unworthy of serving the family of supreme leader Kim Jong Un. In that case, they are likely subject to a life of abject poverty.

North Korea’s flawed education system, he said, was rife with systemic concerns unimaginable to Western thinking.

“In People’s school,” he said, “the students are told to bring valuable things to school. Students may be asked to bring aluminum, herbs, human or animal wastes, rice, firewood, and sometimes money. The teachers collect these items under the dictator’s name to condition students to be subject to the rule of the Kim family at a young age.”

Seo added that students are taught to worship the Kim Jong Un family beginning as early as kindergarten.

Not surprisingly, Seo received a large number of questions from the Schar School class, including one that made his North Korea experience personal: “If you hypothetically had the power to tell all of North Korea one message, what would you tell them?”

“I would tell them to remain aware of their situation and to stay determined,” he said. “There is no one message that could solve the problems of North Korea, but if the people can stay strong, perhaps positive change lies ahead.”

Seo also encouraged the class to share news of the systemic realities of North Korea, such as their human rights violations and a recent summit cementing relations with Russia, as much as possible. He emphasized pressuring the U.S. Congress to accept North Korean people as international refugees.

The students in Park’s class said they were thrilled to have an engaging guest as Seo.

“Being able to hear Mr. Seo describe his background was an extremely fulfilling event,” said Government and International Politics major Jake Moran. “At this moment, I felt very grateful that I decided to take North Korean Security with Professor Park. Seeing a North Korean defector speak his mind with his presentation truly made the class standout relative to the other government classes I have taken.”

“Justin Seo’s guest lecture painted a vivid picture of the hardships that North Koreans face in their everyday lives,” said government major Jim Corcoran. “After hearing his story and learning about his perspective, I feel that I can better appreciate the human costs that the regime’s systems of oppression impose on their own people.

“I feel that this class, or any class on North Korea, would be incomplete without being able to learn firsthand about what life is like for ordinary citizens.”

Topics

International Security

Government and International Politics

innovative classes

Campus News

Schar School BA in Government and International Politics

Nobel laureate gives 2023 Haynes Lecture

Colleen Rich — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 20:36:27 +0000

Nobel laureate gives 2023 Haynes Lecture Colleen Rich Wed, 11/08/2023 - 15:36

Photo by Buzz McClain/Schar School

About 80 ��AV faculty, students, and community residents attended Monday’s 2023 Haynes Lecture, held at the Mason Square auditorium and hosted by the Schar School of Policy and Government. George A. Akerlof, who shared the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize for Economic Sciences with Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz, detailed his storied life and career in a 90-minute presentation that surveyed his breakthroughs in asymmetric information, identity economics, and macroeconomics.

The Haynes Lecture is named for Kingsley E. Haynes, founding dean and professor emeritus of the School of Public Policy and Ruth D. and John T. Hazel, MD Endowed Chair.

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Picture This

Campus News

From California to Capitol Hill: A Q&A with Schar School Student Matthew Glaubke

Andrew J Schappert — Thu, 02 Nov 2023 16:02:35 +0000

From California to Capitol Hill: A Q&A with Schar School Student Matthew Glaubke Andrew J Schappert Thu, 11/02/2023 - 12:02

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While at the Schar School, senior Matthew Glaubke interned with Congresswoman Julia Brownley (D-CA).

This is part of the Schar School's student-to-student story series where undergraduates are interviewed and profiled by their peers.

At ��AV’s Schar School of Policy and Government, Matthew Glaubke turned his Capitol Hill dreams into reality.

A current senior and Thousand Oaks, California, native, Glaubke knew he wanted to pursue a degree in government and international politics. “I toured a number of other schools in California and Virginia, and Mason was the first place I felt comfortable and at home on campus,” he said. “In the end, it was the Schar School’s commitment to its students’ success and the helpfulness of the admissions staff that gave me full confidence in my decision.”

At the Schar School, Glaubke had the opportunity to intern on Capitol Hill. I asked him why he wanted to work on Capitol Hill, how he secured his internship, and what it entailed.

Why did you want to work on Capitol Hill?
I have always been interested in the policy process and how legislation can be used to improve lives. A job on the Hill would allow me to work in a number of different issue areas I care about.

How did you find your internship?
I found my Hill internship because Congresswoman Julia Brownley (D-CA) is my representative at home. I had previously worked for my city government and interned for California Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin. This was something I had been working toward for years.

Matthew Glaubke: ‘I have always been interested in the policy process and how legislation can be used to improve lives.’

Did you use any Schar School resources to help you get your internship?
One resource I used was the class credit the Schar School offers for internships [Undergraduate Internship Program]. This allowed me to work 24 hours a week on the Hill while maintaining a 15-credit course load. This was extremely valuable to me because it allowed me to gain work experience while also maintaining my academic track.

Tell me about your time on the Hill? Who did you work for, what was your position, and your responsibilities?
I worked as an intern for Congresswoman Brownley in the fall semester of 2022. As a congressional intern, I was responsible for taking constituent calls and writing responses from the congresswoman, leading tours of the Capitol, sitting in on meetings with lobbyists, attending hearings, and writing memos.

What was the most valuable skill you learned while working on the Hill?
The most important thing I learned as an intern on the Hill is to always make yourself available to help. There are always people in the office who could use assistance with something, and if you’re not assigned anything, you should ask others. The staffers in the office will help you in your post-grad job search and are a fantastic resource for you. While I was a legislative intern, I worked with our communications staff frequently and was given the opportunity to work on things that some interns don’t get to, such as finding cosponsors for our bills. One of the bills was the Elizabeth Dole Home- and Community-Based Services for Veterans and Caregivers Act, to improve VA programs for aging veterans. The bill didn't pass while I was an intern, but it did pass the House Veterans Affairs Committee later. This was the must fulfilling responsibility I had during my time on the Hill and I'm grateful to have been trusted by our legislative staff.

What is your advice for current Schar School students who may want to work on the Hill? How can they get the most out of the experience?
Find (and work on) what you’re passionate about. This will be useful for a couple of reasons. First, it can help you find a representative or senator who works on issues you care about. Much of the legislation a representative drafts relates to the committees they serve on, and you want your work to line up with what you care about. Talk to everyone you can, make friends with other interns, and keep connected with the people you meet after your internship.

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Schar School BA in Government and International Politics

Government and International Politics

Undergraduate Internship Program