Duke Cyber is a student-led hub for all things related to cybersecurity and technology. Recently, at the request of Vice Admiral Jeffery Hughes five members of the club were invited to brief top NATO officials in Norfolk, VA, sharing their research on how to best improve NATO’s innovation posture. Three Robbies, were among the five selected for this incredible experience – Shristi Sharma ‘25, Atharva Vispute ‘25, and Lucas Wagner ‘27.

 “Technology is evolving rapidly and government is no longer the pioneering force behind global innovation—that power has gone to the private sector. We were asked to research NATO’s current innovation posture and recommend what can be done to ensure The Alliance develops technology at an operationally relevant pace to stay in line with industry,” Shristi shared.

“One of the issues we currently see is that the development and adoption of new technologies doesn’t often occur before those technologies have already become obsolete,” Atharva added. “Lucas’s work focused around developing innovation in a long-term sense, through creating an educational pipeline that places students from across all NATO member states in countries to learn about the uses and development of tech. Shristi and I focused on current NATO accelerators and venture capital firms like what we have in the US, and found ways to solve existing problems or borrow ideas from other accelerators and top innovators from around the world.”

For Lucas, the invitation was a way to examine systems and find ways to propel those systems forward, “The way I see it, transformation, whether in institutions or leadership itself, comes down to three things: people, processes, and platforms. That’s how we ultimately structured our brief. My piece focused on institutional incentives around that first prong, people — how NATO recruits talent, how it manages personnel, and how those choices shape long-term effectiveness. Systems-level leadership, I think, demands constructing institutions so that the right decisions become the natural outcome. And that’s an approach that centers collective agency rather than strict hierarchy, which I think can often fail under stress or circumstances of incomplete information.”

Being the youngest people on base, didn’t intimidate the team, “We quickly realized that being calm, collected, and well-researched really helped us come off as professional and trust worthy. There were 8 NATO staffers from around the world present and each of them came with an open mind, which we were grateful for, and a curiosity about external, younger perspectives,” Shristi said.

The Vice Admiral himself set the tone for the presentation, “From the moment we were in the room, he and his entire team were very humble, welcoming, and thanked us for taking the time to brainstorm these problems and attempt to provide solutions. I really think this set the foundation for an open line of communication, so we’re greatly appreciative to him for that,” said Atharva.

“Atharva and Shristi are right that the Vice Admiral’s invitation and the effort behind our research went a long way in establishing credibility. But I’m also under no illusion that my recommendations offered solutions NATO somehow hadn’t considered before. In my view, that left only one path forward: acknowledging that I was young and inexperienced but offering that honesty as an advantage.

When you’re naïve, you get to ask the questions that others have grown tired of asking. What assumptions have been treated as truth for too long? Where do old constraints no longer apply? And even if the status quo won’t budge, isn’t it still worth questioning? Elie Wiesel tells us that there’s a power in the question that’s often lost in its answer.

That’s ultimately what I thought we could offer — interrogating the default, making the invisible visible. And at the heart of that, I think, is humility. I learned viscerally that you don’t need to have all the answers — or even any — to be valuable. Sometimes, your role is just to validate the instincts of those before you, to pressure-test ideas, and to create space for rethinking what’s possible,” added Lucas.

After the presentation of their brief, the team was invited to a special dinner with the Vice Admiral. He shared his insights into transformational leadership and left a lasting impression on the scholars.

“The Vice Admiral is an incredibly empathetic, welcoming, and humble leader who consistently did a great job of bringing everyone into the fold, whether that be in the meeting or around the dinner table. When asked how he developed this level of rapport with his staff, he explained that the biggest way to build trust and form a strong team is to allow those around you to contribute to you. If the people working for him know that he is open to feedback and dialogue, they are more likely to contribute to the overall success of the task at hand and respect his final decision knowing that their inputs were taken into consideration. I really love the idea of making sure people know they can contribute to you as a leader,” said Shristi. 

Atharva also reflected, “The thing that I came to admire the most about the Vice Admiral was his genuine willingness to connect with us. He told us exactly what he valued, what he did, and was curious about each of us. His ability to make a connection with each individual spoke volumes about the type of leader he is, while it’s also clear he balances people leadership with ensuring the team is impactful and provides value to others. He’s an amazing leader and I’m grateful to have had some of his time – I learned a ton. Two lessons I’m taking away from the conversation are to first, connect with people through a lens of interest and curiosity, and second, to be clear to others that you work with why you’re there, and what you’re hoping to get from a space.”

“I remember the Admiral telling us that great leaders say, ‘Yes, if’ instead of ‘No, but.’ That framing — generative rather than dismissive — is also exactly why we ended up briefing him in the first place. He could have dismissed us outright — and I think most top brass rightfully would have. Instead, he entertained the possibility that we had something valuable to say, and that made all the difference. In that sense, I think intellectual generosity, however rare, is requisite to transformation,” Lucas said.

Duke Cyber is just one example of Robertsons making contributions across campuses. Shristi & Atharva are both UNC-based Robbies. “I’m really grateful to have been encouraged to join this community and learn from every person in it. The club itself fills a niche of academic interest that we don’t have yet at UNC, and so while it’s somewhat cliché to say, being a part of a cross-campus club has simply expanded the number of amazing people I’ve had the chance to work with,” Atharva said.

For Shristi, its an opportunity to plug into the Duke community in a way that amplifies her college career, “I’m so grateful that Robertson allowed me the opportunity to join it. I learned about the club from an older Robbie during my freshman year, and immediately joined it since UNC didn’t have anything similar. Now, three years later the club has grown to over 80 members and I have had the immense privilege of developing it every step of the way. As I hand over my role as President of Duke Cyber, I know the club is in very capable hands with Lucas and other incredible exec members.”

“Shristi and Atharva are two of the most brilliant, thoughtful, and deeply generous people I’ve met in my time at Duke,” Lucas shared. “What I find especially remarkable is how fluidly they blend their interests, bridging strategy, policy, and human systems in a way that makes it all feel intuitive. They embody the kind of leadership that isn’t just about individual excellence but about bringing others into the fold, making spaces more open, more dynamic, and more thoughtful. Beyond the work itself, this experience has shaped my time at Duke in ways I didn’t expect. Some projects sharpen your skills — others change the way you see the people around you. This was both.”

The team hopes that their brief will help drive innovation forward.

“My hope more than anything is that we’re asked to come back in the future and expand or improve our existing recommendations to even better fit the current state of NATO,” said Atharva.

Shristi agrees, “I hope that the actionable recommendations we presented can be developed in the near future and that we are able to be a small part of process of bringing them to life. We really hope that our research will help NATO develop better public-private-academic partnership around the world to support their incredible mission.”

For Lucas, the experience is personal. “At least in my view, this briefing was never about expecting policy change — it was about sparking conversation and validating the instincts of those who have been thinking about these challenges long before us,” he said. “Much like Community Summer, I think this experience was more transformational for me than it was for NATO — it was a lesson in what it means to be heard, even when, on paper, you’re not qualified to be in the room.  The Vice Admiral didn’t have to hear us out, but he did. I think that act alone — the willingness to engage with new voices — is a form of leadership in itself. The most we could hope for was to offer a fresh lens and to challenge the idea that any status quo is too big to be questioned. Change starts there.”