The Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) will work with schools to identify students who will serve their national service as, like what netizens love to say, “keyboard warriors”, by defending Singapore’s cyberspace.
According to Straits Times, Second Minister for Defence, Ong Ye Kung said winners and outstanding participants in school cyber-security competitions and camps will be invited to try for the newly-formed Defence Cyber Organisation.
At the closing of the fifth Cyber Defenders Discovery Camp at the Singapore University of Technology and Design on Thursday (June 8), he said: “We should learn from our elite combat forces, to develop our cyber defence force also as an elite force comprising people with exceptional talents. Hence, recruitment must be highly selective, and the demands on the vocation will be exact and intense..”
He was giving out awards to the winners of the five-day cyber-security camp’s competitive segment organised by the Defence Science and Technology Agency and supported by MINDEF.
The camp for pre-university and tertiary students aims to raise awareness of cyber security and to interest the students in a career in the field.
“We will expand future camps and make them more rigorous to better identify cyber talents,” added Mr Ong.
Hwa Chong Institution student Won Ying Keat, 18, who was part of the winning team in the junior college/Integrated Programme category, said he is interested serving in a cybersecurity vocation. He is due to serve his full-time national service in 2018.
“It’ll be a good chance to use the skills I’m good at while serving the nation,” he said.
Defence Science and Technology Agency director for cyber security Tan Ah Tuan said many of the camp’s participants plan to pursue a career as cyber security professionals. “This is what we hope to achieve with the camp – to create awareness and nurture interest in cyber security among bright young minds with us today.”
