SPICE Team Competes in Cyber 9/12 Student Challenge


by Jacob Abbott and Joshua Streiff

Indiana University has three teams competing in the Atlantic Council’s Cyber 9/12 Student Challenge in Washington, D.C. The teams are comprised of Ph.D. and Masters students that are from the School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, the Maurer School of Law, and the Kelley School of Business.

Students received an information packet for the competition that they worked to summarize and submit as an initial briefing document before the competition. In the weeks leading up to the competition they worked together with their coaches to sift through the information given and pull out aspects that they think are important to bring up for policies and actions to be taken. With only a few days left until the competition the teams are finalizing their initial decision documents and practicing their presentations where they will have 10 minutes to present their policy recommendations before a panel of judges.

One of the attending students is CSI Ph.D. student Jacob Abbott, who participated in the Cyber 9/12 Student Challenge last year, and hopes to make it to the semi-finals again this year.

The competition is broken down into three waves across the two days. The first day the competition gets cut roughly in half after everyone presents their cases, the second section is the semi-finals where the teams that made it through are given a new information packet Friday night after dinner and need to submit their documentation by 6 a.m. the next morning. Only three teams make it to the finals and they’re given an information packet and have one hour to prepare their documentation and presentation.

SPICE students competing will be able to lean on their interdisciplinary training and resources. With skill sets derived from classes ranging from cryptography and cyber defense to human interface and Internet of Things, SPICE students have a well rounded education that positions them well for real world positions and security scenarios. Additionally, with access to leadership like their team leader, Allan Friedman (Director of Cybersecurity Initiatives at US Department of Commerce), the students have the best chances not only of success in the competition, but of success long afterwards.