Next-Gen Cyber Guardians: Yubico Empowers Youth-Led Hackathons To Secure The Future

Thursday, 1 May 2025, 9:50 am
Press Release: Yubico

Yubico-sponsored youth-led hackathons around the world foster collaboration, innovation, and hands-on cybersecurity experience for the next generation of cyber leaders

In an era marked by escalating cyber threats, Yubico (NASDAQ STOCKHOLM: YUBICO), the leading provider of hardware authentication security keys, is proud to empower the future of cybersecurity leaders by recently providing YubiKeys to over 20 youth-led hackathons and tech events through its Secure It Forward program.

Investing in youth-led organisations that run hackathons is a vital step for cybersecurity companies committed to fostering the next generation of security experts. Especially critical today in the ever-evolving security threat landscape, these events not only provide young innovators with hands-on experience in tackling real-world cyber threats but also help drive innovation, promote ethical hacking, and strengthen global efforts to secure the internet for businesses, individuals, and communities alike.

“As we see cyber threats continue to rise globally, it’s more important than ever to equip the next generation of leaders with the tools and support they need to secure the future,” said Ronnie Manning, chief brand advocate at Yubico. “Since day one, our mission at Yubico has been to make the internet safer for everyone - not just through innovation and advancing open standards, but by investing in real-world experiences for young minds to grow, learn and lead in cybersecurity.”

Over the last ten months, Yubico has proudly supported the following organisations around the world, including:

• Scrapyard Sydney – Australia
• BuildingBloCS - Singapore
• Hackclub Vidisha - India
• Future Computing - US
• Hell Robotics - Norway
• MAS Hacks - US
• Scrapyard Bristol - UK
• Scrapyard London - UK
• Scrapyard NoVA - US
• Scrapyard Silicon Valley - US
• Swedish National Hacking Team - Sweden
• University of Texas at Dallas - US

The organiser of Scrapyard Sydney believes that the city is severely underrepresented in terms of opportunities for teens in tech, with a notable lack of resources available pre-university. Scrapyard Sydney is the largest high-school hackathon in Sydney, with over 300 participants.

BuildingBloCS has been organising free technology conferences and hackathons for Singapore youths aged 13 to 17 since 2017. It hosted a youth hackathon in March, for which Yubico donated YubiKeys as prizes for the winning teams at the hackathon.

HackClub Vidisha is organising a 24-hour hackathon for teenagers in Vidisha, India, with YubiKeys being given out as prizes. Over 160 teens participated in last year’s event, and this year, a cybersecurity workshop will be held in collaboration with the local police department.

Formalised in 2021, Yubico’s Secure it Forward program was established to provide security keys to help those most at-risk, donating them to non-profit organisations, election campaigns, journalists, hackathons, and humanitarian workers around the world. Yubico has donated over 65,000 YubiKeys to hundreds of organisations in over 20 countries, including: The Civil Rights Defenders, The Anti-Defamation League, Freedom of the Press, and Defending Digital Campaigns.

“Yubico’s commitment to supporting nonprofit organisations such as Scrapyard Sydney, BuildingBloCS Singapore, Hackclub, India, reflects the company’s ongoing dedication to strengthening the cybersecurity ecosystem by nurturing young talent and encouraging a passion for problem-solving and innovation,” said Geoff Schomburgk, Vice President for Asia Pacific at Yubico.

Yubico’s support spans multiple youth hackathon events throughout the year, offering opportunities for high school and college students to gain hands-on experience in building secure systems and tackling real-world cybersecurity challenges.

For more information about Yubico’s Secure it Forward program, please see here.

Notes

For b-roll video to go with this story, see here. At 2.47 in this video, Dhyan Tanna, the 15-year-old organiser of Scrapyard Sydney, speaks about the successful events he runs in Australia.

About Yubico

Yubico (Nasdaq Stockholm: YUBICO), the inventor of the YubiKey, offers the gold standard for phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication (MFA), stopping account takeovers in their tracks and making secure login easy and available for everyone. Since the company was founded in 2007, it has been a leader in setting global standards for secure access to computers, mobile devices, servers, browsers, and internet accounts. Yubico is a creator and core contributor to the FIDO2, WebAuthn, and FIDO Universal 2nd Factor (U2F) open authentication standards, and is a pioneer in delivering hardware-based passwordless authentication using the highest assurance passkeys to customers in 160+ countries.

Yubico’s solutions enable passwordless logins using the most secure form of passkey technology. YubiKeys work out-of-the-box across hundreds of consumer and enterprise applications and services, delivering strong security with a fast and easy experience.

As part of its mission to make the internet more secure for everyone, Yubico donates YubiKeys to organisations helping at-risk individuals through the philanthropic initiative, Secure it Forward. The company is headquartered in Stockholm and Santa Clara, CA. For more information on Yubico, visit us at www.yubico.com.

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