The Air Force Association’s CyberPatriot Program Office has announced the Fort Gordon Cyber District (Alliance for Cyber Education) as the CyberPatriot Center of Excellence of the Year for the second year in a row.
CyberPatriot, the nation’s largest youth cyber education program, is AFA’s flagship science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) initiative dedicated to strengthening cyber skills among American youth. The Center of Excellence designation is awarded to communities and institutions that provide leadership and support to further the educational experiences of their students through the CyberPatriot program.
Fort Gordon Cyber District / Alliance for Cyber Education was awarded the title of Center of Excellence in December of 2018 and has since grown even further its support to the program. The exceptional level of involvement across all areas of CyberPatriot made Fort Gordon stand out from other outstanding Centers of Excellence.
As a CyberPatriot Center of Excellence, the Fort Gordon Cyber District promotes the program across two states (Georgia and South Carolina) and seven counties to inspire K-12 students toward careers in cybersecurity. With the help of the Fort Gordon Adopt-a-School program, the number of registered CyberPatriot teams in the area has increased from six teams to over 120 teams.
In the past year, the Alliance for Cyber Education team conducted free CyberPatriot training for over 70 regional teachers held by and at the Georgia Cyber Center. It also held teacher and mentor training sessions prior to its two AFA CyberCamps. Students from 40 different schools participated in the camps, with over 60% of campers coming from middle school and an impressive 24% of registered campers being female.
Its most innovative achievement for the year was its filming and animation of both books in the CyberPatriot Literature Series. The Alliance for Cyber Education completely funded both book readings, which are now available on YouTube.
The center’s success is in large part also due to the establishment of the Fort Gordon Cyber District / Alliance for Cyber Education subcommittee in all seven school districts and three private schools within the COE’s region. This committee meets at least quarterly to discuss implementation strategies for multiple CyberPatriot programs.
“We are so very proud of our students, our teams, our school superintendents, our teachers, the Fort Gordon Cyber District, the Alliance for Fort Gordon, our education committee, our local businesses, the GA Cyber Center, our sponsors, and our region for being named the Cyber Patriot Center of Excellence of the year for two straight years,” said Dr. Tom Clark, Executive Director of the Alliance for Fort Gordon. “Back to back COE awards is something our team and our region can all be truly proud of.”
