Boubacar Jalloh, a cloud security operations engineer at Microsoft, won the America 250 Cyber & AI Championship, a competition organized by the cybersecurity firm CyTaka and held on June 10 at The Hay-Adams hotel, across Lafayette Square from the White House. Yannick Batoula, a cybersecurity professional at IBM, finished second.
The tournament, which CyTaka staged to coincide with the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence and branded “America 250 Freedom,” drew more than 150 applicants from across the country. After a selection process, ten finalists advanced to the final stage, where they worked through a series of progressively harder challenges testing intelligence analysis, cyber defense and decision-making under time pressure. By the closing round, two competitors remained — Jalloh, representing Microsoft, and Batoula, representing IBM.
Unlike many cybersecurity contests, which focus on conventional networks, the central challenge was built around space infrastructure. Competitors were presented with a scenario involving a satellite network used for encrypted communications, intelligence gathering and services relied on by governments and international organizations. They were asked to investigate a simulated breach, identify the threat actor, secure the affected systems and restore operational control before the incident could escalate.
CyTaka’s founder and chief executive, Doron Amir, described the event as “a championship of the mind,” intended to reward innovation and strategic thinking alongside technical skill. He said the emphasis on satellites and artificial intelligence reflected an effort to anticipate risks before they become widespread, arguing that as governments and companies grow more dependent on satellites, autonomous systems and AI, defending those systems will become a central concern for the field.
Amir pointed to a 2023 CyTaka event in Dubai, held in the spirit of the Abraham Accords, which featured a drone-security challenge and a $100,000 prize at a point when unmanned systems drew less attention as a security threat than they do today. He said the same approach of identifying emerging risks early shaped the Washington competition.
CyTaka said it is developing a larger simulation platform, CyTaka Armageddon, that combines cyber warfare, artificial intelligence, satellite networks and interconnected critical infrastructure. Amir has spoken on AI, cybersecurity and the future of work at international forums including the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting and SFNet.
The championship was branded around America 250, the semiquincentennial of U.S. independence, and the finalists were photographed at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, part of the White House complex. CyTaka has tied the event to a broader national emphasis on technological competitiveness, though the company did not point to formal government sponsorship of the tournament.
