Cadet Senior Airman Gabriel Che, Cadet Senior Master Sergeant Taiyo Lloyd, Cadet Captain Ronald Zhang, and Cadet Second Lieutenant Sully Mills at the CyberPatriot National Competition March 18.
Civil Air Patrol cadets from Burke Composite Squadron competed in the CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Education Program. The team, nicknamed Cyber Monkeys, was one of the 13 All Service teams who competed in the CyberPatriot XVI National Finals held from March 15-18 in North Bethesda.
CyberPatriot is a program of the Air & Space Force Association. It is designed to attract students to careers in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics (STEM) including cybersecurity-specific fields. The Northrop Grumman Foundation is the presenting sponsor.
The Team Captain for the Cyber Monkeys is Cadet Capt. Ronald Zhang, a sophomore at Lake Braddock Secondary School. The Assistant Team Captain is Cadet Second Lieutenant Sully Mills, a junior at Lake Braddock Secondary School. The other members are Cadet Senior Airman Gabriel Che, a senior at Langley High School, and Cadet Senior Master Sergeant Taiyo Lloyd, a sophomore at West Springfield High School.
"CyberPatriot is an amazing opportunity for those interested in working in the cybersecurity industry as well as a great extracurricular opportunity for middle and high school students,” says Cadet Senior Airman Che.
The CyberPatriot teams competed in increasingly difficult challenges that required them to learn more about computer systems and network infrastructure. These included systems such as Linux, Windows, Windows Server, and Cisco networking.
"CyberPatriot is a learning experience like no other and has enabled me to see cybersecurity-computer science as a future career path,” says Cadet Senior Master Sergeant Lloyd.
The Cyber Monkeys competed in two qualifying rounds and placed first for both the State Round and the National Semi-Final Round among all Civil Air Patrol teams, qualifying them to compete in the National Finals.
“CyberPatriot is one of the best opportunities around if you have any interest in computers or cybersecurity. It makes you stand out and the experience and what you learn is fantastic,” says Cadet Second Lieutenant Mills.
At the national championship, the Cyber Monkeys competed against 12 other teams from the All-Service Division which includes High School JROTC, Civil Air Patrol, and United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps teams. While the team did not receive an official award from CyberPatriot, their cybersecurity skills put them in contention thanks to their hard work and support from technical mentors across the country.
"CyberPatriot focuses on learning and teamwork,” said Cadet Capt. Zhang. “The growth year over year is more important than the performance in any particular round.”