Joint NPS-MCU Hackathon Advances AI Prototypes for Military Education
Held simultaneously in Monterey, California and Quantico, Virginia, Sept. 15-18, the event brought together Marines, government civilians, members of other military services, researchers and industry experts. Cross-functional teams applied their operational, academic and technical experience to challenges involving curriculum development, scenario generation, student assessment and staff planning.
At NPS, more than 30 participants representing over a dozen Navy and Marine Corps commands and organizations worked in teams to move their ideas from identified learning problems to functional prototypes.
“By pairing NPS' technical ecosystem with MCU's warfighting education framework, the event served as a venue for cross-functional teams building functional prototypes, from adaptive curricula to automated scenario generation, directly supporting the Corps’ AI and education modernization goals,” said U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Robert Fusco, who helped lead the event at NPS.
The hackathon concluded with five teams at NPS presenting their prototypes to a judging panel. Three entries were selected for first, second and third place.
The first-place project will continue at NPS, where U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Christopher Adams will develop and evaluate the concept as part of his thesis research in the Modeling, Virtual Environments, and Simulation (MOVES) curriculum. That work will allow the team to move beyond the time constraints of the competition and examine the prototype through sustained academic research.
Other concepts may continue through follow-on development with Marine Corps digital transformation teams and the Marine Corps Software Factory. The winning teams will have opportunities to refine, test and evaluate their ideas to determine whether the prototypes merit further development for military education and training.
The hackathon demonstrated more than the speed at which teams can build software. It gave participants an opportunity to connect operational experience, educational requirements and technical expertise while examining the capabilities and limitations of emerging AI tools.
That experience is central to NPS’ mission. Operationally experienced military officers come to NPS having encountered real challenges in the fleet and field. Working with faculty, sponsors and partners, they learn to evaluate new technologies responsibly, test assumptions and translate research into evidence that can inform future decisions.
NPS, located in Monterey, California, provides warfighting-focused graduate education, including classified studies and interdisciplinary research, to advance the operational effectiveness, technological leadership and warfighting advantage of the naval service. Established in 1909, NPS offers master’s, doctoral and distance-learning certificate programs to U.S. Department of War military and civilian students, as well as to international partners, to develop warfighters and leaders who can think critically, solve complex operational problems and deliver mission-ready solutions through advanced education and research.
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