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ST. CROIX — Virgin Islands Department of Education St. Croix District Technology Coordinator Everett A. Ryan, Ph.D., announced on Monday that four teams of students in the school district will participate for the first time in the upcoming CyberPatriot — The National Youth Cyber Education Program competition.

“I’m taking this opportunity to congratulate Mr. Gregory Christian of the Career and Technical Education Center (CTEC) for registering the teams,” Dr. Ryan said. “Under the direction and tutelage of Mr. Christian, each team is aggressively preparing for round one of the competition.”

The local teams will begin participating in the first round of the cyber defense online competition on Monday, November 14 in CTEC’s Rooms J 104 and J 108.

Christian, an electronics and computer programming instructor at CTEC, is ecstatic and confident about his teams’ participation in CyberPatriot, which was created to motivate students toward careers in cybersecurity and other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. “We will be successful,” he said at the school recently where students, parents, coaches and mentors gathered. “This competition is not only fun and exciting, it also creates a career path for today’s students, fostering continued education from high school through college and into the beginning of their careers.”

Coach Christian CyberPatriot teams’ members are joined by school officials, from left to right, Keisha Roberts (CHS Guidance Counselor), Sharon Cannon (CHS Guidance Counselor), Joanne Murphy (CTEC Coordinator), Myrl Hendricks (CTEC Principal), Janasee Sinclair (CHS Principal), Gregory Christian (CyberPatriot Coach) and Laverne Stout (CyberPatriot Mentor).

The only requirements for participation were student interest and parental involvement. This is the first time Virgin Islands public schools are involved in the nine-year-old cybersecurity competition; Antilles School on St. Thomas has participated in previous years. “This is CTEC’s first of many upcoming initiatives to provide 21^st Century STEM training and certifications,” Christian said. “We also want to expand our CyberPatriot participation to include the junior high schools.”

Participants in this year’s competition include students from the St. Croix Educational Complex Career and Technical Education Center, St. Croix Central High School and St. Joseph’s High School.

Mr. Christian serves as coach for three Virgin Islands CyberPatriot teams and Laverne Stout is the teams’ mentor.

Mr. Christian’s teams and members are as follows:

Team 1:

Jhaleek Christian (St. Joseph’s High School)
Akyem Prince (St. Croix Educational Complex (SCEC)
Zareik O’ Farrell Williams (St. Croix Educational Complex)

Team 2:

Giovane Barnes (St. Croix Central High)
Alexia Adams (St. Croix Central High)
Joshua Ramsundar (St. Croix Central High)

Team 3:

Sherville Huggins (St. Croix Educational Complex)
Lance Frank (St. Croix Educational Complex)
Derwyn Austrie (St. Croix Educational Complex)
Jayme Colbert-Williams (St. Croix Central High)

CTEC’s teacher Ms. Colleen Clarke coaches a team of four young ladies from the Educational Complex named The Island Defenders. Team members are DaRe’one Christopher, Kailee Clarke, Gelisa Evans and Mikaela Smith.

According to information gathered from the program’s website, “At the center of CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Defense competition, which puts teams of high school and middle school students in the position of newly hired Information Technology (IT) professionals tasked with managing the computer network of a small company. In the rounds of competition, teams are given a set of virtual images that represent operating systems and are tasked with finding cybersecurity vulnerabilities within the images and hardening the system while maintaining critical services in a six-hour period. Teams compete for the top placement within their state and region, and the top teams in the nation earn all-expenses paid trips to Baltimore, Md. for the National Finals Competition, where they can earn national recognition and scholarship money.”

Following is the CyberPatriot IX Competition Timeline:

Qualification Round 1 — November 11-14, 2016
Qualification Round 2 — December 9-11, 2016
State Rounds / Round — January 13-15, 2017
Regional/Category/Semifinal Rounds — February 3-5, 2017
National Finals Practice Round — March 7-17, 2017
National Finals Competition (Baltimore, MD) — April 2-6, 2017.

CyberPatriot was established by the Air Force Association. The Northrop Grumman Foundation is the Presenting Sponsor for CyberPatriot IX.

For more information on the Virgin Islands CyberPatriot teams and activities, please contact Mr. Christian at 340-778-2216.

Feature Image: From left, Jayme Colbert-Williams (CHS), Alexia Adams (CHS), Joshua Ramsundar (CHS), Michaela Smith (SCEC), Jhaleek Christian (St. Joseph High School), Sherville Huggins (SCEC), Derwyn Austrie (SCEC), Giovane Barnes (CHS), Akyem Prince (SCEC) and Zareik O’ Farrell Williams (CHS). (Credit: D.O.E.)