TOWSON, MD—Teams from Eastern Technical High School earned first and third places at the CYBERQUEST® competition held in Hanover, MD on Saturday, March 4th.

CYBERQUEST® is Lockheed Martin’s annual high school cyber competition held at locations across the nation as well as in Australia and the United Kingdom. The goal of the competition is to encourage high school students to pursue careers in cybersecurity. During the three-hour competition, student teams solve challenges created by Lockheed Martin cybersecurity engineers.

The Neckbeards Team, which placed first, is comprised of seniors Nathaniel Cowan, Kendal Dorsey, Alexander Gallagher, and Kenneth Warren, and sophomore Vishal Mehta. The Aantavirus Team, which placed third, is comprised of seniors Teluge “Ben” Bazarsuren, Noah Duncan, Emma J. Popoko, Fatou Sonko, and Lana Vu. All students are in the information technology/networking magnet program except Duncan, who is in the interactive media production program, and Bazarsuren, who is in the engineering careers program. Both teams are coached by Azarang S. Edris, a Cisco networking/cybersecurity teacher at Eastern Tech and a Cisco-certified network associate.

In recognition of their achievements, the Eastern Tech students on the winning teams are now eligible for internships at Lockheed Martin as well as the Lockheed Martin STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) scholarship, which pays $10,000 per year for four years.

This year’s CYBERQUEST® competition in Hanover involved 111 teams from 73 schools competing either in person or virtually.

Eastern Tech was the only BCPS school to compete in CYBERQUEST®, and later this month, it will also complete in the Air Force Association CyberPatriot competition.