CyberTitan Champions: Inside Canada's National High School Cybersecurity Competition (and CyberPatriot)

Summary

Cybersecurity Today — Episode Summary

Episode Title: CyberTitan Champions: Inside Canada's National High School Cybersecurity Competition (and CyberPatriot)
Host: Jim Love
Guests: Tim (teacher/mentor), Phil (coach), Sheena (CyberTitan manager), Faye (student), Eric (student)
Date: June 13, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode offers a deep dive into CyberTitan, Canada’s national youth cybersecurity competition, featuring the 2026 champion high school team from Toronto and key organizers. Drawing inspiration from the U.S.-based CyberPatriot, CyberTitan aims to build cyber defense skills among Canadian youth, nurture diverse talent, and inspire hope for the nation’s future in securing digital infrastructure. The discussion ranges from the technical ins and outs of the competition, life-changing experiences for the students, to the wider societal and educational impact of such programs.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Structure of CyberTitan

• CyberTitan started as a Canadian adaptation of the U.S. CyberPatriot competition, operated by the Information and Communications Technology Council (ICTC) of Canada.

• The competition is open to middle and high school students across the country, including cadet groups and community teams.

  • Tim (01:10): “High school is the biggest competition, but... we also have all of Cadets Canada involved in this.”

• Students are challenged to harden compromised virtual machines running Windows, Windows Server, and Linux, performing real-world cyber defense tasks for points.

  • There’s also a Packet Tracer networking segment, thanks to Cisco.

• Teams compete internationally in CyberPatriot before qualifying for Canadian finals as CyberTitan.

2. Why Get Involved? — Student Perspectives

Faye’s Journey

• Faye joined CyberPatriot in grade 9 as part of “trying everything.”
• The team aspect and the supportive school environment helped her stick with the program and excel.
  • Faye (09:59): “The team aspect makes it easier to engage and continue on since you can do it with your team year after year.”

Eric’s Path

• Eric joined later, motivated by friends, and discovered an interest in Windows system administration.
  • Eric (11:31, 13:03): “It was fun to start learning about Windows specifically... I've developed an understanding of a lot of the tools that are definitely a lot more useful.”

“Aha!” Moments

• Both discussed realizing cybersecurity’s depth only after hands-on learning. Faye recalls discovering the complexity of routers and switches; Eric found new Windows tools he never knew about.
  • Eric (12:29): “I didn't know what Microsoft Management Console was or how to actually change users efficiently because I used to just use settings.”
  • Faye (13:18): “I really had really lacking cybersecurity and technology. I think learning about these things... you just find out that there's so much more than what you thought.”

3. Educator Perspectives: Coaching, Rewards, and Impact

Phil – Teacher/Coach

• Phil serves as the club supervisor and mentor, benefiting from alumni knowledge and fostering a collaborative learning environment for students.
  • Phil (07:15): “I really am the guide by the side, as we say in the education business.”
  • Phil (08:53): “It’s really rewarding to see them participate and succeed at this.”

Tim – Teacher/Program Advocate

• The competition provides free access to industry training, notably Cisco’s Networking Academy, and opportunities for both students and teachers to gain advanced skills.
  • Tim (27:32): “You automatically get access to all of that training material. And once we got in there... that got integrated into our curriculum...”
• Pushed for all-women teams to address gender imbalance; led to more balanced classes and opportunities.
  • Tim (29:26): “After the girls team did so well, it basically almost balanced our classes out...”

Sheena – Program Manager

• Strives for full national/regional coverage, diverse participation, and sustainability through sponsorship.
  • Sheena (33:56): “I would love to see it be fully Canadian and then have regionals... I'd love to see more girls represented and other underrepresented youth.”

4. Community, Diversity, & Real-World Application

• CyberTitan connects students from coast to coast, including smaller provinces and urban centers alike.
  • Sheena (18:51): “We have had every province represented over the years...”
• The program motivates students — including those who might otherwise stray into “grey hat” activities — to channel their abilities productively in IT and security.
  • Tim (30:18): “In some cases, we had the OPP come in... and say, can you put him on Cybertitan? ...the kid is now working in cybersecurity.”

5. The Push for Canadian Innovation

• While currently built around CyberPatriot infrastructure, there’s a drive to develop homegrown platforms (cloud-based cyber ranges, etc.) to better reflect Canadian needs and push innovation.
  • Tim (31:03, 32:42): “If we can evolve into that cloud based range, it gives us the opportunity to put... students in real world simulation... all we need to do is connect everyone together...”

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On building future talent:
  “If you've got someone who's got an extra six years of experience because they've been doing it since grade 8, just imagine how valuable that can be.” — Tim (02:48)

• On accidental scoreboard messes:
  “A note on the team name — it did, I believe, during the finals, escape containment and mess up the scoreboard a little bit. So their goal was achieved.” — Phil (07:51)

• On learning and opportunity:
  “There's so many resources... people can learn from. There's no harm in people to try, and if they're interested... cybersecurity in general can be really rewarding for them.” — Faye (23:10)

• On the growing role of educators:
  “You get closer, you get buried alive in material... this is the way to do it. Because cybersecurity shows you how to color outside the lines.” — Tim (27:32)

• On diversity and inclusion:
  “I'd love to see more girls represented and other underrepresented youth. We've had some indigenous teams in the past... I'd love to see that better represented...” — Sheena (33:56)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:00-04:04]: Introduction, history of CyberTitan, ICTC’s role
• [04:19-05:09]: Mechanics of the competition (virtual machines, challenges, scoring)
• [05:18-07:03]: Meet the champion team; team name origins (“SSours”)
• [09:59-13:56]: Student motivations, experiences, and learning "aha" moments (Faye & Eric)
• [15:25-16:21]: Teacher’s perspective on the impact and rewards (Phil)
• [16:43-18:29]: Program reach, participation stats, and international/national structure (Sheena)
• [19:29-20:57]: Regional participation and recognition (medals, banners, challenge coins)
• [21:35-22:40]: Would the students do it again, family reactions and celebrations
• [27:11-29:26]: Integrating competition resources into curriculum, building diversity
• [31:03-34:38]: Future visions: Canadian tech, cloud-based ranges, full regional/national expansion
• [36:07-37:13]: Closing thanks, hopes for future competitions and ongoing community building

---

Takeaways for Listeners

• CyberTitan and similar competitions make a tangible impact on students’ skills, confidence, and career trajectories, while also driving curricular reform and inclusion.
• There's a growing push to build robust, regionally adapted Canadian cyber competitions, develop local talent, and ensure representation from all communities and backgrounds.
• Participating as a student, teacher, or sponsor opens doors to free world-class training, real-world problem-solving experiences, and a vibrant, diverse community.

---

Host’s closing note:
“...how we can build a more secure future. Eric, Fay, the world truly is your oyster. If you're this involved in high school... you both are on the right track and it is so much fun to meet both of you.” — Jim Love (34:38, 36:07)

Transcript

[A]

This is Cybersecurity Today on the weekend. And for our show today, we're bringing on the winning team from Canada's national cybersecurity competition for high school students known as Cybertitan. And we're going to get a chance to learn about this amazing program, how it ties back to a fantastic US Military Veterans association program called Cyber Patriot. We'll get a chance to learn from some of the students themselves and what they gained from the competition and a bit of a hint about where it could go. If you're listening around the world, Cyber Patriot is not just a US Program. It has participation from around the world. And there's a lot to gain from this interview. And if you're looking for a bit of hope this morning, with all the dystopian headlines and latest breaches, sit back, enjoy a coffee or a tea, and here's some hope. I want to start first with Tim. Tim, tell me a little bit about yourself for the audience so they can get to know you. And then we're going to talk about this Cyber Titans thing.

[B]

So I worked in IT for a long time in the 90s and early 2000s, and then got into teaching and taught technology as a teacher. In 2017, I heard about the Cyber Titan competition because I'd been using ICTC for statistics. And we ended up going to the first national finals that year and then proceeded to have a run of students in almost every round. I think we ended up up against William Lyon Mackenzie, who's one of the top schools in Canada for this. It's always been a challenge meeting up with them. So seeing them here again today, this is a long history of cybertank unfolding.

[A]

Now I'm going to put you on the spot, Tim, what is ictc?

[B]

So it's the Information and Communications Technology Council of Canada. They've been around for over 30 years. They're nonpartisan. They mainly do research into digitization and then making sure Canada stays on top of it. But they also do a lot of capacity building, outreach. And Sheena here is in charge of the K to 12 initiative.

[A]

That's amazing. So now Cyber Titans is a national competition. And is it just high school? Is it high school, middle school, elementary school? What's the scope for this competition?

[B]

So starts in middle school and then extends to high school. High school is the biggest competition, but also in addition to high school, we also have all of Cadets Canada involved in this. When cadets started their cyber curriculum, they leaned on Cybertitan to do it. So it's Cadets Canada Community Groups can be involved with student teams and then a lot of schools from across the country, coast to coast.

[A]

And what's the goal? What's the, what's what? Why have this competition? What are we trying to do?

[B]

I personally, I think if you get students involved in this early on and they end up going into the field, you end up with much more depth of experience. Talking to Tom, who runs cyberside, the post secondary competition, he said all of their top students are former Cyber Titans. So that's proof of concept there. If we can get students involved in this in high school and they get excited about it and consider the career. And David, you hire people in this as well, so, you know. But if you've got someone who's got an extra six years of experience because they've been doing it since grade 8, just imagine how valuable that can be.

[A]

Absolutely. And so where did Cyber Titans come from? Did we invent it? Was it invented somewhere else? And then tell me about the mechanics of the high school competition and I'll jump over to this amazing team.

[B]

So the Cyber Titan initially started, actually Sisler High School in Winnipeg was doing the Cyberpatriot competition in the US and that's the US Air and Space Force Veterans association that runs that. So when Cyberpatriot is huge, it was running at one point, I think in six different countries. And so what happened is Sizzler came to ICTC and said, could we make a Canadian version of this? And then ICTC kickstarted Cybertitan and it works in conjunction with cyberpatriot.

[A]

So what is for folks listening who have no idea what this. This is a ethical hacking competition, A capture the flag, a skills based development leading to a capture the flag. Tell me more.

[B]

Basically what happens is the cyberpatria sends you virtual machines. They're old school, so they still send you like the link and you have to download them and run them locally. We've since upgraded that in Canada. We're a step ahead there. But what students do is they go into the virtual machines and the virtual machines have all been compromised. And what they do is that it's a cyber operations competition. Basically they work in the machines, they figure out what's been damaged, how things are not working properly anymore, and as they fix things, they get points. And they do this in Windows, Windows Server and Linux. So it's across multiple operating systems. And all of this is going on. Cisco also uses Packet Tracer to do a networking portion of this, where you build secure networks in Packet Tracer and then out of all of this, you collect all of these points, and the top teams get invited to Cybertank.

[A]

Okay. And we're with one of those top teams right now. So, first of all, the most important question I'll ask, what is the team's name?

[C]

Yeah, you can just call us like S ors because the actual name is, I'm pretty sure, a regex command, which is pretty difficult to pronounce. I can copy paste the team name into chat. It's parentheses/w +/backslash SSource.

[A]

So SSours. Is that the shorthand of the regex?

[C]

All right.

[A]

I love it. Regex, the love and bane of every IT professional's existence. You got that one character, wr. And it didn't work. For those listening who may not be intimately familiar with regex or with regular expression, it's a kind of a shorthand that can be used in scripting if I remember correctly and go deep into my nerd. Okay, next most important question. You could have done some kind of hacker leaked speak. You could have gone with some other name, but you find team members went with a regular expression. Why? What was the thinking behind that?

[C]

A different team member actually chose our name, and then none of us thought really too hard about the meaning. But the team member that chose our name isn't here right now, so he can't really explain his reasoning. But I think part of the reason why I personally liked it was ors is also a shorthand for a person bowing his head in awe of something cool. And I think it's cool that our team name also includes that expression.

[A]

So. @xor. Yeah, so, yes, I'm just. I'm just clicking in this morning now. XOR this or. Okay, got you. And, Eric, did the name spark any massive inspiration rally behind the XOR kind of flag moment?

[D]

Not really.

[E]

I didn't think much of the team name either when it was chosen.

[A]

I'm just here to hack, David. I'm just here to hack. Okay, I hear you. I get you. So, Phil, you were the team mentor or teacher assigned to help them?

[D]

Yeah. So I'm the coach. It's the. The verbiage there, which really means that we're supporting their extracurricular activity here. Right. So they have a club meeting where they do practice and training and mentor younger students that are also participating in the contest or going to be participating in the contest and then facilitating the. The actual competition supervision when the rounds run and when the final competition runs and if we have to travel to travel with them. So I benefit From a lot of the previous students that have gone through this, leaving a lot a plethora of materials that we can use to develop new participants and new competitors every year. And I really am the guide by the side, as we say in the education business. And just a note on the team, name it. Did I believe during the finals escape containment and mess up the scoreboard a little bit so their goal was achieved.

[A]

Jody, drop table strikes again. For the kids listening, there's a famous X XKCD joke around naming your kid away to blow up everyone's database. Way to go, Xor. I bet you they're gonna fix that vulnerability because all the other kids are gonna come up with something like that. That's the best part about this interview so far. Maybe the entire episode is gonna be. It seems like the kids are all right. And Phil, I know many teachers and I have some great, great friends who are teachers. Spare time is not something that comes to their vocabulary a lot. And I'm taking that you're not getting any kind of a bonus, any kind of a pay top up to do this work. So why do you do it?

[D]

Really? It's because the students are so passionate about it. I kind of can't say no when they want to do something. And this is like a really good initiative. Participating in this has really helped the entire school's environment as well. Like, part of our participation in cybersecurity led to us successfully getting a specialist high skills major program at the school this year. So we can offer more advanced programming and hands on experience in fields like IT and cybersecurity. But really it's really rewarding to see them participate and succeed at this. We all volunteer a lot of our spare time for these types of events and I'm happy to do it because I get to see what I get to see basically them succeed. So that's. That's enough for me.

[A]

That is amazing. I want to turn back to Faye and Eric and I'll start with you, Faye. 99 things you can do at school and getting into a hacking competition is one. Why get involved with. With this competition? Yeah.

[C]

I started doing CyberPatriot in grade 9 and from grade 10 onwards, my team qualified for Cybertitan. And I think mainly the reason I did it in grade nine. In grade nine, I didn't have any cybersecurity experience. I only joined because I was having the mindset of trying a lot of new things in school. So I joined a lot of other clubs too, like Cyberpatriot, Health, Science, Science Math, et cetera. And I just tried everything out that year. I think one of the reasons I tried out cybersecurity specifically, too, was because our school, as Mr. Grill mentioned, it has a pretty strong legacy within cyberpatriot. And I heard of that and I thought it would be cool to do it. I tried that out and it was pretty fun. Also, because it's a team competition, I think the team aspect makes it easier to engage and continue on since you can do it with your team year after year. And the longer we did it, the more successful we became. So it just became a thing that I kept doing.

[A]

That's amazing. And for all the parents listening to this on a Saturday morning, having their coffee, yes, you should just go back and replay what Faye just said to your kid so that they all understand. Try things in high school as much as you can. This is your time to discover and figure things out. It's not always going to be the hacking. Maybe it is going to be the healthcare. But yes, Faye, that is the perfect answer for what exactly you should do in high school. Try all the things, because it's a lot cheaper than trying all the things in university. The parents do not want to pay for that. Eric, why. Why sign up for this? You could do a lot of different things. Why sign up for this competition?

[E]

To be honest, I mostly joined the competition to begin with because my friends were already participating. I only started in good math, grade 11, I believe. So actually like one or two years later than most of the people. But after I started doing cyberpatri, it was very interesting. It was fun to start learning about Windows specifically because I was working on Windows operating systems. And I just started studying like two hours a day over the summer. And then eventually my team qualified for cybertiting. Even in our. In my first year of participating, what was.

[A]

If you can think back to one moment where you learned something and it was kind of just, wow. I didn't know that computers could be compromised that way or Windows worked that way. Is there anything that ever stood out for you? You're like, aha. Or one of those I'm in Hollywood

[E]

hacker moments before I started studying for cyberpatriot and Cybertitan, I didn't know a lot of these features existed on Windows. I didn't know what Microsoft Management Console was or how to actually change users efficiently because I used to just use settings. Like Windows Settings was the only thing I ever used. But after learning for the actual competition, I've developed an understanding of a lot of the tools that are definitely a lot more useful to use when it comes to being on Windows is it just organizes everything and makes life much easier.

[A]

That's amazing. Faye, what was your aha moment in any point could be in the competition. It could have been the scoreboard hack. I'm not calling it a hack. It was an accident. But what was your aha moment in the competitions in learning?

[C]

I think there's just like a lot that I didn't know before that I learned while I was trying to learn Cisco because so Eric, as he said, he does Windows, I do Cisco, which isn't actually in Cybertitan, but it's in Cyberpatriot. And I think one thing is back when I started doing like Cisco and grade nine, I didn't know what a router or a switch was like. I really had really lacking cybersecurity and technology. So I think learning about these things and all the things that you can do on them, like I didn't know what access control lists were or like dhcp. And I think you just find out that there's so much more than like what you thought goes into like these tech devices.

[A]

No, that's perfect. And I'm going to make the joke. Cisco is where national security and telecoms goes to get in the hurt locker these days if people don't know how to use these tools properly. So I am thrilled that Cisco is sponsoring cyberpatriot to help the next generation learn the technology and secure things. And that is phenomenal. So I'm really excited that you're excited. Routers. My A good friend of mine, Charles, who was one of what we'll call the three amigos at unb, the university I worked at, was responsible for security. He was the networking guy and he was the guy I would turn to. And I'm like, what are we doing? Explain this to me. So networking is always a fascinating topic, but never my primary area. And Ben, who was the other amigo was. He came up as a systems administrator, was the cat herder behind our internal solutions development team. So he was the software guy, he was the Windows guy, and I was the human guy.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So I had the really interesting of why are people making the choices they're making with technology? And I love that both of you are learning the tech because you can't be in control of technology, really in control of it where it matters if you don't understand how it works. Phil, I want to come back to you for a second and say what was your. Besides victory, which is sweet as it Is what was one of those other great moments where as a teacher you're like, this really filled my cup. This was amazing.

[D]

I think like the one Cyber Titan, our sort of gap in championships, which was a couple years ago, but where it was a University of Waterloo hosted it for an overnight and so we got to go through with the other teams, we got to talk to the actual other teams and see them in person, which is very rare these days, unfortunately, with how these go. And so just that kind of experience I think was we didn't need to win there, but the camaraderie and see what different, different schools and whatever sorts of like programs that things are going on is. I think that the, for me it's always the community bits that are the most rewarding. It's wonderful. We're dealing with other teams, other schools, other contestants.

[A]

Does it give you hope when you see them working away most of the time?

[D]

Sometimes a little bit of fear of, oh well, mostly it's hope though. These, with these guys, it's all hope.

[A]

Oh, good. He didn't say despair, so that's good. Fear is a healthy emotion, gives us some boundaries. It makes sure that we go back and we check our network segmentation in the high school and make sure everything's tight because we're arming them with knowledge. Sheena, I haven't had a chance to ask you anything yet, but tell me a little bit about your role with Cyber Titans and what about the work that. That you enjoy?

[F]

Yeah. So I'm the manager of Cyber Titan, the national director on Cybertitan Day and I've been part of competition since it's existed at ictc. So all nine years I've been running it and it's honestly getting all the teams together, having everyone come in. The sheer amount of joy that the students show during the competition is fantastic. The first two years we were in person and then Covid hit and we weren't and so we've been trying to bring that back. It is a fully sponsorship driven event. So that is one of our struggles is we just can't afford to bring everyone back in person. But we are trying and we would love to have it come back in person again. And it's just a fantastic competition. The teams, once you start, once you hear about Cyber Titan, when you get into it, you're engaged and you stay.

[A]

That's amazing. How many kids not just would make it to the competition level, but like how many kids? Well, I guess they're kids from middle school to high school. Are we Talking about that, that get impacted by this program.

[F]

At least 2,000 a year. Give. Take. Wow. We on average have about 200 teams and teams can be four to six players.

[C]

Okay.

[F]

For the Canadian, they are competing internationally for the first six months with about 6,000 students.

[A]

So they compete internationally and then they complete nationally.

[F]

Yeah. So they sign up through the Cyberpatriot program and compete through Cyberpatriot internationally. And then we. As soon as you sign up with a Canadian team, you are a Cyber Titan team. So we monitor how our teams have been doing and then based on those results, we bring the top 10 Canadian teams and top three middle school teams to a national final.

[A]

Huh. That seems like an interesting order of operations.

[F]

Again, sponsorship driven. We would love to go fully Canadian and not need the international element, but not right now, not yet. So.

[A]

So number one, I'm going to get off this call and get on the line with my local MP and start talking about elbows up, maybe building our national team so we can compete here. Hockey's not giving me any satisfaction right now. Internationally, I'm. I'm okay with sliding into hacking. All right, let's get a Team Canada on the go here. I'm sure Faye and Eric would love to be on the Team Canada hacking team. All right.

[F]

And we have had every province represented over the years.

[A]

That's amazing. Even PEI is into the hacking.

[F]

They've been doing really well the last two years. We've just honestly all thanks to Tim. He went out there, made the connections and we've been fostering that for the last couple years. And we got Newfoundland three years ago because of Tim and I.

[A]

It is coast to coast for our listeners, our listeners around the world. We're a big country. That is not a small feat. And it's fascinating because Prince Edward island is a province of what sub 100, roughly a hundred thousand esque people for the entire province.

[D]

It's.

[A]

It's not that big. I'll have to go back. I'm sure I'm going to get an email from somewhere with bi. With the precise number. But all that to say to put a team together at that scale takes even more effort. Now the XOR team that I have here, you guys are from the Toronto District School Board, tdsb, which I believe is Canada's largest school district.

[F]

Yeah.

[A]

No, yes.

[D]

Yeah, we are.

[A]

Yeah. And for our non Canadian listeners, like Toronto is the center of the universe for, for a lot of. When it comes to scale and big things in Canada. But that means is there a kind of like a regional or within tdsb. Was this the only team that got put together?

[D]

No, we're not the only team. I think there's at least a few schools that field multiple teams. I know we'd often meet up with the satech, the team from satech and Scarborough, when either going to Titan or just at other events. I believe Earl Hague, which is our sort of rival school, has fielded some teams before as well. But the GTA has some more as well in the larger metro area, so it's not an insignificant number.

[A]

So do you get a trophy? Something to hang with the. The other school achievements?

[D]

They did very good about sending us a banner every year. They're all lined up in my classrooms, which currently are full of students, but we like to advertise to classes that this is a thing that they can do.

[F]

And the students also get medals.

[D]

Yes, the students get medals.

[A]

Okay, that. That. That is phenomenal. And the cyber, they get challenge coins. That. So the interesting thing about cybersecurity culture is that it steals a lot of these traditions from the military. And the idea of regimental coins and challenge coins was there. I've had a privilege to. To have a few over. That's awesome. Eric, I'll start with you. If there's a kid listening right now who's on the fence about, maybe I'll join one of these teams. My friends are kind of doing it. Was it worth it? Would you do it again?

[E]

For me? I would definitely do it again. I think the team experience is also very rewarding. It's definitely more enjoyable to work on securing a virtualized machine with other people and combine your ideas, because if you're working alone, it sucks if you get stuck somewhere. If you get on a roadblock, you can't really make progress. And it can be demotivating, but when you can work with other people, you can just exchange ideas. And it's definitely a lot more of an enjoyable experience to participate as a team.

[A]

Amazing. What did you tell your parents about being in this competition? What did they think about all this?

[E]

They just thought that it was good that I was participating in club activities and extracurricular activities at school.

[A]

What about when you won? Hey, we won nationally. We were the top in the country this year. Were they hopeful? Excited? Dollar signs in their eyes about future careers, or like your teacher said, maybe a little fearful?

[E]

They were definitely happy that we won first place. I guess maybe a little surprise as well, but nothing extraordinary.

[A]

Did we. So listen, when. Whenever I hit a big milestone, and this is a Gen X thing, we went out to Pizza Hut. Like there was a celebration. Did you get any kind of a party, any kind of a celebration out of this?

[E]

Not really.

[A]

Oh, okay. Play this back for your parents. It's. I don't know what the equivalent for your generation is of the Pizza Hut trip, but you definitely earned the Pizza Hut trip. For what it's worth, Dave Shipley says your parents should throw you a small party. Faye, what about you? What about your thoughts? Would you tell others to do what you have done?

[C]

Yeah, I definitely think it was really rewarding. I feel like a lot of the reason people might be hesitant to start or to keep going with cybersecurity is that it's a little bit more of a niche field. So some people, if they don't know cybersecurity before joining the competition, they think they can't do it. But really, I feel like there's so many resources and online and from people around you that can support people that people can learn from. I think there's no harm in people to try, and if they're interested, then cybertitan. And just like cybersecurity in general can be really rewarding for them.

[A]

Amazing. What'd your parents think about you getting into the hacking?

[C]

This is like my fourth year doing cyberpatriot, so my parents weren't as surprised this year, but it was definitely happy for me. Yeah.

[D]

Okay.

[A]

But what about the first. First time you came home to your parents or did you even tell them? I joined this super cool school activity to learn how to hack.

[C]

Yeah. So the first time I did cyberpatriot, it was actually, like a lucky coincidence because the year I joined, there were a lot more people at my school doing cyberpatriot, so we had to try out for the school teams. Since each school can only send five teams, then it's teams of six. But I didn't know six other people that wanted to do cyberpatriot. I only knew one other person who isn't here. He's also on my team right now, but he just couldn't make it to this meeting. And we tried out together as a team of two, and we didn't make it in. We were sixth place, but the team that got fifth place only had four people, so we just joined up with their team after doing it. I told that story to my mom, and she was pretty happy about it. It's like a lucky coincidence. Yeah. Oh, good. We didn't make Cyber Titan on our. Sorry, go on.

[A]

No, you go ahead, Liana.

[C]

We didn't make Cyber Titan on Our first year, we made it. On our second year, there was enough of a buildup kind of to that where it wasn't too surprising, but it was still like, yeah, she was happy.

[A]

Good. Now, did you get a pizza party or something for the national championship or do I gotta give your parents a call for some kind of a celebration?

[C]

I got bubble tea, which is better, in my opinion.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Bubble tea is a absolutely appropriate reward, but rewards were given. Eric's parents, you're getting a phone call. You gotta give this. Give this guy a reward. At least bubble tea. All right, fair. I'm glad that. I'm glad that it was celebrated. It deserves to be celebrated. Great job, both of you. And to your entire team, you learned incredible skills. You learned how to work as a team. You got exposure at a larger scale than kids your age often ever get. So I am just so excited that you guys got off the smartphones and got on the bench and. And started taking. Virtually taking Windows Boxes and Cisco's routers and everything else apart. That's phenomenal, Phil. We want to plug this for other teachers, lots of other tech teachers who may not be getting teams together, participating in this. Why should they?

[D]

I think it's really like getting that experiential learning kind of side of things. It can tie into curricular content as well. It could actually. And I'm pretty sure that this is what happened at satek. It be run as part of the course. If you're teaching a networking course or another sort of IT course that we've got. And then there's a lot of resources that you could use that come out of this as well. So not just what the students learn themselves and then teach back to you, or you learn by observing these organizations, both ICTC and Psychopatrian, publish a lot of materials that are really helpful for getting teams started, getting training going, how to. How it all works and things like that. So it really has the benefit to enhancing a program if you're running a program or enhancing your course if you know, especially for the recent curriculum changes that have cybersecurity as part of the grade 10 computer studies course. Now. That's what I did when we. When they did that change. I just brought some of the cybertitan stuff into my regular classes. So it gives you a lot of kind of new, new exciting things that you can do.

[A]

Right.

[D]

Like I. I had a lot more options and delivering classes and I gained knowledge too, because of seeing them what they were able to teach themselves or Learn from somewhere else.

[A]

Amazing, Tim. I guess I am going to turn to you next and say, why should teachers get involved?

[B]

A couple of things happened to me. First of all, we weren't involved with Cisco's Networking Academy. And when you become a cyber titan, you automatically get access to all of that training material. And once we got in there and realized what was in there, that got integrated into our curriculum 9 to 12, it's piles of free material. It's crazy in our case as well. In 2019, 2018, we went to the national finals and there were a lot of boys there. I think there were three girls out of 80 students. And I was standing next to the VP, Sandra, who was running it at the time, and she said under her breath, where are all the girls? So I went back, found my junior girls and said, let's make an all female team. And we were the first all female team to go to the national finals in 2019. Because of that, Cisco got all excited about that and said, would you like to learn CCNA soccer operations instructor? Would you like to go through the training for them? And I didn't even know that was a possibility. I hadn't done an IT cert in 10 years, so I was like, yeah, I would love to. So I started my CCNA journey there as well. So as a teacher, it also offered me training and I got all of those opportunities too. And it's just, it's. You get closer, you get buried alive in material. If you're thinking, how can I teach it? How can I teach all of the stuff we're on all the time, this is the way to do it. Because cybersecurity shows you how to color outside the lines. And if you're building a network, I worked in IT for a long time, just building networks. And of course security is always on your mind, but when you're building it, you're building it, but when you start to see how it could be compromised, it's a completely different mindset. And that's really cool because you'll build better networks. So yeah, it's the material for me as a teacher and we integrated that into everything. It expanded my program, we got more students in it, we had way more girls involved. After the girls team did so well, it basically almost balanced our classes out, so we actually had good senile representation.

[A]

So what I'm hearing here is if we make the effort, if we build the pipeline, the talent will, will emerge.

[B]

It's out there. Yeah. And it's waiting for. And in a lot of cases, A lot of times when we were doing this, students would be saying, I'm teaching myself this at home. And I'm like, let's see if we can make a program. So our game design program, I had two kids come in and said, we're teaching ourselves Unity and blender at home. So we ended up making a game design program out of that. And then I had kids coming in saying, I'm teaching myself hacking at home. In some cases, we had the OPP come in with a kid who's not allowed to touch computers in the school and say, can you put him on Cybertitan? And when we did that, the kid is now working in cybersecurity. So instead of wandering into the weeds and getting into all sorts of trouble self hacking, here's your pathway. It's. It could be life changing. And I've seen that happen again and again.

[A]

That's phenomenal. And for listeners, the OPP is the Ontario Provincial Police and they have a fantastic cyber team. And I am just so pleased that they redirected talent, seeing talent towards something more positive. And that's often something that gets overlooked and how much that it takes a village to raise cyber talent. And sometimes we gotta create those. I know we're getting close for time, but I want to talk a little bit more about this idea of. We talked about that reverse order. It's you go into Cyber Patriot and then we harvest from Cyber Patriot and then we have Cyber Titan here in Canada. But I get the sense, Tim, that and maybe Sheena, that there's a desire to do more here. Why is that important?

[B]

What does that do? 2020 rolled around. Covid locked everything down. Skills Ontario shut everything down. So we do a lot of Skills Ontario too. And all of those kids got sidelined. They didn't get to do their competition that year. And Sheena called and says, we've been talking to Field Effect in Ottawa. We have a cloud based cyber range you can pop on there. It's the same, but you don't have to download anything. It can all work through a browser. And this is an individual virtual machines, but they can hang the whole network up there. So the active directory is live. It's a much more complicated system, much more real world. So our Cyber Times in 2020 when everybody was just miserable, my wife and I rode around to all the kids houses because most of them didn't have computers at all and dropped off a computer from my lab for them so they could compete at their houses in lockdown. So you want flexibility. That's what we did in Cincinnati and Field Effects Cyber Range has been what we do our training on and all of the national fantastic partner and so we need.

[A]

What I'm hearing is we need more partners like Field Effect, more Canadian it, cybersecurity, private sector, even public sector to participate if we want to build our own infrastructure. So this isn't like a, it's not an us them thing with cyberpatriot. It's more we can build up as a country and then potentially what I'm hearing is innovate and push the envelope and maybe someday cyber patriots going to turn to Cyber Titan and go wow, that Field Effect Cyber Range idea, that's where we need to go next. I love that it's a little bit of friendly competition as we evolve the game. So does that make sense?

[B]

Yeah. I've been talking to Cyber Rangers across the country. There's another one at University of Calgary I've talked to and various other ones. What I would love to see is each round of cybertight and happening on a different range. So no one's like everyone's platform agnostic. They're learning in different systems with different priorities. And then we get to the national finals and Field Effect stands up what they've always done for us and does a great job. But if we can evolve into that cloud based range, it gives us the opportunity to put just in real world simulation situations and the technology is there. You know this from working on the industry side. But Cyberpatriot is still emailing VMs to people and that's fine. And they've been around forever. In fairness, they started in the early 2000s and that was the state of the art. But we really need to push it out so that we're showing people live networks and then they're working in what feels like a live fire environment. And Canada has that. We've got it across the country. All we need to do is connect everyone together, get us all out of our little regional silos and just do this for the good of everybody.

[A]

No, that, that sounds like a great call to action. Sheena, what's. What would you love to see in the next four years, by 2030, where would you love to see the program be?

[F]

I would love to see it be fully Canadian and then have regionals. So if we could bring the teams together, have different regional streams and then that's what produces the finals. That's who brings the teams together in the end. I'd love to see more girls represented and other underrepresented youth. We've had some indigenous teams in the past. I would love to see that better represented the full what Canada actually, actually is. I'd love to see it and all provinces and territories because as with the Cyber Patriot or, sorry, the cyber range, you can, you could do it in the different territories. It's not as heck heavy because you need Internet, yes, you need decent Internet, but still it has the ability to reach other rural areas that we haven't in the past.

[A]

It's interesting because as we talk about this new era of global geopolitical instability, protecting the north is going to involve protecting cyber infrastructure. We've had territorial governments, unfortunately, that have been hacked. So there's a need for those resources. I just want to say thank you, all of you, for what a great way to start my day. And I am envious. Tina, Sheena, Phil, I am truly jealous that you get to work with students like Faye and Eric and I can only imagine the entire crew, but just how much fun that would be. I'm sure there's lots of work, how much fun that is. So thank you so much for spending an hour or so with us today and helping our listeners around the world learn about these middle school, high school cyber competitions, the impact they can have, how they can close the gap, the cyber talent gender gap, how we could be accessing more diverse talent, how we could be helping kids who maybe learn the hack in the wrong way get on the right path and how we can build a more secure future. Eric Fay, the world truly is your oyster. If you're this involved in high school, which, honest, I was not, I missed that boat. Thankfully I had the army got me sorted out after I left high school and I got on the right track professionally. But you both are on the right track and it is so much fun to meet both of you. I can't wait to see where you go in your careers.

[C]

Thank you. It was really lovely talking to you all.

[A]

Awesome. Eric, tell your parents to call me. You're owed at least a bubble tea pizza party. Some kind of a celebration. We'll get that sorted out. And if your other team members did not get a celebration, I want to hear. Let's say it's email David, it's. I will compulsory use shame to shame parents into celebrating the successes and if they don't, we'll post around.

[D]

We'll figure something out.

[A]

Thank you so much, all of you. Have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll catch you around and I will stay far more plugged in. Maybe we will. Maybe we'll do a revisit for next year and find out who made it from the Cyber Patriot side into Cyber Titans. And maybe we can have a little bit of that sports culture, the college, high school sports culture that the United States is so famous for. We can start injecting some of that and then create some cyber celebrities. Who knows?

[D]

We'll see where it goes.

[A]

Thank you all. Have a wonderful rest of your day.

[F]

Thank you.

[E]

Thank you.

[C]

Thank you.

[A]

Take care. We'll catch you around.

[D]

Thank you for having us.

[C]

Thank you. You have a great day.

[F]

Cheers, everybody.