LEXINGTON, Va. May 11, 2023 — Virginia Military Institute, in collaboration with Virginia Tech, held a 12-week internship recently for high school students, funded by a workforce development grant from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI). The grant seeks to build a pipeline of mentorship in which graduate students from Virginia Tech — with more knowledge and experience on cyber security topics — guide VMI cadets, and in turn cadets aid local high school students.

The goal of the internship is to teach participating high school students how to develop practical hardware, software, and cybersecurity skills through in-person practical learning and self-paced online training.  

According to Dr. Mohamed Azab, assistant professor in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at VMI, students worked on two testbeds (models used for conducting replicable testing of scientific theories.) The first is a wastewater treatment testbed built by cadets during the past two semesters, which mimics an actual wastewater plant. It is to be used as a cybersecurity educational tool to train new employees at a wastewater facility, as well as a classroom learning tool. The second is a smart grid testbed the high school students built, that shows electric power generation, and power distribution and consumption by devices in two model houses.

“The cadets have done an extraordinary job mentoring our high school interns in learning basic skills and principles of cybersecurity, teaching them about the Internet of Things and Extended Reality, and I’m proud of the interns and their work on this ‘virtual city,’ developing a hardware model of a smart grid, an information infrastructure, a web user interface, an extended reality user interface, and predicting cybersecurity attacks,” said Azab.  

Joseph Gilman ’23, a computer science major from Richmond and cadet mentor to the high school students, enjoyed his work with the teens.

“It is said that teaching something is the best way to learn it, and I have found that to be true, because this experience has allowed me to grow as a teacher and learn how to concisely explain things,” he said. 

Corban Idewu, a 9th grade homeschool student who hopes one day to become a neurosurgeon, enjoyed the experience.

“I learned so much working on this project and made some friends,” he said. 

Marianne Hause
Communications & Marketing
VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE