40 take part in CyberCenturion competition

The first qualifying round of the CyberCenturion competition took place at the University of Gibraltar last Friday, with eight teams taking part.

Some of the teams are divided into schools, Bayside and Westside, but one team is mixed gender with a brother and sister who are being joined by their friends.

Running the qualifying round was Head of Physics at Bayside secondary school, Stewart Harrison.

“It’s much bigger this year,” he said of the local interest.

“We [a team from Bayside] won [the UK-wide event] last year and the competition got a lot of exposure, so more people are saying this looks like a cool thing to do and as a result more people signed up.”

There are 40 students taking part, in fact, so many that Mr Harrison’s lab has become too small to conduct the competition and the University stepped in to assist.

The top ten or twelve teams with the most points attained over the three qualifying rounds will go on to compete in the grand finals in Bletchley Park, next year.

Bayside team ‘G-Sec’ beat teams from schools across the UK at a gruelling contest held at The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park, UK, last year.

Last year, almost two teams from Gibraltar got through to the finals Mr Harrison said.

This year he hopes that this can be achieved, and he also hopes that: “we get a girls team across, I want the girls teams to get the mark and actually go to Bletchley, that would be a great success.”

The event started at 2pm and finished at 8pm, the eight teams were competing at the same time students all across the UK in over 100 other teams.

Some of the students taking part are also studying for their City and Guilds in Cybersecurity.