By Samantha Louque, VT-ARC* – Autonomy Global Media Partner
Companies and government teams depend on a tech-savvy workforce as the world becomes increasingly data-driven, from the factory floor to the space domain. Yet students and hiring managers alike say the current talent pipeline has not kept pace. Around the globe, nearly two-thirds of teens lack the digital skills for 90% of current jobs, according to UNICEF USA. Meanwhile, while nearly half of college graduates cite lack of AI skills as the main reason they feel unprepared for entry-level roles in their field, per Fortune.com. More than half of hiring managers, HR View reporting indicates, share the view that recent graduates are unprepared for the workforce.
Against this backdrop, a new experiment in Colorado has rewritten the playbook for tech education and national security workforce development. Building on a student-led initiative at Purdue University, the Data Mine of the Rockies (DMR) connects multi-university student teams with real space and defense problem sets and delivers operationally relevant tools back to government and industry. In less than two years, DMR has become one of America’s most effective applied data science engines for space and defense, while simultaneously seeding a future National Space Data Mine that could scale this model nationwide.
Purdue’s Data Mine: Model for an AI-Ready Workforce
To address the critical competency gap in data and AI skills, colleges and universities are testing new ways to teach data science and other essential capabilities. In some cases, students are leading the charge. That is exactly what happened at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. In 2018, a group of students from across academic disciplines wanted to learn more about data science and how they might ultimately use it in their careers. From that idea, the Data Mine was born and has since served thousands of students by matching them with real-world data science problem statements.
The Data Mine at Purdue offers an environment for students, regardless of major or background, to develop data science skills through two primary components. First, students take a lecture-free, project-based seminar course where they learn data science and professional development fundamentals, identify different computing skills, design effective learning strategies and apply data techniques through project-based work. Outside the classroom, students participate in a corporate partner program in which companies provide problem statements that students work to solve, based on their interests. Throughout this yearlong program, students work with a corporate mentor to manage data sets, apply agile project management methods, collaborate with peers and communicate their findings. As of Fall 2025, the Data Mine has supported 328 sponsored projects, including 74 defense-focused efforts that engaged 7,379 students nationwide from 159 majors.
Data Mine of the Rockies: Scaling Space and Defense Talent
Given the Data Mine’s success at Purdue, the state of Colorado wanted to test whether a similar model could meaningfully support its aerospace and national security infrastructure. A Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) grant set the foundation for the Data Mine of the Rockies (DMR). Over the past 18 months, DMR has adapted Purdue’s model to fit the needs of Colorado’s space and intelligence communities. Unlike the single-campus approach at Purdue, DMR draws from 13 university partners across Colorado, as well as additional partners in Texas and Indiana.
In under two years, DMR has exceeded expectations and now serves as one of the country’s most effective workforce development engines for the space and defense sector. By the end of this academic year, DMR will have executed 21 space- and defense-focused projects encompassing more than 40,000 hours of applied data science and engineering work. Each project brings together cross-university teams, with students from different schools and 40 unique academic majors working toward shared mission outcomes.
“The Data Mine developed the model of engagement. Colorado proved it can scale while navigating the Department of War landscape quickly, efficiently and in direct service of space and defense missions,” said Dan Hirleman, Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University and Director and Co-Founder of the Data Mine of the Rockies. “What we are seeing now is a Colorado-forged capability with national relevance at a time when our national defense mandates that we deliver an AI-ready workforce.”
SDA TAP Lab: Space Domain Awareness in the Classroom
The 2024–2025 project with the Space Domain Awareness (SDA) Tools Applications and Processing (TAP) Lab, one of the Innovation Hub’s (IHub) 30 government partners in Colorado Springs, offers a clear demonstration of the DMR model in action. (See previous AG coverage of the SDA TAP Lab). An eleven-student team from five universities and nine majors developed a tool to predict whether weather-based launch commit criteria could be satisfied anywhere on Earth, at any time, over a three-day window. At the end of the academic year, those students briefed their tool directly to Space Force operators, who expressed strong operational interest. Now, R4C Tech, a startup company working with the SDA TAP Lab, is turning that project into an operational capability.
One of those students, Emily Johnson, is a Virginia Tech Applied Research Corporation (VT-ARC) Data Science Intern and University of Colorado, Colorado Springs student. She enjoyed the project so much that she chose to serve as a teaching assistant for another DMR project this academic year. “It’s a really cool program where you get to work with a diverse group of people, and every one of them adds value,” Emily said. “Plus, the connections I made helped me land my paid internship with VT-ARC.”
Space Information Dominance Expo: Showcasing Space Data Talent
To conclude DMR’s first year, students presented their projects to stakeholders and community members at the Space Information Dominance Expo (SIDE) at the Innovation Hub in Colorado Springs. (See previous AG coverage of the Innovation Hub). Hosted by the IHub, U.S. Space Force and DMR, this premier event brought together government, industry and academia to explore the evolving human relationship with knowledge.
The second iteration of this expo will take place at the IHub April 30–May 1, 2026. The event will open with a keynote from senior Space Force leadership, followed by additional speeches, demonstrations and networking designed to spur conversations around data and technology. Across two panels, experts will discuss building an effective talent pipeline as well as cognitive security, trust and teaming. DMR students and other project-based teams across Colorado universities will lead a poster session to showcase what they have developed for Colorado’s aerospace community over the academic year. The event is open to anyone in the space community. (If you’re interested in attending, learn more and register here.)
Toward a National Space Data Mine
The Data Mine of the Rockies program stood up in just three months, demonstrating that the model is not only successful but also rapidly scalable. Building on Colorado’s success, DMR partners are now working to advance a National Space Data Mine (NSDM). This nationwide platform would support 1,600 students working on space-relevant data projects annually and is well positioned for expansion in the months ahead.
“We live in a world underpinned by data. There is no room for error where the Warfighter is concerned,” said Dr. Lisa Bellamy, Senior Program Development Manager at Air Force Cyber Command. “Through DMR and NSDM, the DoW can integrate with industry and academia to simultaneously address joint critical data needs at speed and scale while securing the future workforce.”
*Effort sponsored in whole or in part by the Air Force Research Laboratory, USAF, under Partnership Intermediary Agreement No. FA9550-22-3-0001. The U.S. Government is authorized to reproduce and distribute reprints for governmental purposes notwithstanding any copyright notation thereon. The views and conclusions contained herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, of the Air Force Research Laboratory.