Hack for a Change at CYCS

A few weeks ago, Hack for a Change was selected as one of ten organizations to present at the Canadian Young Changemakers Summit, chosen from a pool of over 60 applicants. The room held more than 100 student leaders from across Ontario. It was one of the most energizing experiences we have had since starting this organization. When we found out we made the cut, the first thing I felt was not excitement. It was pressure. Sixty organizations applied. Ten got in. That means the majority of the people in that room had already been vetted as doing something worth paying attention to. We had to show up and actually deliver. The range of organizations presenting alongside us made that pressure feel even more real. One group performs at senior homes, bringing arts and entertainment to communities that often go overlooked. Another is doing neuroscience research. Youth-led neuroscience research. The breadth of what was in that room was genuinely hard to wrap your head around. Everyone had a story, a mission, and a reason they were there. Our talk walked through what Hack for a Change is and why it exists. We opened with a story about a friend who lost over $5,000 to a phishing attack because nobody had ever taught him what one looked like. From there, we built the case: people under 20 lost $101 million to cybercrime in 2021 alone, schools are not teaching digital safety in any meaningful way, and the people best positioned to close that gap are students themselves. We talked about where Hack for a Change stands today. Over 3,500 participants. 124 countries. A growing ambassador network of students running workshops in their own schools. Monthly CTF competitions where students learn real cybersecurity skills by doing, not just by reading. The audience was locked in. Student leaders at a conference like this do not sit passively. They push back, they ask questions, they think critically about what you are telling them. That is exactly the kind of room you want to present in. One of the highlights of the day was connecting with Canary OS, another student-run startup working in the cyber safety space. Where Hack for a Change focuses on education, Canary OS is building machine learning tools to detect cyber threats on mobile devices in real time. Two different approaches to the same underlying problem: people are vulnerable online, and not enough is being done about it. The conversation we had with their team was the kind that does not happen over email. You need to be in the same room, talking through what you are each building, figuring out where your work overlaps and where it does not. We are early in that relationship, but finding another group of young people who take cybersecurity seriously, and are building something technical to address it, is exactly the kind of connection that makes conferences like this worth attending. The lesson I kept coming back to after the summit was simple: youth do not need to wait to make an impact. That sounds obvious when you say it out loud. But there is a version of the student experience where you spend years preparing, building credentials, waiting until you are older or more qualified or more established before you start doing the thing you actually care about. The Canadian Young Changemakers Summit was a room full of people who had rejected that idea entirely. The student performing at senior homes is not waiting until they have a performance degree. The team doing neuroscience research is not waiting for a PhD. Canary OS is not waiting until they graduate to build security tools. And Hack for a Change did not wait until someone with more experience decided to fix cybersecurity education for young people. The work is happening now. That is the point. We are continuing to grow the ambassador network, expand our workshop content, and build out our CTF platform. If you are a student who wants to bring cybersecurity education to your school, or a young leader who wants to get involved in what we are building, the door is open. Visit us at www.hackforachange.org or follow us on Instagram at @hackforachange.