Teens use robots to learn cybersecurity

The age of recruiting for cybersecurity fields is now as young as 14, or at least that’s what the U.S. government is banking on.

Pace University received $161,000 in grant money from the National Security Agency and National Science Foundation to host a two-week cybersecurity training this summer called GenCyber for 25 high school teachers and 30 students. Last week the training was for teachers; this week was for students.

The program is meant to expose educators and soon-to-be college students to the importance of cybersecurity in an age where companies and government agencies are becoming more susceptible to computer hacking.

Pauline Mosley, a Pace professor and this week's training instructor, said students and educators should be learning about keeping information safe.

“What we’re teaching them is the importance of data and why data has to be protected," Mosley said. "And they’re learning the concepts, such as information hiding."

Students from five states were chosen from a pool of 130 applicants to participate in the program that requires the teens to work in teams to design and build remote-controlled water robots wired with a camera.

On Thursday, the students were showcasing their final robot products in the pond on Pace’s Pleasantville campus. They were separated into two groups: one, with a mission to find an encryption code located in the water; the other group, representing the hackers, were trying to keep them from the submerged code.

Emily Marais, a 14-year-old rising freshman at Tuckahoe High School, said she's always had an interest in science, but hadn’t really thought about cybersecurity until the camp.

“I thought it could be really fun and a great learning opportunity,” Marais said. “I learned how to encrypt and I learned about structural engineering, so I thought that was really cool because it wasn’t only cyber.”

The teacher program, which ran earlier this month and had educators from 10 states including New York, Texas, Colorado and Maryland, helped the educators learn how to incorporate cybersecurity concepts like encryption and coding into curricula.

Jose Latorre, a 15-year-old rising sophomore at Rye Neck High School, said he learned about the program from his geometry teacher who took the teacher version of the Pace cybersecurity class last year. Latorre said he was immediately interested when he found out about the camp.

“I like the teamwork activities; it’s very interactive and dynamic, you never get bored because you’re always functioning, you’re always doing a job,” he said. “I think it’s a job that has a very bright future because cyberattacks are being more frequent and this will be very useful.”