In honor of World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, celebrated annually on May 17, CRDF Global is partnering with the Cyber School in Ukraine hosted a forum-hackathon, Cyber Education Day: Catalyzing Digital Resilience in Ukraine
The aim of this event was to support the integration of Ukrainian cybersecurity (CS) students into the CS community. Students had the opportunity to strengthen their connections with local companies and heared from US/Ukraine stakeholders on best practices, ways to improve tech capabilities, and building a thriving cybersecurity workforce in Ukraine.
This year the Cyber Education Day forum-hackathon united up 100 attendees, including students, local and international experts from the field, business and government representatives, and conducted via three simultaneous streams:
1) Hackathon Stream: Capture the flag (CTF) competition for students. In this IoT-security competition, each team of three students attempted to find and exploit vulnerabilities in the model of a “smart house”. The winners of the competition awarded prizes, including an opportunity to represent Ukraine at a similar competition in the United States in July 2019.
2) CyberTalk Stream:Sessions and discussion from experts in the field regarding local and international educational opportunities in cybersecurity; success stories and recommendations from CS experts in building careers in CS (Ukraine & abroad); and next steps for cybersecurity in Ukraine (challenges & prospective).
3) Job Fair Stream: job opportunities in cyber security for students in Ukraine.
This event was a part of CRDF Global’s 2019 cybersecurity programming in Ukraine, implemented with support from the U.S. Department of State’s Office of the Coordinator of U.S. Assistance to Europe and Eurasia.