The Air Force Association (AFA) announced today that the National High School Defense Competition CyberPatriot has more than 300 pre-registered teams to compete in next year’s CyberPatriot VI competition. Created by the AFA to encourage high school students to consider careers in cybersecurity, science, technology, engineering, mathematics or STEM, teams across the country will compete in online rounds.
Those rounds will determine the finalists for 2014’s CyberPatriot National Finals Competition, which will be held in Washington D.C. The teams include students representing 45 states, Japan, Canada and Puerto Rico.
“This program was created to inspire students and teachers to embrace STEM education in high schools throughout the country,” said George Muellner , Air Force Association Chairman of the Board. “Now, six competition seasons later, we have built a community of students, coaches, mentors, and sponsors that all support the belief that STEM and cyber security is critical to the future success of our country.”
CyberPatriot’s presenting sponsor The Northrup Grumman Foundation, will be lending their technology and engineering expertise to the teams. The foundation is one of many sponsors of the competition which includes other CyberPatriot founding partners SAIC and CIAS at the University of Texas-San Antonio.
“We look forward to introducing a larger range of students to cyber defense, cyber careers and other aspects of operating in the cyber realm,” Bernie Skoch, CyberPatriot Commissioner. “With our nation facing an increased need for the next generation of cyber leaders in our workforce, CyberPatriot provides an environment where students work as a team to solve vulnerabilities in a network and defend computers from real-life computer threat scenarios.”
Any high schools including public, private, charter or home-school, are eligible to field a team for the Open Division. Junior ROTC units from any Service and Civil Air Patrol and Naval Sea Cadets Corps squadrons are eligible to field teams in the All Service Division.
