CEC high impact stories

Cybersecurity faculty teams pitch startup ideas at Commonwealth Cyber Initiative competition

Teresa Donnellan — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 17:11:08 +0000

Cybersecurity faculty teams pitch startup ideas at Commonwealth Cyber Initiative competition Teresa Donnellan Fri, 10/11/2024 - 13:11

In This Story

Liza Wilson Durant

Andre Marshall, PhD

On October 9, 2024, the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative’s Northern Virginia Node accelerator program (CCI+A) culminated in a final pitch competition in front of a panel of cybersecurity industry experts and entrepreneurs at Mason Square. Program participants, cybersecurity engineering academics from throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, spent the past few months bringing their ideas for businesses to life.

The program helped participants connect with mentors, identify funding and how to obtain it, investigate their target customer, further develop their minimum viable product and hone their elevator pitch. CCI Northern Virginia Node Director Liza Wilson Durant, who welcomed event attendees, encouraged participants to change their perspective from faculty member explaining the technical basis for their idea, to end user who is trying to understand the problem it will solve.

CCI+A 2024 participants and advisors. Photo by Teresa Donnellan.

Each of the eight 2024 faculty teams presented a pitch and received insights on the industry and investment landscapes from the esteemed judging panel. The panel included Jennifer Addie, chief operating officer of Mach37 Cyber Accelerator and VentureScope; Maria Swainson, a managing vice president at Gartner and a member of Citrine Angels, an investment group; Maurice Boissiere, chief customer officer at DataTribe; and, Alicia Lynch, chief information security officer at TD Synnex. Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason and venture partner with Paladin Capital Group moderated the panel.

Faculty team products included everything from hardware to protect a person’s identity to encryption software. CyberGuard AI, led by Old Dominion University’s Peter Foytick; PrivacyGuard, led by Old Dominion’s Rui Ning; CyberSeQurity, led by ��AV's Weiwen Jiang; EngineeRD Solutions, led by George Mason’s Brian Ngac; MedChai, led by William & Mary’s Ran Yang; Continuous and Lightweight Authentication for Wearable and Portable Systems (CLAWS), led by George Mason’s Sai Manoj Pudukotai Dinakarrao; RADAR - Real-time Anomaly Detection with Edge AI Hardware, led by Virginia Commonwealth University’s Jayasimha Atulasimhal; and, Machine Learning Operations Executed in an Encrypted Environment (MOXIE), led by Old Dominion scientists all presented pitches.

Robert Podswadt pitches MOXIE to a panel of cybersecurity industry expert. Photo by Teresa Donnellan.

Robert Podswadt, the development lead for MOXIE, made the winning pitch. His teammates include John Matter and Daniel Takabi. The panel praised Podswadt’s clarity, particularly his use of simple graphics to explain MOXIE, a proposed homomorphic computing encryption service.

“We’re leveraging our vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem, and we’re leveraging our deep pool of cybersecurity talent here in Northern Virginia,” said Vice President for Research, Innovation, and Economic Impact at ��AV Andre Marshall, who spoke at the event. He added that CCI was “a visionary initiative by the state of Virginia” whereby more than 40 academic units are working together to foster cybersecurity research and workforce development in Virginia.

Topics

Cybersecurity

Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI)

entrepreneurship

Campus News

Mason Square

CEC high impact stories

Researching the effect of smartphone-free schools in Virginia

Martha Bushong — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 22:05:15 +0000

Researching the effect of smartphone-free schools in Virginia Martha Bushong Tue, 10/08/2024 - 18:05

Virginia K-12 students who returned to school this fall may be confronted with smartphone-free hallways and classrooms as part of new state cellphone bans that are sweeping the United States. Nora McDonald, an assistant professor in the Department of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) at ��AV, is teaming up with the Prince William County School district to try to understand how students, teachers, administrators, and parents are reacting to these bans and what are the long-term implications.

Photo by iStock

Increasing concerns about the use of personal internet-connected (“smart”) phones and other devices among youth have dramatically intensified, especially about the constant connectivity in school settings. Scholars, educators, and lawmakers are taking action to combat the distractions, cyberbullying, and reduced face-to-face social interaction they perceive to be created and exacerbated by smart devices with near or total schoolwide bans.

McDonald says, “It is urgent that we do this work … we know that youth use technology to seek support for social and identity development, particularly for certain identities. At the same time, we do not understand how near-constant use of smartphones might simultaneously be eroding or limiting outlets for social support-seeking and identity expression offline.”

While individual schools have already responded with cellphone bans, Virginia is among those states that will be introducing a full K through 12 ban starting this fall, though not all may adopt them until 2025. The goal of this proposed research is to talk to teachers, administrators, parents, and students before and after the imposition of cell phone bans creating a critical opportunity to determine what primarily psychosocial outcomes may be observed and whether any are sustained, or even potentially amplified over time.

Through focus group interviews and qualitative surveys, McDonald is now working on engaging parents and students to learn more about these cellphone bans' impact on student behaviors and social experiences in and out of the classroom, specifically how it impacts how students spend their time and where they are seeking social support.

Her work builds on research in her field of human–computer interaction (HCI) that has focused on the benefits of social media for marginalized identities but increasingly acknowledges the darker side of these privacy-invasive algorithms on youth's sense of self. She published a paper at CHI 2024 and in The Conversation on teen self-perceptions and digital literacy in relationship to social media “for you” algorithms. Ultimately, McDonald says, she wants to “engage youth awareness to understand why they are seeing the toxic content or the misinformation they are seeing, and the privacy-invasive algorithms behind it.”

This month, McDonald attended the Symposium on Child Safety Research and Policy hosted by the Center of Democracy and Technology to talk more about these pressing issues related to social media technology and youth.

In This Story

Nora McDonald

Noteworthy work and publications

CSCW workshop, “AI through the Eyes of Gen Z: Setting a Research Agenda for Emerging Technologies that Empower Our Future Generations ”

ACM Interaction journal, “AI Through Gen Z: Partnerships Toward New Research Agendas"

Learn more about research at ��AV

Topics

Human Computer Interaction

smartphone bans

Research

K-12 Partnerships

CEC high impact stories

��AV announces first commercial tenant at Fuse at Mason Square

Colleen Rich — Wed, 02 Oct 2024 19:40:57 +0000

��AV announces first commercial tenant at Fuse at Mason Square Colleen Rich Wed, 10/02/2024 - 15:40

��AV and Mason Innovation Partners (MIP), a development consortium led by Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate, announce the first commercial tenant for Fuse at Mason Square in Arlington, Virginia. The new tenant, Cybastion, is an American technology company that delivers world-class cybersecurity and digital enhancement solutions to accelerate digital transformation in emerging markets, especially Africa.

Cybastion CEO Thierry Wandji. Photo provided

“The Fuse commercial opening and partnership with Cybastion marks a major milestone for the university’s growth and commitment to research and economic development for the region,” said Ken Walsh, George Mason’s executive vice president for strategic initiatives. “The Mason Square campus is part of our vision to redefine the role of a modern university as a vital partner in strengthening local business and community infrastructures, as well as continue to propel Virginia forward as the number one state for business and education.”

The 345,000+ square foot building is designed with collaborative spaces and emerging-tech labs and offices for business, research scholarship, and community engagement within the Arlington innovation corridor. Cybastion will move in to Fuse in the spring of 2025.

“Fuse will provide unique opportunities and bespoke amenities that will enhance innovation and collaboration for co-located industry partners, faculty, and the talent pipeline,” said Brian Naumick, managing director with Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate. “We look forward to the great work Cybastion and many more partners will do at Fuse, driving impact for the greater D.C. market and the world.”

From left, George Mason professor Duminda Wijesekera, U.S. Ambassador to the Ivory Coast Jessica Davis Ba, U.S. Small Business Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman, and Cybastion CEO Thierry Wandji at the U.S. Embassy in Abidjan. Photo provided

Cybastion and George Mason have been collaborating on cybersecurity and 5G/6G research in the U.S. and African nations since 2022. Cybastion CEO Thierry Wandji has been working with the Cyber Living Innovation Lab at Mason Square, and George Mason Professor Duminda Wijesekera. Originally funded by the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative’s Northern Virginia Node and now sustained with funding from federal agencies and the private sector, the Cyber Living Innovation Lab has significant expertise and capability in cybersecurity, NextG communications, transportation, manufacturing, and other infrastructure systems.

“Given its location and research talent, including Wijesekera’s team, Cybastion is pleased to take up residency in Fuse,” said Wandji. “The partnership with ��AV offers us an opportunity to seamlessly blend our strengths for fostering digital innovation while tapping into the university’s wealth of research and development to scale.”

Wandji serves as the director of cybersecurity education at the cybersecurity Centers of Academic Excellence at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland.

“With their significant expertise in cybersecurity, and George Mason’s long-standing pre-eminence in this sector, Cybastion’s co-location in Fuse alongside George Mason faculty and students will amplify our collective research impact and speed to innovate in cybersecurity together,” added Liza Wilson Durant, associate provost for strategic directions and community engagement.

George Mason faculty and students from the Cyber Innovation Lab have traveled to Côte d’Ivoire with Wandji to support the design and implementation of the country’s vision for digital transformation and building a secure digital economy.

“The collaboration is a significant milestone for my group to get involved in international cybersecurity and telecommunications work that includes multiple government entities from both sides of the Atlantic,” said Wijesekera. “We are very fortunate and grateful to Cybastion as the only academic institution from the U.S. to be included in their family.”

Discover more about Fuse at Mason Square

Topics

CEC high impact stories

Information technology students stepped up to secure Virginia’s elections

Teresa Donnellan — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 14:19:47 +0000

Information technology students stepped up to secure Virginia’s elections Teresa Donnellan Wed, 08/28/2024 - 10:19

Secure elections are the cornerstone of democracy, and the Virginia Cyber Navigator Internship Program (VA-CNIP) has equipped students with the skills to strengthen the cybersecurity posture of election infrastructures. As an intern last summer, information technology (IT) major Duong Thuy Nguyen helped secure a rural county's technology for the upcoming presidential election alongside two other George Mason students, Maha Khan and Sophie Bates.

Sponsored by the National Security Agency (NSA) and run by the University of Virginia (UVA) and five other Virginia universities including George Mason, VA-CNIP was developed to address the need for improved election security in localities that may not have the resources to implement necessary cybersecurity measures.

Nguyen, who is pursuing a dual concentration in database technology and programming and cyber security, traveled to Campbell County for a few days each week over the summer to support the county’s dedicated and hard-working IT staff in complying with the Locality Election Security Standards (LESS) required by the Commonwealth of Virginia. The LESS requirements are designed to ensure that all localities, regardless of size, have baseline cybersecurity measures in place, with further goals to achieve "preferred" or "premium" levels of security. The program thus not only prepared students for future careers but also left a lasting impact on the local governments they serve.

From left to right, Albanese, Hicks, and Nguyen with two other VA-CNIP interns. Photo provided.

George Mason Associate Professor Max Albanese helped lead VA-CNIP, designing a course in election security that was a prerequisite for all interns. In addition to the course, a two-day boot camp at UVA provided interns with training, including hands-on activities and talks from high profile industry experts and election officials. This year United States Election Assistance Commissioner Thomas Hicks spoke at the boot camp.

“Especially this year, the focus was on trying to send interns to localities that were in most need of upgrading their security posture,” said Albanese, “and that means the more rural or less technologically advanced counties.”

Each week, students worked remotely for part of their assignments but also traveled to their assigned localities for on-site work. Due to the often-rural nature of the counties involved, VA-CNIP provided a $3,000 travel allowance to each intern in addition to their $9,000 stipend. This allowed students to travel long distances and, when necessary, stay overnight in nearby towns to avoid lengthy commutes. The George Mason interns this year traveled about four hours one way to reach Campbell County.

Nguyen in Campbell County. Photo provided.

Nguyen noted how rewarding it was to work in-person with the local IT department. Her tasks included developing security policies, conducting research on cybersecurity tools, and even designing tabletop exercises to prepare local officials for possible cyber incidents on election day. Nguyen raved about her internship, which was her first. Even though she had to travel a lot, she said, she would not change her experience.

“They were all very welcoming, and they gave us all the support that we needed,” she said.

VA-CNIP exemplifies the power of academia, government, and students working together to tackle one of the most pressing challenges of our time—ensuring the security and integrity of democratic processes. While funding for VA-CNIP ends this year, there are ongoing discussions about sustaining the program going forward.