U.S. Department of Defense Program Uses Entrepreneurship Skills to Help Solve Emerging Problems
Image by Kevin Kelly
05/21/2021
Contacts for media: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944, Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu and Christine Gillette, 978-758-4664 or Christine_Gillette@uml.edu
LOWELL, Mass. – UMass Lowell students are working with intelligence organizations to rapidly address national security challenges through a U.S. Department of Defense program new to New England.
The course Hacking for Defense (H4D) enables UMass Lowell students majoring in different subjects to work together and use their entrepreneurship skills to help solve emerging security threats and issues.
This spring, UMass Lowell became the first university in New England to offer H4D, with six students from engineering, business and global studies taking the course, led by UMass Lowell Manning School of Business Associate Teaching Prof. Ashwin Mehta and faculty member William Yelle.
The decision to offer the course was an easy one, according to Sandra Richtermeyer, dean of the Manning School of Business.
“Interdisciplinary education is at the core of what we believe in in the Manning School of Business and we constantly strive for these types of opportunities,” she said.
Students in the class were divided into two teams and assigned a unique problem to address by the Department of Defense’s National Security Innovation Network (NSIN), which facilitates the program.
Students completed their coursework through a hands-on, team approach during which they consulted with leaders in a variety of fields. The course used the “flipped classroom” model, which asks student to make presentations about their work each week with UMass Lowell faculty serving as mentors and guides. The students made their final presentations on Zoom in late April.
The first student team, which included mechanical engineering major Richard DeBenedetto of Nahant, global studies doctoral student Gloria Donkor of Lowell, and Brennan Fournier, a master of science in entrepreneurship candidate from Sterling, examined how artificial and virtual reality could be used as a training tool for first responders. The students interviewed dozens of public safety personnel to help shape their proposed solution: simulation training for firefighters using virtual reality and drones.
The second student team included mechanical engineering major Jonathan Aguilar of Lawrence, along with master’s of entrepreneurship students Lani Faith Gacula of Lowell and Wynn Wiggins of Burlington. Their team developed a product that would use advanced textiles to help nurses and EMTs continuously measure a patient’s vital signs in order to improve patient care.
“Taking this course was an opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship while still being an engineer at heart. It was the perfect combination. It was also a way to give back to my community for a better future,” Aguilar said.
Mehta hopes to offer the course again in the fall and eventually expand it to include still more learning opportunities connected to commercial technology initiatives developed by UMass Lowell.
“Ultimately, the plan is to make this course a model for other similar experiential courses,” Mehta said.
“I would definitely recommend the course to students who are interested in creative thinking and who wish to learn how to effectively design solutions to real-world problems,” Gacula said.
UMass Lowell is a national research university offering its more than 18,000 students bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in business, education, engineering, fine arts, health, humanities, sciences and social sciences. UMass Lowell delivers high-quality educational programs and personal attention from leading faculty and staff, all of which prepare graduates to be leaders in their communities and around the globe. www.uml.edu