JEDDAH: The Cyber Saber Hackathon 2018 will begin today in Riyadh with the participation of 36 teams of more than 150 students from seven prestigious universities. The two-day event will offer students an opportunity to showcase their talents in different scenarios in the virtual environment of a smart city. The competition, organized by VirtuPort in partnership with the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security, Programming and Drones and STC Business, will be held on the sidelines of the Middle East and North Africa Information Security Conference, to help hone the skills of citizens in the cybersecurity field. Nouf Abdullah Al-Rakan, the CEO of the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security, Programming and Drones, said the event is part of the federation’s efforts to promote Saudi talent in the field of cybersecurity. She said the competition will allow more than 153 Saudi students access to a virtual environment. “Their experiences will later serve to build security and technical solutions for smart cities, along with the initial objective, which is discovering talents in the field. “The arbitration will be electronic, where participating teams will be evaluated according to the points collected in the various phases of the challenge.” Cyber Saber Hackathon is one of the most important competitions that allow male and female students of Saudi universities to develop their technical skills in order to find modern solutions in the field of cybersecurity. The event grants them access to an advanced technical environment in various fields, including web, networks, systems, encryption and many others. The competition will be also held in Jeddah and Dammam after Riyadh.