We are specifically excited to see contributions across the following opportunity areas:
Internet of Things
The internet isn’t just a web browser, an email address, or a social media feed. It’s also the Internet of Things (IoT), some 26 billion devices—everything from refrigerators to smart locks—and it’s estimated to grow to more than 75 billion devices by 2025. Needless to say, this has huge implications for cybersecurity, as all of these devices (and the sensitive data they’re transmitting) are potential targets for hackers. How might we help people understand the scale of the challenge and what’s needed to protect society in the face of this explosive growth in IoT devices? How should we think about what happens online increasingly leading to tangible, real-world impacts offline?
Hackers + Hacking
Hollywood depictions of hackers are all white men in hoodies staring at glowing screens, but in the real world, hackers come in all shapes and sizes. And while popular culture tends to focus on hackers breaking into systems or stealing data, there’s also a huge variety of interests and motivations at work in why and what hackers really do. What unites all hackers is a curiosity about how computers systems and networks work. Some hackers work solo, others in big corporations, government or the military. Some hackers use their skills to do harm while others hack to help society at large. How might we help people understand all the different kinds of people who see themselves as “hackers,” the various motivations that drive them, and the wide variety of “hacking” that they do?
Trustworthiness
When we talk about cybersecurity, it’s easy to get bogged down in technical details and abstract concepts. But right at the core of cybersecurity is the idea of trustworthiness—how can ordinary people be sure they can count on their devices to do what they’re expected to do and keep their sensitive data secure? How might we help people understand how the concept of trustworthiness applies to cybersecurity? How can we trust devices and software we don’t really understand or even control, but have become reliant on?
Digital Privacy + Encryption
In the physical world, privacy is easy to recognize: a sealed envelope, a locked door, or a whispered conversation between two people. But in cyberspace, privacy is harder to see and often entails encryption—the process of encoding a message so that only authorized people can read its contents. How might we help people understand what encryption is, how it works, how they can use it, and why it’s critical to digital privacy? What are the tradeoffs between privacy, various notions of security, and innovation?
Surveillance
Technology is enabling governments and corporations to know more about us than ever before, and as artificial intelligence systems become more sophisticated, that kind of surveillance will only become more widespread. How might we help people understand how the choices we’ve made (or failed to make) as a society about how our personal information is shared has created a system where powerful institutions know more about us than we realize, or intended?
Cyber Conflict
It may not involve tanks or bombs, but cyber conflict has the potential to be just as destructive as war in the physical world—shutting down a country’s power grid or compromising its election infrastructure to interfere in its democratic decisions. How might we help people understand the potential consequences of cyber conflict, how countries are already engaging in both offensive and defensive cyber operations, and how cybersecurity relates to the future of international relations?
Wildcard
We invite you to submit an illustration of any cybersecurity-related term outside of this list that feels particularly relevant to visually articulate. Examples of additional terms may include but are not limited to:
- Cloud
- Cyber Diplomacy
- Cyber Policy
- Cybersecurity Ecosystem
- Hygiene
- Network
- Patching
- Privacy
- Resilience
- Risk
- Security
- Threats
