Teamwork Matters. Working with their peers from Cornell University and the University of Washington were many Georgia Tech grads and undergrads: Dongwook Gweon (AE), Heying Zhang (AE), Sofia Ocoro Giraldo (AE), Lorenzo Capazzo (AE), Carlota Bonnet (AE), Sandeep Kumar V. Behtapudi (CMPE), Ameya R. Behere (AE), Jung Hyaun Kim (AE), Jing Dao Chen (Robotics), and Edwin Goh (AE). (not pictured: Lea Harris (AE), and Hallie Ford (AE))

Boeing's first-ever Innovation Challenge drew heavily upon the Daniel Guggenheim School for it's winning proposal: an application that would use artificial intelligence to help pilots with situational awareness and decision-making.

Ten AE students flew to Seattle last month to participate in the challenge, which also pooled the talents of students from Cornell University and the University of Washington for the winning entry - an integrated, automated and intelligent 'personal assistant' to help with situational awareness and real-time decision-making.

Launched in September, the Innovation Challenge originally tasked engineering students from across the country with proposing solutions to real-world aviation problems within three specific topic areas: Disruptive Mobility, Passenger Experience, and Operational Efficiency. The 10 students from Georgia Tech were among the 40+ who were invited to Puget Sound for the final round of the competition, which was held Jan. 22-25.

In that round, ideas were narrowed to the top eight. Students whose ideas were not selected then chose what team to participate on to further refine the idea and pitch to Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) Engineering leaders. Teams were encouraged to include students from each of the schools represented.

“These students are smart, passionate and bring a great energy to their work, said Kourosh Hadi, an engineering director in BCA’s Product Strategy and Future Airplane Development team."Their solutions were innovative and intuitive. I was impressed with how quickly they took on new ideas, worked with people they had never met before and turned out meaningful results."

The competition gave Boeing officials more than a few good ideas. It gave them leads on whom they might want to join their team - permanently.

"There is a pipeline of skilled engineers out there but there is a real competition to attract them,” Hadi noted. “We are working to engage with these students early in their academic career so we can help them see that Boeing is the place they want to build careers.”