Islamabad, 21st March, 2023: Ignite National Technology Fund recognized and rewarded the winners of 2nd Digital Pakistan National Cybersecurity Competition which was concluded in December 2022.
The overwhelming response to the competition can be gauged from the fact that over 900 teams had registered for the Hackathon 2022 out of which over 300 teams were shortlisted through online filtering to participate in the regional qualifier rounds for Quetta, Peshawar, Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad.
Top 33 teams from these 5 regional qualifiers competed in the grand finale which was held on 17th December 2022 at COMSATS University, Islamabad. These competing teams solved computer security problems by capturing (attack/bring down) or defending computer systems and scoring most points for winning the challenge.
After the 12-hour long marathon grand finale, “Sudoers” emerged as the winning team while “Lexicans” were declared 1st runner-up and “SafeCottage” was 2nd runner-up. Cash awards of Rs. 1 million, 2 million, and 3 million were given to 2nd runner-up, 1st runner-up, and winner respectively.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Asim Shahryar Husain, CEO Ignite said that cybersecurity is a rapidly growing field with a shortage of 3-4 million cybersecurity professionals globally. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the rate of growth of jobs in information security is projected to be 29% by 2025 which is much faster than the average for all other occupations. He stated that Pakistan can take advantage of this opportunity through training its graduates and professionals in tools and technologies related to cybersecurity. He said that Ignite will launch month long trainings in cybersecurity in different cities this year to build the capacity of IT graduates in underserved cities before launching the nationwide hackathon. Goal is to increase the number of cybersecurity professionals in Pakistan through trainings and hackathons. CEO appreciated the efforts of team Ignite for organizing the marathon activity over 5-6 months.
