ARLINGTON, Va., Oct. 5, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- AT&T has again renewed its support for the Air Force Association's CyberPatriot, the National Youth Cyber Education Program. For the fourth consecutive year, AT&T is continuing its generous support with a donation of significant network connectivity used by participants during the CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Defense Competition. In addition, AT&T Aspire, the company's signature education initiative, is funding support of the overarching program.

AT&T, a long-standing source of network-enabled technology solutions for the federal government, has provided subscriber identity module (SIM) cards for the last three years to ensure teams have sufficient bandwidth needed to prepare for the competition. Without these SIM cards, many of the current teams would be unable to participate.

"The initiative by AT&T to contribute connectivity over the reliable AT&T wireless network for our teams nationwide speaks volumes. We occasionally have teams unable to participate due to unreliable or highly filtered network connections at their schools, but AT&T has yet again stepped up to eliminate that concern," said CyberPatriot National Commissioner Bernie Skoch. "We want every student to have the resources they need to develop their STEM education. We are grateful to have AT&T as a partner in this important initiative."

CyberPatriot is the National Youth Cyber Education Program created by the Air Force Association to inspire high school, middle school and elementary school students toward careers in cybersecurity or other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines critical to our nation's future. The program features the highly successful CyberPatriot National Youth Cyber Defense Competition in which teams across the United States and Canada, as well as from Department of Defense Dependent Schools abroad, compete in a series of online rounds for a chance to earn an all-expenses-paid trip to the in-person CyberPatriot National Finals Competition in Baltimore, MD in the spring.

Supporters of CyberPatriot include Northrop Grumman Foundation, CyberPatriot's Presenting Sponsor, as well as Cyber Diamond sponsors AT&T, Cisco, Microsoft, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense; Cyber Gold sponsors Facebook, Riverside Research, Splunk, and Symantec; and Cyber Silver sponsors Air Force Reserve, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Leidos, and University of Maryland University College.

The Air Force Association is a non-profit, independent, professional military and aerospace education association. Our mission is to promote a dominant United States Air Force and a strong national defense, and to honor Airmen and our Air Force Heritage.

SOURCE Air Force Association

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