The Cybersecurity & Cyber Defense Camp will make its debut in June at Luddy School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering at IUPUI in Indianapolis.
“These camps are designed for middle and high school students. It’s one camp for both of those age groups,” said Alyssa Graves, assistant program director at Luddy. “Here at Luddy, we like to adopt a ground-up approach to education, from our summer camps to our bachelor’s and master’s degrees. We value the impact that pre-college experiences can have on students, no matter their age. This is the first time we have held our Cybersecurity & Cyber Defense Camp, but we do host annual summer workshops with other topics relating to technology and computing. We are excited to expand our summer programs with this new camp.”
Xukai Zou, a computer science professor at IU Indianapolis, runs the camp, which is set for 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. June 3-7 at the Informatics and Communications Technology Complex, 535 W. Michigan St., Indianapolis.
“Its main purpose is to train and equip youths with fundamental system and cybersecurity knowledge and abilities/skills of detecting/diagnosing/fixing vulnerabilities of computing systems and applications,” Zou said. “It is mostly for those who are interested in computer science and cybersecurity and/or might want to pursue this directive in college.”
The camp, which is free through a National Science Foundation grant, has in-person and remote options. There is a limit of 50 participants.
“Local youths would prefer in-person,” Zou said. “The remote option is mainly for youths who are far away and/or may not be able to come in-person during that period of time. Since the camp is free and also provides free lunch for in-person students, it is very possible that the camp will be filled up quickly. Enrollments for the in-person option is limited to 25 due to the budgeted coverage of 25 people, but the remote option can have some flexibility.”
Zou, a Carmel resident, was the coach of Carmel High School’s nationally ranked CyberPatriot team for six years. Zou said one reason it is open to middle and high schools is that the CyberPatriot youth education program also holds annual competitions that involve both middle and high school students. For more, visit cyberpatriot.org.
“In our state, we have some high school students participating in cyber patriot competitions, but we do not have middle school students yet,” Zou said. “So, we hope that the camp will stimulate middle students’ interest in such a field and in taking part in the competitions in the near future.”
Graves said she expects the camp to fill up before the May 20 deadline, as it has already gotten 11 sign-u[s since registration recently opened.
For more, visit luddy.iupui.edu/admissions/precollege/cybersecurity/.
