JTC Inc. Prepares Students at Innovation Park for Cyber Challenge

Special program tech program educates students at Innovation Park

At the Governor’s School @ Innovation Park, JTC, Inc. is making an impact with local students by working to prepare them for their participation in the state level Cyber Challenge and giving them real-life knowledge and experiences in the field of cyber-security and networking.

“For the last two to three years, JTC has had some of their staff mentor our students for the Virginia state Cyber Challenge,” said Dr. Karen Dalfrey, the Director of The Governor’s School @ Innovation Park. “John Jewell [JTC’s owner and founder] would have one of his staff members come over usually once a week during the fall semester and the staff member would go through all of the modules that our students would have to do…prepare lessons and then come in and actually work with students and make sure they understood the content of the modules [and] the lessons,” said Dr. Dalfrey.

Outside of the classroom, JTC Inc. went further in their commitment by inviting students to their office for added exposure.

“Usually once or twice they would bring…our students who were participating in this cyber challenge to their facility and they would really explain the networking and the security behind the networking to our students…to make them more competitive in this challenge.”

Dr. Dalfrey said that, “this year…[it’s] the first year we’re doing a real internship for our high school students and JTC is allowing one of our students to go in and actually intern…up to about 10 hours per week where our student would go in and really be given the opportunity to become part of their staff…it would be an unpaid internship but it’s giving a lot of experience to the student.”

The Governor’s School @ Innovation Park created its first cyber challenge team in 2012. Dr. Dalfrey discovered JTC, Inc. with the help of a parent who put Dr. Dalfrey in contact with John Jewell in Fall 2012. From the start, JTC, Inc. were very receptive and Dr. Dalfrey’s experience working with JTC, Inc. has been a positive one.

The Governor’s School @ Innovation Park prepares students in the STEM disciplines of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math and Dr. Dalfrey stated that the “big part of our mission is getting our students ready for [the] future workforce”. “JTC, Inc. has been really an advocate of our students…going further in their studies and beyond just textbook knowledge especially in the cyber-security field, and…and it’s  giving these students hands-on exposure to things that are going to maybe help them decide what field of discipline they want to study in their undergrad phase and then what field of discipline they might want to do some work later on in their career.”

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Editor’s Note: “Making Tech Work for You” is a promoted post that is sponsored by JTC Inc. and written in partnership with Potomac Local.