Winners in entrepreneur challenges offer innovative industry solutions 

Winners in Boise State University’s inaugural Cybersecurity Entrepreneur Challenge (CEC) and the second annual Hacking for Homebuilding (HH) competition were announced Oct. 21 during Boise Entrepreneur Week. 

For the latter, organizers expanded the competition to include a public track along with the student track. First place in each track captured $10,000, while second-place finishers got $7,000 and third place garnered $3,000.  

Winning teams in the public track were: 

• Flashpoint Building Systems
• Revonate
• CrewNotesby BetaCanon 

In the student track: 

• VandalEyes
• SiteSeer
• NeighborWood

Nic Miller, executive director of Venture College, said HH grew from 14 teams and 36 participants last year to 16 teams and 46 participants this year. Industry partners tripled to 15. The HH winners have developed innovative solutions to homebuilding industry challenges, he said.  

“The impact these companies will have is possible because this industry decided to support and invest in early-stage entrepreneurs, creating an even stronger economy in Boise and Idaho for years to come,” Miller added. 

In the CEC competition, TAC Security captured first place, winning the $12,000 Micron Cybersecurity Entrepreneur Challenge award. The winner focused on “establishing connections between physical and digital security components to better protect companies,” Miller said. 

“The winning proposal took a novel approach to combining the issues of physical and cybersecurity,” said Sam Evans, director, deputy chief security officer at Micron. “While it may not be readily apparent on the surface, there are times where something happens in the physical security space that requires collaboration with cybersecurity teams.” 

For example, he said, anomalous badging activities involving someone coming into the office at unusual hours could involve theft of data or physical equipment, requiring collaboration between both physical and cyber. 

“The winning solution did a great job of providing visibility and alerting when situations like this happen,” Evans added. 

Other team winners: 

• CybershieldElite captured the $8,000 President’s Award  
• Loop won the $5,000 Venture College Award
• Lexiussnagged the $5,000 Institute for Pervasive Cybersecurity Award 

These finalists addressed expediting cyber-related legal contracts, the problem of data overload and finding the true threats in an environment using artificial intelligence and machine learning. 

“Competing teams (got) to work on real-world scenarios to solve security challenges critical to industry growth,” Evans said. “As a partner, Micron provides expertise and context to help align problem statements with what any large organization in the broader industry could face.” 

Problem statements in the inaugural CEC covered reducing or eliminating password sharing; visibility of cyber risks when companies primarily run out cloud space with third-party services; streamlining legal work for cybersecurity companies; how to integrate digital cybersecurity tools with physical security; how companies can reduce the white noise of constant cybersecurity warnings; balancing insider threat detection with data privacy laws; how to remove much of the manual effort needed to monitor cybersecurity; and how to prevent the soon-to-come ransomware attacks on individuals. 

“Regardless of (whether) they win or lose, contestants benefit from the exposure and experience for future career opportunities across a variety of global industries and markets,” Evans said. 

The competition fuels innovation and helps address complex challenges in cybersecurity. 

“Educational-based challenges, such as this one, raise the excitement and opportunities for students, including those from rural areas,” Evans said. Coupling these with cybersecurity programs offered by universities “will help build a strong talent pipeline for all Idaho organizations.” 

Miller said student participants in the CEC “will be the innovators and front line of this industry in the future.”