Avatar Intern Presented with NASA Innovation Award

Intern Hunter Goodenow, along with two other NASA interns, took second place at the “Innovation Without Boundaries” event for their Mobile Acronym Search Tool (MAST). Impressively, this was a NASA Kennedy Space Center campus-wide event, not just specific to interns. His team’s tool enables access to NASA acronyms via mobile devices and will ultimately provide acronym access to the entire NASA workforce and the public. 

​Working at NASA means being exposed to hundreds, even thousands of acronyms from VAB, to OCC, to OPOV, to TCN. Obviously, it’s not hard to get confused. Acronyms like SPS could have six different meanings! Is it Solar Power Satellite, or Service Propulsion Subsystem? Maybe it’s something completely different. The beauty of MAST (which, ironically, is an acronym itself) is that it limits this confusion by offering easier acronym access.
 
Hunter originally pitched the idea in passing to his supervisors. At this point, it was just a creative thought. The problem he identified was that too much time is spent teaching employees’ acronyms opposed to actual “ideas” or substantial information.  “There are so many acronyms out here, the person who invents the acronym app will be a hero to all new hires and interns.”

 What makes Hunter so valuable to Avatar is that his passion fuels the creation of his imaginative ideas. He has become the acronym hero!  Hunter and his team submitted a simple, one slide, two-minute presentation to a panel of about 30 people from different innovation disciplines and came out with a second-place ribbon!
 
Hunter’s MAST idea has the potential to greatly impact the Kennedy Space Center community by easing a burden that most employees have simply come to accept as unchangeable. This is just one example of how Avatar team members are difference makers. We are proud to recognize Hunter’s enthusiasm and contribution for creating this outstanding innovative solution.