Anna Feller

The virtual environment for hands-on cybersecurity education from Masaryk University, KYPO Cyber Range Platform, won the 7th edition of the European Commission’s Innovation Radar competition.

The expert jury announced it as the winner of the Disruptive Technologies category on 21 October. The category is intended for high-tech innovations that have the potential to significantly impact their area.

  • “We joined the competition because we want to make hands-on cybersecurity education through KYPO CRP available to as many professionals as possible. It was an opportunity to make the platform more visible. I am pleased that we were successful”, says Jakub Cegan, KYPO CRP leader.

More than 2 000 innovators could apply to Innovation Radar Prize this year. 12 finalists remained at the end. They prepared with the help of consultants for the final presentation which took place online this year.

Finalists had to explain to the expert jury what is the main problem that their innovation solves and what are their plans are for its further development. The winners of the prize gain the attention of experts, the media and investors.

  • “The KYPO CRP reacts to the serious problem of cybersecurity experts shortage. I think the jury was impressed by the fact that our platform is open-source. It means that it is available to everyone for free. Also, the educational content created via platform can be shared with the community”, concludes Cegan.

KYPO Cyber Range Platform has been developed by Masaryk University since 2013. The KYPO CRP team builds on its experience in delivering cybersecurity exercises and research in this area. CONCORDIA H2020 released KYPO CRP as open-source software as part of its strategy to boost European digital sovereignty.

  • “To make Europe more digitally sovereign, we need more cybersecurity experts with the right skills and knowledge. Therefore, the release of the KYPO open-source cyber range which makes hands-on cybersecurity education widely available is an important step”, says Professor Gabi Dreo, CONCORDIA project coordinator.
Additional information
  • More information about KYPO CRP at kypo.cz.
  • The summary of this year’s competition from the European Commission.
  • The Innovation Radar is the European Commission’s initiative to make it easier to discover innovations emerging from research and innovation projects financed by the EU under Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe. It offers the opportunity to seek out innovators who could follow in the footsteps of companies such as BioNTech, Skype, TomTom and ARM Holdings, all of whom received EU funding in their early days.
  • A Cyber Range is a virtual environment where cybersecurity professionals can hands-on train cyber-attacks response.
  • CONCORDIA H2020 is a dedicated consortium of over 52 partners from academia, industry and public bodies. The main objective of the project is to lead the integration of Europe’s excellent cybersecurity competencies into the network of expertise to build the European secure, resilient and trusted ecosystem for the Digital Sovereignty of Europe. CONCORDIA project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program under Grant Agreement No 830927.