Geekulcha, a youth ICT ecosystem, will host its fourth annual information security hackathon on 10-12 July, under the title ‘SafeHack’. Aligning with social distancing regulations, the event will be hosted online.
The hackathon, which is only open to beginners, aims to bring awareness around online safety while building local cyber and information security capacity.
SafeHack will kick-off with a roundtable discussion covering safe coding principals and how computer ware can be exploited to harm businesses.
The event has a strong focus on building innovative, ‘secure-by-design’ solutions and creates a networking platform for students, investors and potential employers.
Building a secure African footprint
Keitumetsi Tsotetsi, a cyber security risk assurance manager at PwC and Geekulcha’s CIO says, “The intensity and enthusiasm required in a competitive hack means pushing for solutions to work in a short space of time, so industry leaders will be on hand to mentor the Geeks (as Geekulcha youth are known) throughout the hackathon.”
Under the theme, ‘Enterprising Mankind: Building A Secure African Footprint’, SafeHack will feature challenges that include using AI/ML for proactive cyber defence and ‘capture the flag’, a competition designed to test cyber security skills by finding information hidden in files or by hacking or defending a system. Other hack challenges will be sourced from the Geekulcha community, sponsors and from the hackers themselves.
Steve Jump, a security specialist at Telkom, regularly volunteers to help in Geekulcha hackathons. He hopes this year’s virtual event will maintain the high spirits associated with the previous physical hacks. He would like to see teams place greater emphasis on the ‘smart business’ side of things, he says.
Over the years, SafeHack has also been assisted by industry leaders from MTN’s Information Security Group, PwC, SensePost, Snode Technologies and ITWeb.
Hackathon prizes, including cash, will be presented to the winners in each category. Participants can register on safehack.geekulcha.dev
Organisations willing to sponsor prizes can contact the Geekulcha team on dev@geekulcha.com.