The security demands of the digital era have given birth to a unique contest in which Cal Poly students, along with others throughout the state, put their skills to use in all areas of Information Technology to solve real-life case problems.
The 13th annual Information Technology Competition took place Saturday in the BSC where the Management Information Systems Student Association, a club started by Computer Information System students, hosted the event to introduce students to the industry and expose them to the rigors of today’s society for tomorrow’s technology.
The competition tested every IT-related student’s knowledge through a series of cases where teams provided a solution to their respective case and presented it to judges.
Teams competed in one of four categories: computer forensics, web application development, telecommunications and business system analysis.
The event was sponsored and judged by Southern California Edison, Hitachi Consulting, PWC, KPMG, Raytheon, Setwise Technology, Cie Studios and ISACA.
The winning team in each category received $1,000 and the second and third place teams won $500 and $200 respectively.
This year’s competing teams included: Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Northridge, Cal State Los Angeles, CSU San Bernardino, Cal State Fullerton, Sacramento State and Westwood College.
MISSA is the largest student organization on campus and has been in existence for 38 years.
It was founded in the fall of 1971 based on the desire of students within the CIS major to create a student organization that supported and promoted their interests.
Carlos Velasco, a fourth-year computer information systems student, serves as the club’s director of marketing.
Velasco said he was extremely pleased with the participation in the event and added he has personally benefited from his involvement in the club.
“I feel that MISSA has provided me an extraordinary opportunity to network with various firms,” said Velasco, adding that ITC is the largest student–organized competition.
CIS student, Jeff Henbest, was a member of Cal Poly’s Pro-Trends Forensics team, which took first place in the IT Security and Forensics Case contest.
“It was tough, it was different [from] last year’s competition and it was very exciting,” Henbest said.
He said the team had to go over a suspect hard drive in a very limited amount of time using software provided specifically for competitors to use.
The event’s keynote speaker Jeff Paradowski, of Hitachi Consulting, wrote the Business System Analysis case for the competition and said he was impressed with the quality of competition at this year’s ITC.
“I think this was literally one of the strongest competitions I have been involved in,” said Paradowski. “I was pleased with the number of schools participating and was very impressed with the quality of the participants.”
Reach Ariel Carmona at news@thepolypost.com
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