Office of Enterprise Technology Services

HONOLULU – Gov. David Ige announced the state’s participation in the 2020 CyberStart-America Program, an innovative, online cybersecurity competition for high school students.

“These competitions offer fun activities for young women and men to explore and learn about the high-tech, high-impact field of cybersecurity,” Gov. Ige said. “This exciting program builds on our statewide efforts to provide students innovative learning opportunities and technology skills that will be relevant to them in any career path.”

High school students may register now and may begin playing all the way through February.  Students will be informed that they qualify for the CyberStart National Scholarship Challenge Round (the “Nationals”) as soon as they have achieved sufficient progress, but they are allowed to continue playing and learning in order to build more skills useful in the Nationals.

“This program creates an exciting and enriching new pathway for young adults to explore a future career in cybersecurity,” said Chief  Information Security Officer Vincent Hoang.

“According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, IT jobs are projected to grow by 11% over the next 10 years and cybersecurity jobs are expected to grow by 31%.  These are great high-paying careers for students to explore through programs like this,” said Chief Information Officer Doug Murdock.

The 2020 CyberStart-America program is a series of online challenges that allow students to act as cyber protection agents to solve cybersecurity-related puzzles and explore related topics such as code breaking, networking, and digital forensics. Participating students and their teachers do not need knowledge or experience in information technology or cybersecurity to participate. The program, sponsored by the National Cyber Scholarship Foundation and the SANS Institute, is free for schools and students, and all U.S. students in grades 9-12 are invited give it a try.

State high schools where at least five students in the CyberStart-America program master six or more of the challenges will win access to the CyberStart Game for their students for the rest of the school year. Students will also have the opportunity to win financial awards for their faculty and scholarships for themselves. At least six hundred $2,500 college scholarships will be awarded nationally; no fewer than six (state) high school students will receive the scholarships. Top scoring students who do not win scholarships will win financial awards. One hundred high school teachers and school counselors with the most participants will win awards of $100-$400 that they may use for their classrooms or other school programs.

To see the types of challenges students will face in the games, visit https://go.joincyberstart.com/. Complete details may be found at CyberStartAmerica.org.

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