On Monday 12th and Tuesday 13th February, students from the EU INGENIUM University alliance participated in a Cyber Security and Sustainability-themed Hackathon at the MTU Bishopstown campus.
Our industry partners from McKesson, Logitech, Huawei and Cybreason provided the cyber security challenges, mentored the teams and then judged the students’ solutions.
Supporting the Hackathon closely aligns with Cyber Ireland’s Focus Area of Developing the Workforce. To attract more people into cyber security we must make it an attractive profession with clear pathways and progression, while inspiring the next generation to consider a career in cyber security. This year, the hackathon brought together 50 students from various disciplines to collaborate to address real-life challenges as set by our industry partners. Participants navigated the process of defining problems, developing solutions, fostering their entrepreneurial spirit, and presenting their work through impactful pitches.
Teams comprised of five individuals, strategically selected to ensure a balanced academic background, with no team being exclusively composed of cyber security students. The teams were formed from across INGENIUM, which is an alliance of ten universities from ten European countries, comprising 172,000 students and 15,000 staff. MTU is a founding member of the INGENIUM Alliance and leads the Entrepreneurship workstream.
The teams had 24 hours to work on a solution to the challenges, which was facilitated by Caitlin Hafer from What The Hack. As the students researched and developed their solutions they were aided by mentors from our industry partners who provided feedback and advice. At the end of the 24 hour sprint, the teams had to face a panel of judges from the sponsors McKesson, Logitech, Huawei, Cybreason and the Rubicon Centre and pitch their solutions, which ranged from:
- Increasing awareness of cyber security
- Data Protection
- Training courses around understanding of cyber security
The teams were judged on their Problem Research, Validation of the solution, User Experience or Applicability, Business Applications and Go-to-market, with a cash prize for the Best Concept and Best Pitch.
The Student Cybersecurity Hackathon would not have been possible without the financial support from our industry sponsors McKesson, Logitech, Huawei and Cybreason, MTU’s External Affairs Office and the MTU Innovation and Enterprise Office.
We are already looking forward to the Student Cybersecurity Hackathon in 2025. If you, or your organisation, would like to get involved, please get in touch.
