Middle Schoolers Compete In Cyber Tournament Finals

FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) — The Cyber Madness Middle School Tournament Finals started this morning with six teams and five middle schools competing for who can be the winning champions.

“They’re learning how to do encryption and decryption. They’re learning about network activity other sorts of things that really adult professionals do. But really we got them involved in challenges to create a game around all of that. And as they complete those challenges they score points,” said John Gieser, North Dakota K-12 IT Strategist.

The tournament brings together students of all experience levels in cyber security.

“I have a lot of students that say I’m not good at coding and I always tell them you might be bad at coding, but you might be good at this. And you might be better at it than you think,” said Andrea Leier, Library Media Specialist and Coach at Napoleon Public School.

While this is a competition for the students, the lessons they learn will take them into what they may do in the future.

“We want to make sure that North Dakota is seen as a place if you want high quality workforce, if you want business opportunities they are going to have people that are going to be able to capitalize on that. This is how we’re going to do that,” said Gieser.

The leading teams will be awarded scholarships that will be given to each member of the team. While they are only in middle school and far away from going to college North Dakota has given a plan to save that money for down the line.

While the middle school tournament just concluded today, the high school virtual tournament begins January 16th.