Cal Poly Pomona is establishing the National Cybersecurity Sports Federation (NCSF) which brings together the community of cybersecurity academic, industry and government leaders in cybersecurity competitions, to induce shared goals and values, and to create an umbrella organization for a national sport of cybersecurity. This project develops NCSF, an organization and infrastructure, to support current and future cyber competitions, to help create rules of the game, determine learning objectives, eligibility, metrics, and a code of ethics. A network of stakeholders is organized in a manner that does not threaten individual competitions but provides value to the collective endeavor. The NCSF is the cyber equivalent of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which organizes the athletic programs of many colleges and universities in the United States and Canada, and the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS), the association that writes the rules of competition for most high school sports and activities in the United States. The project provides a shared pathway vision for students to learn cyber competitions the way athletes learn a sport. It negotiates an agreement on common goals, learning objectives, performance measurements, and desired outcomes. It radically expands the cybersecurity pipeline with cyber athletes on the scale of organized sports today, and it provides the same level of cooperation and coordination as interscholastic athletics.
National Cybersecurity Sports Federation