In what is becoming a successful and growing tradition, CPI is proud to have again hosted five of the teams competing in the 2024 CyberTitan National Finals (2023 CyberTitan National Finals coverage). On May 8th and 9th, the following high school student teams visited the University of Waterloo campus as part of a two-day event organized by CPI and ICTC.
· STEAM Academy - Six Nations Polytechnic STEAM Academy – Brantford, ON
· Space Beans - Centre Wellington DHS – Fergus, ON
· FNASA - William Lyon Mackenzie CI – Toronto, ON
· Lasagna – William Lyon Mackenzie CI – Toronto, ON
· SATEC DEFENDERS – SATEC @ W.A.Porter CI – Toronto, ON
After five months of intense school year cybersecurity competitions involving more than 19,000 middle and high school students worldwide, Canada’s Top 10 teams advanced to the CyberTitan VII National Competition and Speaker Summit. CyberTitan is one of Canada’s largest cyber defense competitions. The competition places teams of high school and middle school students in Canadian real-world situations. The students are in the position of newly hired IT professionals. In the rounds of competition, teams are given a set of virtual images that represent operating systems and are tasked with finding cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the images and hardening the system while maintaining critical services in a nine-hour period.
Olympians Poseidon of Old Scona Academic in Edmonton, AB, clinched the top spot in this year’s ICTC CyberTitan National Competition Finals.
Sudo rm –rf/ of Pembina Trails Collegiate in Winnipeg, MB, placed second, followed by Synaptic Cerebellum of Sisler High School in Winnipeg, MB, in third place.
CyberDragons of Nashwaaksis Middle School in Fredericton, NB, won first place in the middle school division.
From October to February, teams take part in the CyberPatriot competition and compete worldwide with other high school and middle school teams. The top 10 ranked Canadian Teams go head-to-head online for the coveted title of CyberTitan National Champions.
Several teams stayed overnight in campus residences and were treated to a whirlwind tour of several leading-edge research facilities on the Waterloo campus. CPI gratefully acknowledges the following folx who were kind enough to donate their time to chat with these enthusiastic and engaged young people as they whet their appetites for post-secondary educational opportunities:
RoboHub - Alex Werner
Guang Gong’s Research Lab - Tanmayi Jandhyala
Sebastian Fischmeister’s Research Lab - Cameron Hadfield
Yash Pant’s Research Lab - Soroush Mortazavimoghaddam
Crysp Research Lab - Sina Kamali
Having already hosted the event in 2023, CPI committed to hosting it again in 2024 before the 2023 event was over; we deeply appreciate the work that ICTC and CyberTitan is doing to increase student engagement at the high school and middle school levels in STEM and cybersecurity and privacy academia. Part of CPI’s mission is to significantly broaden Waterloo's strength, reputation, and impact in cybersecurity and privacy by facilitating collaborative research and training, as well as supporting our students in their studies; we cannot hope to achieve these goals without encouraging young people to pursue careers in these areas.
This year’s competition saw an expanded slate of speakers and engagement, highlighted by an Indigenous elder opening and closing the event, which also included speakers from the following entities:
Kätlin Koemets: CEO of Cyber Education
Alicia Greeley: Communications Security Establishment (CSE)
David Horne: AWS Canada
Allyship Panel:
Tim King: ICTC, Moderator
Adam Molnar: University of Waterloo Researcher & Professor
Alexandra Parkin: KPMG
Stefanie McNeil: Field Effect
Louise Turner: Quantum Algorithms Institute
Aviva Klein: Mastercard
CPI looks forward to continuing its support for this highly worthwhile and unique initiative that is helping to encourage and develop the next generation of cybersecurity and privacy professionals.
If you are interested in supporting this competition or others like it in the future, connect with us at Contact CPI.
The following partners were instrumental in helping to support this competition and we gratefully acknowledge their commitment to CyberTitan.
