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CCI Impact Award

CCI Impact Award

The CCI Impact Award is the annual flagship award for CCI.

The award recognizes an individual, team, group, or organization who, through their CCI activities, has conducted breakthrough cybersecurity research or innovation or developed a creative means to improve cybersecurity workforce opportunities for our industry partners and students.

The impact must be at a minimum regional, but optimally, state-wide or nationally recognized and is measured through economic metrics, professional standards or publications, media attention, etc. The award will be presented at the annual CCI Symposium on April 14-15, 2025.

About CCI

The mission of CCI is serve as an engine for research, innovation, and workforce development at the intersection between security, autonomy, and intelligence. CCI has two primary objectives: to build world-leading research and innovation capabilities and to help close the workforce gap in cybersecurity in the commonwealth.

In its three years of operations, CCI has made significant, positive impact across all three of its mission lines and has gained a reputation of scholarly excellence and innovative approaches to solving the cybersecurity challenges that face the commonwealth. 

Award Period

The award period is the 2024 Calendar Year. The award will be presented at the Annual CCI Symposium April 14-15, 2025.

Eligibility

Any faculty member, student or staff member at a CCI institution of higher education, CCI engaged industry partner, non-profit organization, or government agency/organization (individual, group, or organization) is eligible to be nominated for the CCI Impact Award.

Nomination Period

Nominations for the 2025 award will open on or about Jan. 1, 2025.

Nomination Process

Complete the CCI Impact Award Nomination Form (self-nominations are allowed) and save the form as a PDF. Receive the endorsement from the appropriate Node Director or CCI Executive Director (on the nomination form).

Submit the Nomination Form PDF to the CCI Hub, jpdelaney@vt.edu. All nominations will be reviewed by the Impact Award Selection Committee, which is advisory to the CCI Leadership Council. The CCI Leadership Council reviews the Selection Committee recommendations, deliberates, and selects the award winner

The Presentation of the Award

The award will be presented at the annual CCI Symposium April 14-15, 2025, in Richmond, Va.  The name of the award winner will remain confidential and only known to the Selection Committee and the Leadership Council until the award is presented at the CCI Symposium. 

Point of Contact

Any questions, please contact John Delaney, Managing Director, Commonwealth Cyber Initiative at jpdelaney@vt.edu.