Nigeria will this year be Africa’s sole representative at a global hackers’ challenge dubbed CyberLympics, slated for Miami in the United States later this month.
Olu Akindeinde, chief technical officer of indigenous information security company Digital Encode, said the Nigerian team popularly known as Team Naija would include himself as well as Obadare Adewale and Adetunji Adeoje from Digital Encode and Jaiyeola Abimbola and David Abolusoro, both from First Bank of Nigeria Plc.
With Akindeinde as the team head, the African representatives will compete with their contemporaries from Asia, Australia, North America, the Middle East, South America and Europe.
He said the objective of the global tournament is to create avenues for the acceptance, practice and demonstration of ethical hacking without incrimination or discrimination across the world.
The organisers also want to use the event to attract attention to the requirements for data security, and securing information and assets irrespective of geographical boundaries.
The competitions that Team Naija will be involved in include forensics, ethical hacking and defence.p>
According to the rules of the CyberLympics, each team is required to have a minimum of four players while the maximum number of players allowed is six.
Speaking on why Nigeria is the only African nation participating, Akindeinde explained that other African teams did not make it through the preliminaries and were subsequently eliminated.
Team Naija, according to him, is well prepared for the cyber Olympics and he is optimistic about the team’s performance saying, “the Nigerian team would make Africa proud at the event.”
