U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Co. -- The Air Force Academy hosted the fifth annual National Security Innovation competition April 29.

Ten teams from universities across the nation, and even one from Canada, presented a new concept or technology with the potential to meet an identifiable national security need before a national panel of judges.

When the dust settled, the University of Ottawa received top-team honors, while second and third place went to Notre Dame University and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, respectively.

The top three winners were awarded scholarship grants: 1st Prize - $10,000, 2nd Prize - $5,000, and 3rd Prize - $2,500.

"These competitions promote national and homeland security-related innovation," said Dr. Ron Scott, the competition director. "This facilitates solving security-related problems for the government and promotes commercialization within commercial sectors."

According to Dr. Scott, the competition further heightens the awareness of security needs and the cutting-edge research taking place that can solve security-related problems.

While the Academy's team of Cadets 1st Class Matt Alva, Wylie Wikstrom, Sean Christy and Tyler Dallas didn't place, they represented the Academy well.

"Our cadets competed very well and presented a unique concept that has great potential value to (the Department of Defense)," said Maj. Angelinda Rush, from the Dean of the Faculty's Management Department.

Major Rush believes the most impressive aspect of the competition was the diversity of the solutions offered by the teams.

"It's crucial for cadets to be exposed to a variety of the challenges facing our national security," she said. "Not only should they be aware of technological solutions to these problems, but be able to evaluate solutions from a broad perspective.

"This competition has the teams evaluate the industry and market and develop a plan on how to bring the technology into the hands of the customer. Even the most-needed technology has little value if it can't get to those who need it."

A panel of seven judges from both industry and government evaluated the entries.

Entries:
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: "Low-Cost, Portable Detection of Peroxide-Based Improvised Explosive Devices"
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"