News and Awards

Our campus hosts an annual CyberPatriot (https://www.uscyberpatriot.org/) Standard and Advanced Cyber Camp for high school students every Summer. CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Education Program created by the Air & Space Forces Association to teach students how to protect themselves online and inspire K-12 students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines critical to our nation's future. There is a Standard Camp for first time students and the Advanced Camp for the students who already participated in the Standard Camp. Each camp lasts for one week and ends with the students competing in a cyber competition that involves all the material they learned that week. The program is designed to encourage cyber-savvy volunteers to give back to their communities. Multiple RCC students in the Cyber Defense program volunteer for both camps.

Beginning in 2020, the RCC Cyber Defense Program began hosting a Girl Scout Badge Day where local girl scouts would come in and learn about cybersecurity. They were taught about net safety, cracking codes and passwords, multifactor authentication, and different types of cyber-attacks. This was done by student-led lectures and hands on activities and games. At the end of the day after completing the activities, the girl scouts would earn their cyber badge.

Every year, the Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) National Organization hosts an annual conference where members gather and are given access to workshops, speakers, and a career fair filled with hundreds of companies, organizations, and government agencies. Our Women in Cybersecurity (WiCyS) Student Chapter Club has been attending the conference since 2020 and each time brings back valuable information to their members about potential internships and other resources.

Here you can find local cybersecurity conferences for students and community members.

• Cybersecurity Summit – The Official Cybersecurity Summit events are held in 25+ major cities across the United States. The Cybersecurity Summit also produces Virtual Industry-Specific Summits which discuss the latest cyber threats related to Healthcare, Finance & Banking, Education, and Critical Infrastructure. Each summit features interactive panel discussions & security keynotes led by experts from top government agencies including the FBI, U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security, CISA, U.S. Dept. of Justice, CIA, NSA, The U.S. Secret Service & more. The latest cutting-edge technologies used to protect against cyber-attacks are showcased through demonstrations in our Exhibition Hall by leading security solution providers. Check out their upcoming events!
• The NICE K12 Cybersecurity Education Conference – The Annual NICE K12 Cybersecurity Education Conference, supported by the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), and hosted by iKeepSafe, features timely and thought-provoking presentations that highlight effective collaborations, bold experiments and innovations, and other potentially game-changing methods in support of growing the cybersecurity workforce. Attendees include training and educational leaders from academia, business, and government for two days of focused keynotes, panels, concurrent sessions, and discussions in support of the NICE Strategic Plan.