Africa

As the cybersecurity skills gap continues to grow both in the private and public sector, cybersecurity competitions have been recognized worldwide as an effective method for finding new cybersecurity talents and to foster the development of the required cybersecurity competences.

The CyberStars competitions are designed to address the growing cybersecurity skills gap and to help nations identify and forge the next generation cybersecurity professionals.

Entry Requirements

CyberStars competitions are addressed at the young generations and specifically to those who are either still in education or about to exit the university and will be looking for employment soon.

Therefore the entry requirement is only one! At the time of registering you must be aged between 18 and 24!

Awards

CyberStars competition envisages awards in different categories to reflect the specific skills of the cyber stars. The following awards will be given:

Cyber Star Attacker – awarded to the participant with the highest score in the area of ethical hacking and system exploitation
Cyber Star Defender – awarded to the participant with the highest score in the area of ICT infrastructure and system protection
Cyber Star Responder – awarded to the participant with the highest score in the area computer forensics and malware analysis

Competition Timeline

The following figure summarizes the different phases of the competition.

wdt_ID	Phase	Dates	Description
1	Registration and Pre-selection	Ends on 6th September 2019	Registration opens
2	Mentorship Programme	9th September to 11 October 2019	Mentorship Programme
3	Workshop/Career Day	19th November 2019	Workshop / Career Day
4	National Semi-finals	28th November 2019	Students from each university will compete among themselves, the best will form teams of 3s to represent the university at the national level
5	National Finals	8th January 2020	The selected teams from the various universities will compete in a live national event to determine the best team/university
6	Regional Finals	To Be Announced	The winning team/university at the national competition will represent Rwanda in a regional competition

How Much Does it Cost?

Participating to the CyberStars competition is entirely free. The competition is open to any person who meets the entry requirements.

However, access to the Cyber Range platform and CyberStars website and participation to the CyberStars competition will require you to have access to a laptop computer and Internet access.

CyberStars does not provide Internet access, and you are responsible for all fees relating to your personal Internet access charges along with all necessary equipment, servicing, repair or correction incurred in maintaining your connectivity to the CyberStars website and Cyber Range platform.

How Can I Prepare For The Competition

Like any other professional competition, CyberStars competitions are based on clear rules and defined competence objectives, which means each participant knows exactly what cybersecurity fields he/she is competing in what is required to win. CyberStars competitions are not based on obscurity.

Each CyberStars competition will have a list of Learning Objectives against which participants are tested. The list of Learning Objective is publicly accessible to all participants, who can use the list to carry out an initial self assessment of their competences and to understand where they need to improve.

Mentorship

Depending on your physical location, CyberStars Mentors may be available locally to help you prepare for the competition, for instance at a local university. A list of approved mentors is published on the CyberStars website. Mentorship provided by the local mentors is also free of charge and mentors are not allowed to charge you any fee for their services.

While mentorship is provided free of charge thanks to the efforts of the local mentors, you are responsible for any travel, accommodation and subsistence costs you may incur to attend any mentorship sessions. Attending mentorship sessions is not a mandatory requirement to participate in the CyberStars competition.

CyberStars mentors are volunteers within the cyber security professional community who commit their time to improve the cyber security profession by sharing their competence and experience with the new generations of professionals. CyberStars mentors are not employed nor paid by CyberStars and acts on a voluntary basis. However, CyberStars mentors agree to abide by a Mentors Code of Conduct.