Mohawk Valley Community College will host the Central New York Hackathon Friday and Saturday, Nov. 10 and 11, at its Utica Campus, 1101 Sherman Drive.
The CNY Hackathon is an intercollegiate cybersecurity competition designed to improve the state of computer science and cybersecurity education and more closely align academia with Central New York industry partners. Participants include cybersecurity and computer science students from regional colleges and universities, including MVCC, Utica University, SUNY Polytechnic Institute, Syracuse University, University at Albany, and Siena College, as well as about 50 local high school students.
The event will kick off Friday evening with presentations by industry professionals, followed by a team-building challenge. The main event — the CNY Hackathon Competition — will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday and run until 5 p.m. Student teams will participate in challenges that task them with defending their systems from attacks by local industry professionals. This simulation of actual cybersecurity work provides students with a deeper understanding of their future career, increases engagement in the classroom, and ultimately turbocharges the workforce readiness of regional cybersecurity graduates.
“The CNY Hackathon is a model of regional collaboration between Central New York colleges, universities, and high school/CTE programs,” said Jake Mihevc, Dean of MVCC’s School of STEM-Transfer and co-founder of the CNY Hackathon. “One of the unique elements of our event is that we mix the student teams, so they have a chance to learn from students in different cybersecurity programs. It makes for a really great event and reflects how we all collaborate within our regional cybersecurity education community.”
For more information on the CNY Hackathon, contact Jake Mihevc at jmihevc@mvcc.edu or 315-792-5653.