Code Quest Orlando 2026 Group Photo

Another Year, Another Level

Celebrating the Codecraft Foundation’s 2026 Cybersecurity Program

By Shannon | Hosted by Brevard County Libraries at Catherine Schweinsberg Rood Central Library in Cocoa, Florida

The room was electric. Families packed into the Brevard County Library in Cocoa, Florida, ready to cheer on the young men and women who had spent the better part of a year diving deep into the world of cybersecurity. For the Codecraft Foundation, this annual awards ceremony isn’t just a party — it’s proof of concept. Proof that when you give determined young people the right tools, real mentorship, and a mission that matters, they rise to meet it every single time.

This year marks a milestone worth pausing on: over 10 years of the Codecraft Foundation coaching cybersecurity teams. A decade-plus of students who came in curious and left competitive. Of coaches who gave their evenings and weekends. Of sponsors who believed in the mission before there were trophies to show for it. The 2026 season is the latest chapter in that story — and it may be the best one yet.

This year’s cohort of 18 students didn’t just meet the bar. They shattered it.

What a Season Looks Like

Since August 2025, these students have logged 31 meetings and accumulated 151.25 hours of rigorous, hands-on training. That’s not passive screen time — that’s grinding through virtual network defense scenarios, decoding encrypted messages, writing and auditing code, and competing against thousands of their peers across the country and the globe.

The Codecraft Foundation was built on a simple but powerful premise: traditional education alone can’t keep pace with the speed of the tech industry. Since its grassroots beginnings, the Foundation has served as a vital bridge — connecting motivated students to real-world skills, industry mentors, and competitive experience that sets them apart long before they earn a degree.

This year’s ceremony celebrated not just wins on a scoreboard, but the development of a new generation of Strategic Orchestrators — professionals who understand that in the age of AI-driven cyber threats, the most powerful tool in any security team is still a well-trained human mind.

The Competitive Highlights

🏆 CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Defense Competition

CyberPatriot is the world’s largest youth cyber defense competition, where student teams act as IT professionals tasked with securing live virtual networks against simulated threats. The stakes are high, the scenarios are real, and our students showed up ready.

Middle School Division

The youngest competitors on our roster — Zayd, Nikolay, Maxwell, Nolan, and Leon — made a statement that will echo well beyond their grade levels. This team earned 1st place in Florida during the State Round, punching their ticket to the Semifinals. Coach Timothy’s squad proved that age is just a number when the training is serious.

High School Division

Thirteen high schoolers — nearly all returning veterans of the program — competed in a field where experience is the baseline, not the exception. All three teams placed in the top tiers of their divisions:

🏆 National Cyber League (NCL)

The NCL is a Jeopardy-style Capture the Flag (CTF) competition covering everything from cryptography and network forensics to log analysis and password cracking. It’s one of the most respected cybersecurity competitions in the country — and our students showed up at every single phase of it.

Here’s something worth understanding about how the NCL works: it isn’t just a single event. It unfolds across three distinct stages — the Gymnasium, the Practice Game, and the Individual and Team Games. The Gymnasium is open all season long, a live training ground where students can sharpen their skills against real CTF challenges at any time. Then comes a Practice Game, a dry run for the competition format. Finally, the Individual and Team Games are the official competitions where rankings and results count.

That structure matters for how we read these results. Every placement, every accuracy percentage, every ranking — those are built on months of deliberate, self-directed effort. The Gymnasium doesn’t take attendance. No one is standing over these students telling them to log in. They showed up because they wanted to get better. The results below are the direct return on that investment.

The Gymnasium — Open Season Training (7,514 participants worldwide)

The Practice Game — Individual Practice Round (7,513 participants worldwide)

The Individual Game — Official Competition (7,002 participants worldwide)

Team Game Results

🏆 Lockheed Martin: Code Quest & Cyber Quest

Code Quest Orlando 2026 Group Photo

These invitation-only events hosted by Lockheed Martin represent some of the most prestigious youth tech competitions in the aerospace and defense sector.

Code Quest

Cyber Quest

🏆 FDOE CIE Python Programming Diploma

A special individual achievement: Aanya earned the Florida Department of Education’s CIE Python Programming Diploma after completing an additional, rigorous 50-hour professional-level curriculum. In a year already packed with top-1% rankings and perfect scores, Aanya somehow found time for this too. This is what leadership looks like!

More Than Competition: The Industry Reality

Part of what makes Codecraft different is its refusal to sugarcoat the professional landscape these students are entering. During the ceremony, we spoke plainly about the AI revolution reshaping cybersecurity: adversaries are now automating attacks at machine speed, and defenders must match that capability.

But here’s the message that matters most: the human isn’t being replaced — the human is taking on a new role.

AI can scan millions of lines of code in seconds. What it can’t do is determine whether a flagged vulnerability is a catastrophic business risk or a harmless quirk in legacy code. It can’t weigh ethical considerations. It can’t navigate the gray areas that real security work demands every single day. Our students aren’t training to compete with AI — they’re training to command it.

That’s the Codecraft edge.

The Village Behind the Victory

None of this happens without the people who show up week after week, not for a paycheck, but because they believe in what this program represents.

Our Coaches

Coach Gil deserves a paragraph of his own — because a single line doesn’t come close to capturing what he brought to this program. Gil serves as the Director of Engineering at Codecraft Works, a full-stack technical leadership role that is, by itself, a demanding full-time career. He holds the architecture of an entire engineering organization in his head every single day. And then, after that work, he coaches.

This season he didn’t just lead 13 high school students through the 150+ hours of delivered program — he also took the time to understand what each student was genuinely excited about. That curiosity about individual interests is what drove the expansion of our competitive portfolio this year. The Lockheed Martin Code Quest and Cyber Quest events didn’t happen by accident. Gil identified the opportunities, organized the logistics, navigated the security clearance requirements and facility restrictions that come with bringing students onto an active aerospace and defense campus, and coordinated the travel — all of it on top of his day job and coaching duties. That is an extraordinary level of commitment, and the results speak directly to it.

Coach Timothy — Middle School Coach, who guided his team all the way to a state championship and a Semifinals berth. What he built with five students — three of them brand new to the program — is a testament to what great foundational coaching looks like.

Technical Volunteers

Brandon and Jordan — Active industry professionals who brought the real world into the lab. There is no substitute for learning from people who are living the work. Talent in spade, and the kindness to consistently show up and share what they have learned.

Our Sponsors and Partners

The organizations whose financial support keeps the lights on and the labs running:

And of course — the families. Every late night study session, every competition drive, snacks on the go, and every “you’ve got this” from a parent or sibling is woven into every one of these results. Thank you.

Join the Mission

The Codecraft Foundation ⎋ runs on Time, Talent, and Treasure — always looking for champions who want to contribute to any of the three.

Whether you’re a tech professional who could mentor a student ⎋, a community leader who could serve on a committee ⎋, or an individual or organization interested in supporting our work financially ⎋, your involvement directly shapes the next generation of digital defenders.

To learn more or get involved, reach out to the Codecraft Foundation ⎋. The door is always open.

Congratulations to every student, coach, volunteer, and family who made the 2026 season one for the record books. Ten-plus years in, and the Codecraft Foundation is just getting started. See you next year — we’ll be raising the bar even higher.