Rose State College Serves as Host Site of CyberPatriot Workshops Published September 8, 2016 by Ali Sexton

Hundreds of middle schools and high schools students from across the nation will be on the Rose State College campus in the coming months for the CyberPatriot Program. CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Education Program conceived by the Air Force Association to inspire students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Rose State will be hosting a series of free workshops to provide orientation and instruction to those CyberPatriot teams, their coaches and mentors. Those orientations will take place during 13 sessions over the next five months. Rose State College was awarded the CyberPatriot Center of Excellence due to its commitment in emphasizing cybersecurity and developing the workforce of tomorrow. That marks one of the reasons the Institute is hosting the CyberPatriot workshops.

The goal of CyberPatriot is for teams of middle school and high school students across the country to compete in the annual National Youth Cyber Defense Competition. During the competition students pose as newly hired IT professionals who need to find cybersecurity vulnerabilities within their operating systems. Winners in each state and region earn all-expenses paid trips to Baltimore, MD for the National Finals Competition where they can earn national recognition and scholarship money.

In addition to the CyberPatriot program, Rose State College has been selected as a "National Center of Academic Excellence" by the National Security Agency and U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The college has been chosen by the National Science Foundation for cyber security training and Rose State has been honored by the State of Oklahoma for its national prominence in cyber security. Photo cutline: A student competes in the CyberPatriot VII National Finals Competition. Photo courtesy of uscyberpatriot.org.