For the second time in a row, SPU’s Dumela team has taken second prize in a national hackathon competition with a score of 82% from the judges.
Dumela was one of the three teams from Kimberley which competed against 12 other teams from across the country in the Security Summit 2019 Hackathon (SS19Hack) which took place in Johannesburg.
The provincial invites to the hackathon are extended by the Northern Cape Department of Economic Development and Tourism (DEDAT) in collaboration with NCDev Ecosystem and SPU.
The aim of the competition is to help address the national crisis of a shortage of cybersecurity skills capacity in the country.
Its main objectives are to:
• Introduce young tech talent into information security.
• Get young talent to build with security in mind.
• Connect hackathon participants with the summit delegates.
• Identify and pursue InfoSec inclined tech talent for hire.
• Showcase and build skills capacity in the summit’s climate.
This year’s theme – Protecting the Digital Citizen in the 4th Industrial Revolution – encouraged participants to develop risk-mitigated solutions that address vulnerabilities found within cyberspace based on specific sectors such as the government, primary healthcare, home consumer solutions (IOT), enterprise building access, and digital education.
SPU’s Dumela Team developed a highly secure messaging and file-sharing application that will encrypt messages and data in transmission by embedding confidential information inside multimedia files, usage of the application is aimed at the government departments, academic institutions and national intelligence.
