Industry partners challenge students to solve real-world problems

This is one of the really exciting and unique features that's offered by Virginia Tech which I didn't find in any other programs that we get to work closely with industry professionals in an industry-oriented project which is really exciting for me. Monday is our semi-annual pitch day where we bring our corporate industry government and nonprofit partners to pitch their ideas for challenges for the student stuff to work on in their project-based coursework. I thought it was really cool and everyone had really really interesting ideas, so it was interesting the way they were embracing AI in their projects and well something I want to focus on. The companies involved were Boeing, Northrop Grumman, the United States Secret Service, the United States Marine Corps Community Services, a local Alexandria company called Mari, and another local Alexandria company that's called Inbox America, and then we also had a member of the staff at Virginia Tech who also works with the housing authority in the area. It feels nice to see companies there, like a big companies and their topic was really interesting the goal is not to just go code or do something very kind of like specific it's open and a lot of the projects are open-ended so that would allow the students who kind of like work on creating a solution so they have to come up with the solution which is I think the most important thing is that it allows them to think outside the box it allows them to bring their own creativity into the process and create something that they can be actually proud of and feel good about. I think it's really valuable to get industry experience, especially if I can get it before I go into the industry. Instead of class, it's nice to have a project-based learning and be a hands-on. Students get access to real-world problems and they get to work on the kind of problems that the industry is facing right now. There are pain points for industry, government, and non-profits, so they have real world impact when they do the work that they do.