The nation’s largest CyberPatriot camp is wrapping up in Augusta today. This is one of two camps scheduled for this summer.
CyberPatriot is part of the National Youth Cyber Education program, created by the Air & Space Forces Association (AFA). Its goal is to attract students to careers in cybersecurity and associated fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).
The camp has been a fixture at the Georgia Cyber Innovation and Training Center since 2019. The Alliance for Fort Gordon hosts it.
“Our camps are free. Every single camp has been no charge,” Dr. Tom Clark, Executive Director of the Alliance, told ABD. “Our instructors are from the Cyber Center of Excellence. They’re from the NSA (National Security Agency), Georgia. They’re from Army Cyber, and we’re blessed to be less than 10 miles from the best instructors.”
This year’s lead instructor is Dave Besel with NSA. He said this first session is what’s called a “standard” camp.
“This camp is designed to introduce children from middle school to high school to the cybersecurity profession, specifically in IT and Administration and Security,” he explained. “What we do is we show them how to take a system that we give them in virtual format, and they learn the skills to create better policies and to fix vulnerabilities, all the way to finding the hacker and removing them from the system.”
The 142 students participating represent nearly forty schools from Georgia and South Carolina, and as far away as Madison, Ga.
Nakaha Thompson, CyberPatriot for the Alliance, said at least 65% of the students have a direct or indirect connection to the military.
“It fills me up so much just simply because, you know, the children are our future, and they are very important, especially in today’s world and in our climate,” she said. “They’re being trained and being taught by world-class cyber professionals, so they’re getting that firsthand experience, especially like in the cyber industry, and especially in the job field as well.”
Clark said that with this camp, the Alliance has now sent 1,000 students through cyber camps. The goal is to one day reach 10,000 to support this region’s largest employer.
“We continue to help locally build the cyber workforce of the future,” he said. “Years ago, I think it was (Augusta University retired president) Dr. Keel at the time, talked about this cyber tsunami, and people weren’t ready for it. I think we’re in that tsunami. We have on rain jackets and umbrellas, and we are weathering the storm and trying to fill positions as they’re available.”
Besel said the students who attended this CyberPatriot camp will return in July to participate in the advanced camp.
“It’s really just part two of an introduction to CyberPatriot as a competition,” he said. “But also, it gives them quite a bit of what it’s like to be a security professional. And they love it. I have kids coming back year after year after year. They enjoy their time here, but also, they get an opportunity to talk to me and other people about what they want to do for a living, or maybe how to improve their scores in their own team.”
Many students who attend CyberPatriot camps go on to compete in the National Youth Cyber Defense Competition.
