Africa’s information security hackathon, SafeHack 2021, is inviting young information security innovators to register for the fourth edition of the two-day challenge taking place from 31 July to 1 August.
Hosted by youth ICT organisation Geekulcha and its sponsors, the 36-hour challenge gathers students, developers and information security beginners together, to increase their knowledge and awareness around online safety, while helping them build local cyber and information security capacity.
The event has a strong focus on building innovative, ‘secure-by-design’ solutions and creates a networking platform for participants, according to Geekulcha.
This year’s hackathon is themed “The human firewall: Enhancing people’s capability to identify and report cyber crime”. During the virtual event, participants are made aware that digital zombies exist and they need to hack against them by building proactive response tools to fight and bring them down.
The event will kick-off with a masterclass, led by expert professionals, to introduce key security concepts to the participants.
Mentorship and guidance will be provided by security professionals throughout the hack.
“Advanced software and hardware are everywhere in our lives, and the risk of these networks being compromised by outsiders has never been more relevant. The purpose of SafeHack is to build a secure-by-design mind-set in students and the coding community by setting challenges that require both innovation and security machine learning, network/enterprise security and capture the flag change,” says Keitumetsi Tsotetsi, CIO of Geekulcha.
The various challenges will be outsourced from the sponsors, the community, the Geekulcha team and from the hackers taking part, adds Tsotetsi.
The hackathon will alternate between progress checks and team presentations, before prizes are awarded to the winners on the afternoon of the final day, with one of the prizes being an internship contract in the information security field.
In anticipation of the SafeHack 2021 event, SafeHack Unplugged will be hosted on 15 July, with a session targeted at business and academic institutions.
“Hackathons provide the most practical experience outside of a job and provide more than just the typical textbook knowledge. SafeHack Unplugged will be primarily focused on explaining the value proposition of hackathons to business and discuss hackathons as a skills identifier for the industry.
“Hackathons are the difference between interviewing people and auditioning people for roles,” says Nithen Naidoo, founder of Snode Technologies, which is one of the sponsors.
Further information and registration forms can be found on the Geekulcha website.
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