Engage interdisciplinary technology teams to improve reliability, security, and business value, without heavy lift.

The UVA School of Continuing & Professional Studies (SCPS), in partnership with Riipen, is launching an interdisciplinary, project-based learning program connecting industry partners with motivated students in Cloud Solutions & Operations, Cybersecurity Analysis, and Information Technology. Teams turn real problems into clear analysis, practical recommendations, and ready-to-use assets, delivering immediate value while building your future talent pipeline.

About the Learners 

Learners come from Cloud Solutions & Operations, Cybersecurity Analysis, and Information Technology and are developing as business-aware technologists and ethical problem-solvers who connect architecture, security, and IT service management to measurable business outcomes. Skills will include:

• Systems & cloud thinking: Understand how apps, networks, storage, and data fit together; weigh trade-offs in cost, reliability, performance, and scalability.
• Cyber risk & resilience: Identify common threats and control gaps; recommend practical protections (identity and access, encryption, segmentation, logging) and recovery approaches.
• Integration & automation: Map data flows and interfaces, assess vendor/SaaS fit, and automate routine tasks with templates/runbooks to improve speed and consistency.
• Data & monitoring literacy: Define simple, useful KPIs; plan basic instrumentation; draft dashboard wireframes to track availability, latency, errors, cost, and risk.
• Change enablement & communication: Produce executive-ready briefs, diagrams, and rollout plans that translate technical options into clear business impact and next steps.
• Ethics, privacy & compliance: Work with de-identified/sandbox data; consider privacy and legal context when proposing designs and processes.
• Professional habits: Scope clearly, manage milestones, document assumptions, respond to feedback, and deliver polished, adoption-ready artifacts.

Project Details: 

• Entry-level scope, designed to match beginner project complexity. 
• Runs January to April 2026
• Approximately 300 total hours per team over a 12 week period. 
• Teams of 3 students will be pre-assembled by the program to ensure balanced skills and collaboration. 
• Structured to build practical skills, strengthen workplace readiness, and deliver tangible value to employers. 

Employer Role

As a partner and mentor, you’ll help shape a focused problem, share context the team can’t Google, and guide students toward professional, audience-ready work. Expect to join a brief kickoff, provide concise feedback at one or two check-ins, and attend the final readout, offering practical input on what’s working, what to refine, and how recommendations map to real constraints. Your domain expertise, examples, and quick clarifications keep the project on track; your coaching builds students’ professional judgment. The total time commitment is light, but your timely guidance is the difference between a good student project and deliverables your organization can use.

What Employers Provide 

• A focused project brief (problem, goals, audience, constraints)
• Relevant materials/data (brand voice guides, prior reports, sample content)
• A single point of contact for timely feedback during check-ins
• Access (as needed) to users/stakeholders for interviews or guidance

Expected Outcomes 

Think of this as a focused tech consulting sprint. With light guidance, students deliver a grounded view of your cloud/IT environment, clear security and operations options with rationale, and adoption-ready assets, helping you reduce risk, improve performance/cost, and move faster on what matters.

Potential Deliverables

• Architecture & service blueprint: current→target diagrams, option trade-offs (cost/reliability/performance), assumptions, and decision log.
• Security posture snapshot: threat model, control gap analysis, prioritized mitigations, risk register, and residual-risk notes.
• KPI & monitoring framework: definitions and baselines, data dictionary (non-sensitive), dashboard wireframes, alert thresholds, and reporting cadence.
• Runbooks & playbooks: incident response, backup/disaster recovery, change/rollback procedures, and escalation paths.
• Sandbox proof-of-concept: deployable reference pattern (e.g., logging/alerting pipeline or API hardening), setup guide, and acceptance criteria.
• Integration & vendor toolkit: SaaS evaluation scorecard, data/classification checklist, SSO/integration pattern, and onboarding/offboarding steps.
• Implementation roadmap: phased plan with roles, milestones, dependencies, success measures, and risk/mitigation plan.
• Executive presentation package: final deck and one-pager summarizing findings, recommendations, costs/timelines, and next steps.