San Antonio, TX – January 15, 2013 Digital Defense, Inc. (DDI), a San Antonio-based company and national leader in Information Security, is proud to establish the CyberPatriot Family of the Year award to be announced at the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce Mayor’s Cyber Cup luncheon on Saturday, February 9th.
CyberPatriot is the premier national high school cyber defense competition created to inspire high school students toward careers in cyber security or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines critical to our nation’s future. San Antonio schools have brought recognition to the city through their stellar performance in the competition. Alamo Academies emerged as the champion of the 2012 CyberPatriot IV Open Division and currently 11area schools have made it into the 2013 CyberPatriot V semi-finals, an extraordinary accomplishment. This round commenced January 11th and included the following area teams:
- East Central High School 2
- East Central Army JROTC
- ITSA New Braunfels
- ITSA New Braunfels 2
- John Jay High School
- John Jay High School Air Force JROTC
- Medina Valley High School Air Force JROTC
- Oliver Wendell Holmes High School
- Oliver Wendell Holmes Business Careers High School
- Southwest High School 1
- Southwest High School 3
Chris Cook, San Antonio Cyber Action Team Volunteer, states, “DDI understands the multitude of persons involved in this level of success, including the students, coaches, school and community leaders and mentors, as well as critical family member support. To recognize the role that families play in CyberPatriot student achievement, DDI has established the CyberPatriot Family of the Year award”.
The contest is open to all CyberPatriot team members in the San Antonio area and is intended to honor family members (parents, grandparents, etc.) or guardians whose involvement has inspired their student’s participation in the CyberPatriot program. A $2,500 award will be allocated as follows to the winner:
$1,000 - Cash awarded to family members of winning submission
$1,000 - Cash awarded to CyberPatriot Coach of winning submission
$500 - Cash awarded to CyberPatriot Team members of winning submission
DDI President & CEO, Larry Hurtado, adds, “We are excited to see the CyberPatriot participation and excellence from the San Antonio area teams. Through our mentorship program with area schools, we have observed how the integrated support from school, community and family are the foundation for success. The CyberPatriot Family of the Year award has been established to honor an often unsung hero, the family, and offers the opportunity to spotlight family members of a CyberPatriot student that can serve as an inspiration and model to the community.”
The nomination form is available through DDI, the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, or obtained from San Antonio CyberPatriot team coaches.
Mark Bell, DDI Executive Vice President of Operations is one member of a team who received a patent for the early design of a training system for computer network defense. This cyber defense training system is the first-of-its-kind training system and has been accepted as the national standard for cyber defense and security training, certification and competition. Most notably, it is now the test foundation for the CybePatriot national competition.