VIMSIA GIRLS GO CYBERSTART TEAM EARNS 1000 POINTS

The VIMSIA Girls Go CyberStart team competed Wednesday and Thursday in the national championships of the Girls Go CyberStart online cybersecurity competition.  The competition lasted a grueling 36 hours.  Yes, the team did take time to sleep!  Our team worked together, stayed in touch via text and Zoom, and learned so much through the process. A growth mind-set was definitely needed, and the team never gave up. 

As a first year team going to the national championships, we knew we would be up against difficult, unfamiliar challenges.  The team had to work hard for every point, applying deep thinking and creativity to solve the problems.  They earned 1000 points!  Results are unofficial until next week, but we will place closer to the middle of the pack than the top ten. Of course, just making it to any national level championship is an immense feat.  We are very proud of this team!

Next year we will be able to bring a more experienced group to this competition, and our goals will be high.

VIMSIA will also be fielding Middle and High School teams in a different online competition coming up next weekend - InteGirls.  This one involves solving online puzzles and will be challenging.  It is also an opportunity to learn a lot and build team relationships.  You can learn more about the InteGirls competition here:  www.integirls.org

Feel free to contact Mrs. Hoffart (rhoffart@vimsia.org) or Ms. Petrich (mpetrich@vimsia.org) for more information about InteGirls.

VIMSIA TEAM COMPETES IN NATIONAL CYBER-SECURITY COMPETITION

Four VIMSIA students have been hard at work to complete the challenges and requirements to compete in the Girls Go CyberStart national online cybersecurity competition. Out of 15,652 young women registered for the competition VIMSIA’s team is one of the 300 teams that qualified for the national championship level. Team members Lindsay Barr, Rosalie Faulkner, Mireille Boumedine and Vidhika Khemani along with their advisor Rebecca Hoffart began meeting in February and have been meeting via Zoom since VIMSIA’s campus closed on March 13th.

Girls Go CyberStart is a program of SANS Institute, a non-profit organization which provides premiere cybersecurity training. Teams of high school girls from all over the country compete in a completely online competition, solving challenges in various areas relevant to cybersecurity:  programming, web insecurities, cryptography, etc.

You can find out more about the competition here: https://girlsgocyberstart.org/

The national championship will be held online May 20-21. Advisor Rebecca Hoffart says, “Competition will be unbelievably tough.  It's a great chance for the team members to test their skills, think outside the box and try some creative techniques to solve the challenges that will be real brain breakers.  As a first-year team, we will learn as much as we can and do the best we can. I am ridiculously proud of them and ridiculously proud to be their advisor in this competition.”

VIMSIA is proud of this team of young women. Lindsay, Rosalie, Mireille, and Vidhika are competing against elite high schools with long-established, top-notch computer science programs.  They have put in hard work and creativity to get this far in the competition and that is a huge accomplishment.