CyberPeace Foundation announces the launch of Global CyberPeace Challenge 2020 along with Palo Alto Networks, Tech Accord, SANS, Kaspersky to name a few.
Today, CyberPeace Foundation (CPF) announced the second edition of The Global CyberPeace Challenge (GCC) {formerly known as Global Cyber Challenge}. Global CyberPeace challenge is a journey to recognize and award young talent, promote digital skills and leadership and to innovate technology-enabled solutions to some urgent socio-economic challenges. The objective of the challenge is to add value to the discourse on CyberPeace across the globe by tapping on the collective intellect of participants from multiple disciplines to solve real-world problems related to cyberspace.
The inaugural edition of GCC was organized in 2017 as a run-up event of the fifth edition of Global Conference on Cyber Space (GCCS) 2017 which was hosted in India. This was organized by CyberPeace Foundation in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India and Policy Perspectives Foundation. Other supporters of GCC 1.0 included NCIIPC, MyGov, ICANN, ISOC, APNIC, UNICEF, GIZ, Palo Alto Networks, YourStory, SBI, IAMAI to name a few.
The GCC witnessed immense response with participation from more than 50 countries and 2000+ individuals across the world
The Hon’ble Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi graced the inaugural event, blessed and handed over the prizes to the winners, accompanied by the Hon’ble Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Shri Ranil Wickremesinghe and Secretary-General of ITU, Mr. Houlin Zhao. The stage was also shared by the then IT and Law Minister of India Shri Ravishankar Prasad along with other Union Ministers of India.
The second edition of Global CyberPeace Challenge will be an all-virtual series of competitions, workshops and dialogues organized over a course of 5 months, starting October 2020. The challenges comprise three individual tracks: Cyber Policy & Strategy Challenge, Peace-a-Thon: The innovation challenge, and Capture the Flag (CTF). The Global CyberPeace Challenge, designed to promote the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to solve socio-economic issues, is open to individuals from any background.
CyberPeace Foundation expects participation from over 50,000 individuals from across the world. The theme of this year’s Global CyberPeace Challenge is “Hack4CyberPeace”. The competition will help to create a platform for young talented minds to create innovative solutions to promote peace in cyberspace solving the crucial Techno-Social issues. This year the participants will have a chance to win prizes and goodies worth US $30,000 (more than INR 20 lakhs).
Global CyberPeace Challenge will convene some of the world’s leading policymakers, executives, innovators and investors to explore how Cyberspace can be used for good.
For the GCC-CTF (IT) Challenge, CyberPeace Foundation has collaborated with Palo Alto Networks and The Hacking Lab. The Hacking Lab will design the CTF challenge with the support of Palo Alto Networks and CyberPeace Foundation for GCC 2.0.
For the GCC-CTF (OT) Challenge, CyberPeace Foundation has collaborated with SANS.org and VJTI. SANS.org will design the CTF (OT) challenge for the Grand Finale for GCC 2.0 and VJTI will design the challenges for elimination round.
Talking about the partnership, Vineet Kumar, Founder and President, CyberPeace Foundation, said, “The Global CyberPeace Challenge comes at a time when the whole world is in lockdowns and people have been forced to move online for most of their activities. This has put in front of us several days to day challenges at national and international levels.
The Global CyberPeace challenge is a step in that direction to help solve some of the most urgent “cyber” issues through collective resilience and collaboration while recognising and rewarding innovative solutions. We hope to reach out to all non-techies and techies in this endeavour to make cyberspace truly inclusive and trustworthy. ”
This year’s GCC will have an exciting new “Cyber Policy and Strategy Challenge”, a competitive scenario simulation exercise to respond to a realistic, evolving international cyber crisis. The focus of this simulation is to understand the policy and strategy challenges and responses associated with the management of trade-offs during a national cyber crisis. It will assess the cyber capabilities, responsibilities, policy and the current cyber-governance structure.
Engaging with civil society, industry, academia, and government to help grow the cybersecurity defence mechanism is crucial. The CyberPeace Foundation remains committed to helping make cyberspace safe, secure, and reliable for everyone.
“SANS Institute is proud to partner with the CyberPeace Foundation to empower current and future cybersecurity practitioners with training, education, certifications and resources to create a safer global community” – Jim Yacone, Chief of Mission, SANS Institute
“At the Cybersecurity Tech Accord, we promote an inclusive approach to protecting our internet ecosystem. The threats to cyberspace are evolving and we need fresh ideas to address them creatively. We have faith in the contribution that young talent can bring to this conversation and look forward to hearing from the Global Cyber Challenge’s participants about how we can move towards cyber peace,” – Annalaura Gallo, Cybersecurity Tech Accord spokesperson.