What is the CYSE-587/SYST-687 Project?

The final project for CYSE 587/SYST 687 is a collaborative capstone experience designed to transform academic theory into a tangible, high-value solution. This is more than a standard assignment; it is an entrepreneurial journey that requires teams to navigate the complexities of real-world problem-solving.

At the start of the course, students will self-organize into teams of five to address a problem domain defined by the instructor. Your mission is not merely to provide a technical fix, but to innovate. Operating as a startup team, you will engage in a continuous cycle of experimentation, development, and iterative refinement.

AI can out-produce code, but it can’t connect the dots: 

How do you become a great [cybersecurity engineer]? You spend years as a junior, mid-level, and senior developer. You learn by doing, failing, and executing.

What we’ll desperately need are engineers who connect business risk, human behavior, and complex systems to anticipate the attacks nobody has scripted yet.

I’m convinced the answer is Entrepreneurially Minded Learning (EML), the framework developed by KEEN (the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network), built on a simple equation: Mindset + Skillset.

Curiosity (chase the context not given in the prompt). Connections (link technical decisions to other domains). Value Creation (security as business survival, not serverlocking).

Mindset alone doesn’t build judgment. Judgment used to come from a decade of breaking things as a junior.

EML has to do something harder than “teach curiosity”; it has to compress or replace the scar tissue that once came from years in the trenches.

Source: Engineering Unleashed

Entrepreneurial Mindset. The key to success for undergraduate engineering students.

Engineers can no longer depend on just their technical skill set to be successful. They also need an entrepreneurial mindset. An entrepreneurial mindset (EM) encompasses attitudes, habits, and behaviors that shape a unique approach to problem-solving, innovation, and value creation.

The 3Cs of Entrepreneurial Mindset: Curiosity, Connections, and Creating Value.
A thorough understanding of the 3Cs helps engineering students question, adapt, and make positive change in classes, campus, communities, and the world.

The Kern Family Foundation has catalyzed EM through KEEN: Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network.

All content in this post has been distilled from the Engineering Unleashed website.

Source: Engineering Unleashed

The goal is to use the GMU Cyber onAir hub and network of Cyber onAir hubs and especially the CYSE 587 Fall 2026 category as a dedicated repository where CYSE students can publish their ideas, refine their projects, receive feedback before Shark Events, and engage with the content.

Professor Barreto plans to use the onAir platform to share ideas on how EML can increase student engagement and better prepare them for the real-world problems they will face in the future and provides students with an innovative platform and gives onAir a concrete, active pilot to demonstrate its capabilities in a real-world academic setting.

Provide a concise overview of your venture’s core business model. Drawing from the Lean Canvas framework, this abstract must clearly articulate the problem you are solving, your innovative solution, the primary customer segment, and your unique value proposition.

Focus on market viability, scalability, and the entrepreneurial vision driving the project.

• Word Limit: 300 – 700 words maximum.
• Infographic: Beyond the above description, the group must generate an infographic about its project

Alexandre Barreto is an Associate Professor, Department of Cyber Security Engineering at George Mason University.

He has applied his significant experience as an air traffic and air defense infrastructure manager to a career specializing in the field of cybersecurity and networking, which in conjunction with his research on cyber impact assessment, has led to applications in cyber and transportation security, and decision support systems in defense and critical infrastructure areas. These topics are at the core of his classroom activities at both graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as his research path.

Barreto is a researcher in impact assessment and secure air transportation protocols and developed innovative applications and extensions that aid in the fight against cyber-warfare. He received his MS and PhD from Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica in Brazil.

I’m Zeinab Shariff, a Cybersecurity Engineering student with a strong interest in building secure, practical, and human-centered cyber solutions. I care deeply about making cybersecurity more approachable, especially for students and early-career professionals navigating the field.

At onAir, I serve as a Cyber Hub Curator, where I help curate content, support community engagement, and contribute to discussions that make cybersecurity easier to understand and more relevant to real-world problems. My focus is on fostering a space where people can learn, ask questions, and grow together in a field that can often feel overwhelming or inaccessible.

I’m really glad you’re here, and I hope this hub helps you learn something new and useful along the way:)

Chair, onAir Tech, a Public Benefit Corporation
Curation Director,  onAir Networks, a 501 c3

Interests:  Knowledge Networks, Catalyzing Innovation, Tech Entrepreneurship, Healthy and Sustainable Communities …  bringing together people and organizations through innovative  design and technologies.

Pioneer in identifying, developing, and applying new information and communication technologies 

• The first consumer applications of the microprocessor (4bit & LSIs) … for the toy and game industry and for education
• The first internet cafe with online news, games, and computer conferencing
• The first prototype smartphone working with the developers of the Amiga computer, the first graphical computer

My current focus is developing a network of onAir hubs based on a new knowledge sharing software platform with many unique features such as enabling authors to own and share their content across multiple public and custom Hubs.   Current hub that is being established to bring together people interested in implementing a People’s Internet is at people.onair.cc.

Todd Gillette is CTO for onAir Tech, a startup chartered in Virginia building an innovative knowledge sharing platform. Todd is also Chair of onAir Networks, the 501c3 nonprofit overseeing the implementation of the onAir platform for public online networks.

Todd currently serves as a Staff Software Engineer at Northrop Grumman Corporation’s Mission Systems. Todd earned his PhD in Neuroscience in 2015 from George Mason University, having researched informatics and data analytics methods applied to neuronal morphology and function. He holds a BS in Engineering and BA in Computer Science from Swarthmore College.

Along with his many years working with software, Todd’s experience includes mission engineering and systems engineering, determining and documenting the key problems to be solved, deriving requirements, architecting and evaluating candidate solutions, and verifying designs and implementations. He has worked with cyber systems and software engineers to address anti-tamper and unintended emissions concerns and to integrate defensive and offensive cyber capabilities.

Todd has also studied and applied artificial intelligence, including machine learning and logical ontology-based techniques. The intersections of AI and biological brains, and how to leverage them to enhance human capabilities in an ethical and human-centered manner, continue to be one of Todd’s primary interests.

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