Select high school students from throughout the CSRA spent Wednesday exploring skills and careers in the cyber field.
The inaugural Cyber Georgia STEM Fest started at 8 a.m. at the Georgia Cyber Innovation & Training Center. The Cyber Fusion Innovation Center (CFIC) partnered with the Georgia Cyber Center to coordinate the all-day event comprised of interactive training exercises, activities and career presentations.
“We go out into the community with college and career fairs, we have so many different schools wanting to come in here to see what we do,” said Todd Gay, director of Outreach and Engagement at the Cyber Center, about the impetus for tech festivals.
The Center and CFIC spent some seven months organizing the STEM Fest, which offered high schools across the two-state area the opportunity to allow choice students in their cyber education programs to spend the day at the Cyber Center.
“They come over here already with an interest in cybersecurity,” said Gay.
More than 10 high schools from Richmond, Columbia, Aiken and Lincoln counties registered an average of 10 students, with chaperones, totaling 100 high schoolers participating.
The kids were separated into three groups of roughly 35, identified by orange, blue and green t-shirts. Each group spent a section of the day in one of various activities that included cyber capture the flag competitions and a Virtual World Escape Room activity.
The Escape Room, conducted in the Hull McKnight Building, had students try to “escape” via a series of technical challenges, such as decoding a cipher dial and unlocking a cryptex puzzle box (in a game called “the Cryptex Condundrum”).
“They have to try to solve different types of problems with the critical thinking, problem solving skills and team building,” said Felicia Clarke, cybersecurity program manager at the Georgia Cyber Center.
In the Shaffer McCartney Building, students could explore various tech career paths at the vendor fair. Representatives from Augusta University, Augusta Technical College and several cybersecurity companies and agencies that operate from the Cyber Center campus set up tables for curious pupils to come learn about various employment opportunities for those with cyber skills.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), U.S. Army Cyber School, tech security companies Peraton, CACI, Scientific Research Corporation (SRC) and SealingTech were among the stops along the vendor expo.
“Cyber is such a new field, and everyone’s learning as we go along,” said SRC intern Souravi Mondal, noting, among other things, that the STEM Fest is a good networking event for students. “It’s good to see that the younger students are learning about these opportunities earlier.”
Wednesday’s event, which went from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., with an hour and a half lunch in between, was the first of an annual event, Gay said, as the Cyber Center will host a STEM Fest twice each year, one for high schoolers and one for middle schoolers. The next STEM Fest for CSRA middle school cyber students is to happen in March.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
