February 6, 2017 Crowdsourcing the Future of Maritime Cybersecurity

Global markets rely on safe, secure, and predictable maritime navigation. Our partners at Booz Allen Hamilton are working with the U.S. Navy’s Naval Postgraduate School and the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) to improve maritime cybersecurity, and they have some exciting design, development, and data science challenges lined up for the HACKtheMACHINE hackathon later this month.

HACKtheMACHINE, the U.S. Navy’s first connected ship hackathon, will take place February 17-19 at Capital Factory in Austin, TX. All Topcoder Community members are cordially invited to attend and compete. If you can’t make it to Austin, you can still take part in the action by competing in the virtual HACKtheMACHINE RUX competition here at Topcoder.

HACKtheMACHINE RUX

RUX stands for Rapid User Experience Design. These competitions are designed to bring a mobile app idea to life in just three days. During this competition, we’re inviting designers to visualize an app that lets users quickly generate theoretical anomalous ship course plots that would indicate successful navigation hacks. Today, plots of this type are created manually and are difficult to visualize. HACKtheMACHINE participants have a chance to win $6,150 in prize money. Registration for the RUX challenge opens next week here at Topcoder, and the challenge will run from 10:00am EST Wednesday, February 15 through 10:00am EST Saturday, February 18. Keep your eye on the open design challenges for more details.

Live Competitions

Want to be part of the live action in Austin? Head over to the registration page and reserve a free ticket. Space is limited, so be sure to sign up soon. All three live competitions begin at 10:00am EST Wednesday, February 15. Challenge tracks include:

• Maritime Capture the Flag: Come hack a maritime vessel test bed to help enhance coding for onboard ship networks.
• Data Science and the Seven Seas: Design algorithms that provide maritime domain awareness, identify anomalous behavior, and solve real-world problems.
• Designing Safer Oceans: Compete in a design thinking sprint targeting safer alternatives to GPS for maritime precision navigation and timing.

Booz Allen is also planning a special announcement for the Topcoder Community, so if you can’t make it to Austin be sure to keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter during the hackathon! Topcoder will have several team members on hand to watch the competition and network with attendees, so stop by our table if you make it to Austin.