About ThinkCyber

ThinkCyber is an exclusive 4-day summer fellowship focused on providing an intensive program to 20 of the best and the brightest young and inquisitive hacker minds. Due to the lack of available channels to learn cybersecurity skills, there is an ever-pressing need to connect, train, and empower emerging cybersecurity leaders. ThinkCyber aims address this need by creating a new channel to augment formal education with industry relevant experiences. Through the fellowship, students will learn cyber security skills and connect with the world’s most talented ethical hackers and cybersecurity experts to emerge as the next generation of ethical hackers with the skills necessary to detect and prevent future cyber threats.

We are searching for engineers & technologists with:

Hacking Talent

You are a hacker with strong ethics and perseverance. You have a hunger for continuous learning and exploring; digging deep across cyber pathways in search of vulnerabilities.

Technical Competency

You have an understanding of networking and IT infrastructure, penetration testing methodologies, and a knowledge of multiple programming languages.

Curiosity

You have an inquisitive mind and look for, as well as approach, problems with patience and persistence.

Outside of the Box Thinking

You are creative and are the first to diverge from the norm in your way of thinking and in your solutions.



Apply

The Role

ThinkCyber Fellows will have the opportunity to:

Engage and collaborate with some of the world’s best hackers from the Synack Red Team

Participate in on-site training and hacking challenge labs given by Synack Red Team members
Gain relevant hacking expertise through hands-on testing opportunities available through Synack’s hacker-powered security testing platform
Hear from and connect with Synack technical staff, industry experts, and guest speakers

ThinkCyber is brought to you by a synergetic partnership between Nav Talent and Synack

Nav Talent Logo
Synack Logo

By developing personal, trust based relationships with great people, Nav Talent looks to understand the impact they want to have on the world and help them accomplish this by connecting them to unique opportunities. Nav Talent is now at 17 of the top universities in the country and has built up a network of 1000s of engineers along with dozens of VCs and high-growth startups. Nav Talent is able to build this ecosystem by having teams of student Associates who meet with their peers on campus, taking the time to build a relationship with and understand them on a professional level. Through this, Nav Talent has established a talent ecosystem that’s aligned with its members' interests, supporting great engineers in their pursuit of impact by helping them join high-growth startups, start their own ventures, work on unique innovation projects within larger organizations, or gain unique experience through our various fellowships.

Synack is a Silicon Valley company that is revolutionizing how enterprise companies view cybersecurity: through a hacker’s eyes. Synack’s “Hacker-Powered” solution leverages the world’s most skilled ethical hackers, and leading edge machine learning technology to offer a truly adversarial perspective for our clients. Today, Synack customers include some of the largest enterprise organizations in financial services, healthcare, retail, consumer goods, technology and the U.S. Federal Government.

Why Now

Accelerating pathways to
world-class ethical hacking

Our supply of global cyber talent is expected to increase only 6% over the next 5 years, creating an alarming divide between the supply and demand of cyber talent. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, “there will be 3.5 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs by 2021, up from 1 million openings last year” (Cybersecurity Ventures, Cybersecurity Jobs Report).

To win the relentless cyberwar currently raging, we need hackers. Yet, as seen by the numbers, young talented engineers and technologists, the ones most qualified for the job, are not being taught the skills necessary to detect and ultimately stop government, corporation, and private breeches. Students cannot rely on their classroom skills. Instead, they need real hands-on skills and practice in order to thwart the advanced expertise and malicious intent of cyber criminals.

Due to the lack of available channels to learn these skills, there is an ever-pressing need to connect, train and empower these emerging cyber security leaders. ThinkCyber Fellowship aims to create this channel by connecting young world-class student technologists with the world’s most talented ethical hackers, and cyber security experts. Through talks, hands-on application, and mentorship opportunities, fellows will gain access to industry insights unavailable to the public and unprecedented exposure to the field.

By combining Nav Talent’s experience connecting outstanding engineering students to disruptive startups, along with Synack's expertise and success in deploying the world’s top cyber security experts to find vulnerabilities in critical assets of Fortune 500 and government agencies, we’ve identified a unique synergy that creates a clear path into the cybersecurity industry for young hackers.

FAQ

  • Who can apply to ThinkCyber?

    ThinkCyber is open to outstanding undergraduate and graduate students who have demonstrated a passion for ethical hacking.

  • What are the start and end dates?

    July 13th to July 16th

Application Timeline

Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Following selection based on your written application, you will have an interview with the Nav Talent team. If successful, you will have a coding challenge as well as a final interview with the Synack Team.

  • April 1: Application Opens
  • May 1: Application Deadline
  • May 15 - May 22: Interview with Nav Talent team
  • May 22 - June 5: Coding challenge & final interview with Synack team
  • June 11: Fellows Announced
  • July 13 - July 16: Fellowship Program


Apply by May 1