GenCyber Warrior Academy

GenCyber Warrior Academy - 2022A GenCyber Summer Camp

(This event is now past, but may return in Summer 2024)

Are you thrilled by computer science? Considering a career in cyber operations or security?

Join us for an exciting six-day learning experience led by the highly-qualified professors from the University of North Georgia!

The GenCyber Warrior Academy (GCWA) summer camp is a six-day, residential cyber academy with pre-camp and post-camp virtual activities for area high school students at the University of North Georgia’s (��) Dahlonega Campus. The camp is scheduled for June 5-11, 2022.

The mission of the GCWA is to inspire the next generation of cyber operations and cybersecurity professionals in the north Georgia region.

Housed at The Military College of Georgia and one of six Senior Military Colleges in the nation, ��’s GCWA program will prepare students for military, federal service and civilian cybersecurity career paths with an emphasis on personal, organizational and national cybersecurity awareness and ethical cyber operations training in a six-day, residential cyber camp plus pre-camp and post-camp virtual/online activities.

The 2022 GenCyber program includes 30+ hours of residential, on-site instruction at the Dahlonega campus from June 5-11, 2022, plus 16-20 hours of pre-camp and post-camp virtual cyber enrichment activities, culminating with free attendance at the Hacker Halted 2022 conference in Atlanta in October. Students will participate in hands-on labs in learner-centered classrooms using the Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) iLabs curriculum. The standards-based content will reinforce the six GenCyber Cybersecurity Concepts (Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability, Thinking like an Adversary, Defense in Depth, and Keeping It Simple) through activities and lab exercises. In addition to lab exercises, students will participate in extension activities involving coding in Python, Drone programming, cryptography, 3D printing, car hacking and capture-the-flag and red-team/blue-team events.

The mix of mini-lectures, hands-on labs, mid-day get-up-and-move extension activities and evening team-building and CTF events will engage learners using multiple modalities. Daily scrum presentations, Q&A and student presentations of various hacking exercises and the GenCyber Cybersecurity Concepts will help students take active ownership of their learning experiences.

Daily physical activity and teambuilding are part of the program.

Application Deadline:

January 31, 2022

-Application Closed- Download the 2022 Brochure (PDF)

Why at ��?

The GCWA is a collaboration of the Institute for Cyber Operations Education, the Institute for Leadership and Strategic Studies, and the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems at ��.

What's the Cost?

Free. The GenCyber Warrior Academy is funded by a grant from GenCyber.

Who May Participate and What Are the Requirements?

U.S. high school students who will be sophomores, juniors or seniors in fall 2022.
Priority consideration will be given to students who have studied a strategic language (such as Arabic, Farsi, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) in school or elsewhere.
Priority consideration also will be given to students who have demonstrated high aptitude and achievement in high school math and/or computer science courses (>3.5 GPA in Math/CS courses), or who have participated in computer-related extracurricular activities (e.g. computer programming, robotics or cyber competition team membership, etc.).

Contact Information

Kimberly Bruner
Administrative Assistant IV
82 College Circle
Chestatee Building, 231A
Dahlonega, GA 30597
706-867-2189
kimberly.bruner@ung.edu

Course Instructors

Bryson R. Payne, Ph.D., GPEN, CEH, CISSP®

Tamirat Abegaz, Ph.D., GCIH, CEH, Security+

Mingyuan Yan, Ph.D., Master’s in Information Security

Ahmad Ghafarian, Ph.D., Professor of Computer Science

Abi Salimi, Assistant Professor of Computer Science

Participant Testimonial

"Thank you for guiding the 2019 GenCyber Warriors during the summer and capturing our interest in the cyber security. Before the camp, I was uncertain about entering cyber security, but after meeting professionals, learning to use Kali Linux and interacting as a team, I am definitely considering cyber security as a field to join. Thank you for making the camp an amazing experience for all of us.”