CDCA Awards $10,000 in Prizes and Scholarships

CHARLESTON, SC – December 9, 2016 – The Charleston Defense Contractors Association (CDCA), a non-profit advocacy group for the defense industry in the Charleston metro area, today announced the winners of its 6th Annual Student Mobile App Competition at the organizations 10th annual C5ISR Summit, which set a record in attendance of more than 1300 defense industry professionals and leading technology organizations, which sponsored the show. The focus of the Mobile App Competition was to stimulate creative thinking and promote the entrepreneurial spirit while offering development support, marketing expertise, mentorship, and guidance for the participating students. The CDCA Mobile App Competition was open for participation to all Middle School, High School and full-time, undergraduate and graduate college students and focused on three different target areas – safety, quality of life and financial. The competition was sponsored by Microsoft.

This year’s college student winners are:

1st Place – DeJean Dunbar, Charleston Southern University, ‘Tag It’ project
2nd Place – John Jones Jr., Chattanooga State Community College, ‘Insure Me’ project
3rd Place – Gerald Vanloo, Morehouse College, ‘Protect My House’ project

This year’s middle school student winners are:

1st Place – Caleb Henry, Ladys Island Middle School, ‘Bus Checker’ project
2nd Place – Autumn Greenleaf, Westview Middle School, ‘GPS Alert & Lock’ project

“For 14 years, the CDCA has been dedicated to driving and preserving the defense industry influence and presence in Charleston,” said Joshua Hatter, Vice President, PR Chair, CDCA and senior manager of marketing and business development for General Dynamics. “We had the toughest competition we’ve ever had and are very pleased with the diversity and innovation of the Mobile App entries this year. This competition is a great way for students to foster their creativity and it also provides a platform for many to find and follow career paths. As in year’s past, we’re hopeful that this year’s winners will be offered jobs and scholarships because of the exposure they gained from having their apps featured at the C5ISR summit in Charleston.”

The CDCA also held a Hack Warz competition at the C5ISR summit this week, where teams of government and industry veterans battled against each other in a capture the flag type of event and earned tokens (flags) based on hacking into several compromised systems. Tokens were valued by difficulty and skill set required. This year’s winners include:

Top 3 Individuals (handle, name, team, company, points):

slimm609 – Brian Davis – badgerdeathmode - “badgerdeathmode”
_hap – Bryan Rhodes – 0commas - Securifera
b0yd – Ryan Wincey – 0commas – Securifera

Top 3 Teams (team name, company, points):

Badgerdeathmode – CACI
0commas – Securifera
Parsons – Parsons Security