Four undergraduate students from the Texas A&M University College of Engineering were part of a team that placed third at the 2020 Cybersecurity Challenge, organized by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE).
The competition, which took place during the virtual SHPE National Convention and included 18 teams with 64 total competitors, was a capture-the-flag exercise sponsored by the National Security Administration. SHPE’s Cybersecurity Challenge focused on empowering the next generation of cyber operators throughout the country to “build our tomorrow together.”
The team consisted of Jonathan Gaytan ’22 (computer science), Abraham Sanchez ’22 (computer science), Alexander Gomez ’22 (aerospace engineering), Jonathan Saenz ’21 (computer engineering) and Francisco Rangel ‘22, a computer engineering student at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
The third-place ranking earned the team a $750 prize. Saenz expressed that he is very optimistic about the future of this team.
“Our team was really young compared to the first- and second-place teams,” he said. “They had graduate students on their teams. Overall, it was a great competition and next year we will be better. We learned a lot.”