Interns Showcase Technology Projects

There was no sophomore slump during the second annual Summer Intern Presentation Showcase (SIPS) in July at the CACI auditorium in Annapolis Junction, Maryland. This year's showcase included nine companies and 23 interns, all vying for a spot on the Sippy Cup trophy as well as prizes. The SIPS program provides a way for local interns to get excited about and share the technology they are working on through a friendly speaking competition. Each of the interns received coaching from David Greenberg of Simply Speaking, an international training company. Greenberg is an expert in the field, and his skills as a teacher were clearly demonstrated by the outstanding presentations from all the teams. The judges had their work cut out for them in picking winners in the categories of Best Technical Project and Best Presentation. Judges were Chapter President Martin Barrett, Lockheed Martin; Kathleen Berganski, Lockheed Martin; Dave Gore, CACI; and Anna Blendermann, Nteligen, and last year's SIPS winner. The interns had 15 minutes to impress the judges and faced a set of challenging questions from the judges following their talks. After careful deliberation, the judges awarded the effort Clarity from Team Visionist (Jessica Kerry, Thomas Kumpf, Alex Smoot, Brian Valcarcel) the Best Technical Project. Clarity provides a way to clearly show the effect bots have on social media traffic, specifically on Twitter. Team Praxis (Michael Dombrowksi, Domenic Nutile, Devin Rowell) brought home the Best Presentation award for its project, called Wireless Mesh Networking. The project focused on analyzing the suitability of mesh networks for a military environment. All 23 interns did a fabulous job and should be proud of their accomplishments; the breadth of technologies used and the variety of projects was impressive. The chapter thanks CACI for providing the event venue and Renee Blume and Samantha Schwartz of Engineering Solutions Inc. for their behind-the-scenes work as well as Greenberg, the judges and the sponsor companies. For more information about SIPS and to read about all the projects presented this year, a copy of the program can be found on the chapter's website.

Event Photographs: