Students from 18 Colleges Attend Cyber Fusion 2025

Virginia Military Institute hosted about 130 students at the 8th annual Commonwealth Cyber Fusion and Virginia Cyber Cup Competition, a state-wide collegiate cyber security competition in Lexington, Va.

Don Mills, principal cloud architect for Cisco, delivered the keynote speech.

Other events included a job fair, a TechDuels team debate, and a Capture the Flag (CTF) competition.

The Commonwealth Cyber Initiative also hosted a roundtable discussion with faculty and industry representatives.

Colleges and universities represented at the event included:

Tech Duels

Debate 1: Responsibility of Protecting Data (Corporate vs. Government Data)
Team Corporate: Thomas Craycroft (Virginia Tech) & James Crowley (George Mason)
Team Government Data: Nikhil Boyalla (Virginia) & Nile Ahmad (VCU)

• Winner: Government 
• Runner-up: Corporate
• Most Valuable Debater (MVD): Nikhil Boyalla (Virginia)

Debate 2: Artificial General Intelligence (At the Brink or Decades Away)
Team At The Brink: Aiden Rose (Danville CC) & Sarah Anna (Germanna CC)
Team Decades Away: Muhammad Saleh (Northern Virginia CC) & Rowena Ward (Tidewater
CC)

• Winner: Decades Away
• Runner-up: At the Brink
• MVD: Rowena Ward (Tidewater)

Debate 3: Open Source Software (Security Threat vs. Strategic Opportunity)

Team Strategic Opportunity: Judah Sotomayor (Liberty) & E’liot Cole (Radford)
Team Security Threat: Caleb Chen (Liberty) & Renee Schmidt (Marymount)

• Winner: Security Threat
• Runner-up: Strategic Opportunity 
• MVD: E'lliot Cole (Radford)

Capture the Flag Competition: Four-Year Colleges

Capture the Flag Competition: Two-Year Colleges

Job Fair Sessions Included:

Photos by H. Lockwood McLaughlin