Page 16 - The Cormorant Issue 24 Crest Publications

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Christmas Jumper Day
Wg Cdr Laura Woods
SINCE 2012, SAVE THE Children has championed a national Christmas Jumper Day where, for a small donation, people are encouraged
to wear something festive in their workplace or school.
Both ACSC and 2020 as a whole were markedly different to ‘normal,’ but that was no excuse not to get involved in some Christmas cheer. In fact, studying remotely made it a bit easier as the students didn’t even have to ask the Director for permission to break dress regulations for the day!
So, having opened our very own ACSC 24 Justgiving page we were all set for
11 December, subject to some frantic last-minute jumper shopping and some explanation of this fine British tradition to some of our overseas coursemates. The turn out on the day, shared remotely via Zoom, Teams and WhatsApp, was truly impressive as so many of ACSC 24 got involved.
Exceeding the planned target, we raised a whopping £903 for Save the Children just by sitting around in our homes wearing silly jumpers! A great response from ACSC 24 for a great cause.
Syndicate B5 ‘enjoying’ some socially-distanced physical exercise
Syndicate A8
Syndicate C1
Syndicate C6
The New MSc in Defence Innovation Lt Col Iain Sutherland RM
2020-21 SAW THE CREATION
of the inaugural MSc in Defence Innovation – an exciting opportunity for those lucky few who managed
to write a convincing enough innovation-focused DRP proposal to be accepted onto the pathway (and a suitably inspiring personal statement too!).
Of course, as well as providing academic rigour to the currently amorphous
and sometimes questionable discipline of ‘Defence Innovation,’ the real
draw for many students was the JPA competence. This much coveted accreditation would allow them to be formally recognised throughout their career as an ‘Innovator.’ There was also the minor carrot, carefully dangled, of the promise of a trip to Silicon Valley to meet, rub shoulders and make best friends with the best of today’s disruptive thinkers and start-up’ers.
Unfortunately, our dreams of sipping cocktails and getting
job offers from Elon Musk and
Jeff Bezos were disrupted. The realities of COVID travel restrictions meant that we remained in the
UK and had to recreate the Silicon Valley experience by watching
‘The Social Network’ in our spare
time. Nevertheless, the next generation of enthusiastic Defence Innovators were not deterred by this minor,
morale-crushing disappointment. Innovators are never deterred.
The remaining highlight for the
course, other than writing a ground- breaking 15,000 word dissertation,
was the Hacking for MoD
(H4MOD) module. This was an
intense 8-week period where the students would be given a real-
world defence problem to consider, analyse and offer possible solutions to a grateful ‘problem sponsor.’
The topics and challenges we were given were varied – ranging from service complaints, to lethality, to artificial intelligence being used to detect hate speech. All of these were interesting and unusual areas in which we had no prior experience or knowledge. To solve them, we would be using the very latest lean start-up methodology to help us get to the root of these problems.
Lean start-up added a further layer
of excitement for the students. We became part of an elite cohort of military personnel who are qualified to use
a semi-business lexicon to impress
our new 1ROs, and inspire sage
nods from all within earshot. Within hours of commencing the module phrases such as ‘Minimum Viable Product,’ ‘Pivot,’ ‘Beneficiaries’ and ‘Value Propositions’ were tripping off the tongue of every MSc Innovator. Our fellow