Martijn Luyckx

Finished in 8th place with our team ("Belgian Red Daemons") at the European Cyber Security Challenge 2021 in Prague, an initiative by the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA). This is a yearly CTF where 10 of the top young offensive cybersecurity experts of many European countries compete.

The competition involved a few parts:
- One escape room
- Two days of CTF challenges
- Three cooperative challenges with the International Team (one member of each competing country work together, I was chosen for two of these)

More info on news.belgium.com

Earned first place (#1) at the Cyber Security Challenge Belgium, a Belgian CTF competition with 225+ participating teams.

Battled in the following rounds
(and were able to maintain the top spot on the leaderboard throughout all of them):
- Online qualifiers (CTF) [225+ teams]
- Pre-finals (Security Puzzles) [60 teams]
- Finals day 1 (Harder CTF) [24 teams]
- Finals day 2 (Expert Challenges) [12 teams]

Team "🇧🇪 🏁 Fun With Flags ⛳ 🇳🇵": Jorrit Gerets, Sander Smets, Robbe Van Roey and me

Finished on 6th place with our team at the Cyber Security Challenge Belgium, a Belgian CTF competition with 200+ participating teams. The finals were postponed because of the coronavirus, and have ultimately been held online.

Battled in the following rounds:
- Online qualifiers (CTF) [200+ teams]
- Finals day 1 (Harder CTF) [16 teams]
- Finals day 2 (Sponsor Challenges) [12 teams]

Team "Megabite": Isaac Meers, Bas Van Assche, Dries Van Bael and me

For my role as Lead Organiser of TEDxUHasselt 2019, I was honoured to receive a Project Management award from PMI Belgium. A huge thank you to co-lead organisers Tim Vervoort and Ward Habraken, and to Frank Turly for inviting me on stage of the Project Management Fair 2019 to receive the award.

First place in the second edition of UHasselt CTF, a cyber security contest for students and PhDs. With most points by a fair margin, we beat all teams (including a team of PhD students exclusively).

Team "Megabite": Isaac Meers, Bas Van Assche, Jorrit Gerets and me

Finished on 6th place with our team at the Cyber Security Challenge Belgium, a Belgian CTF competition with 200+ participating teams.

Battled in the following rounds:
- Online qualifiers (CTF) [200+ teams]
- Pre-finals (Security related puzzles) [42 teams]
- Pre-finals (Harder CTF) [16 teams]
- Finals (Sponsor Challenges) [12 teams]
- Finals (Hardest CTF) [12 teams]

Team "Megabite": Isaac Meers, Bas Van Assche, Dries Van Bael and me

Competed in Hasselt University's very own CTF (Cyber Security contest) as a (then) bachelor student. Our team won not only in our category (3rd year of bachelor) but also won the entire competition, thus even beating master students who were actively following courses in networking and security.

Team "Megabite": Isaac Meers, Bas Van Assche, Dries Van Bael and me

Conceptualised an innovating solution to use solar energy in a growing city environment. It involved creating windows blinds with highly efficient, bendable solar panels to use in modern buildings to make their rooms energy neutral. Worked in a team with Isaac Meers. Our idea was picked as the winner among dozens of entries by a jury consisting of PhD in green energy, head of city, professor in physics, designer (for our poster).

With an insane time constraint of only one hour, we thought of solutions to problems this business case proposed. Due to our efficient work, diverse view and crystal clear pitch we were able to convince the jury (Deloitte) that our approach was the best one. That's how we got first place at the business game, beating nine other teams.

Team: Noah Crauwels, Yannick Simons, Dimi Schepers and me.
Topic: Financial sustainability, innovating features and growing the user-base of an upcoming app with accessibility features for wheelchair users.

I graduated the master’s programme Computer Science at Hasselt University. In this academic setting, I chose to specialise in Networking and Security. Here, I learnt the ins and outs of building secure environments on the web, as well as to create robust and safe infrastructure to support those platforms. I also took courses in Big Data, Engineering Interactive systems, and Artificial Intelligence.

I enjoyed my academic bachelor's education for Computer Science at Hasselt University. Here, I gathered knowledge and skills in many different aspects of computer science. The courses in the programme are all in one of three categories: programming & programming paradigms, math & logic, and (introductions to) specific fields in computer science (graphics, networking...). Gaining management skills was also embedded in the courses. Choosing this field was easy for me, as I have been passionate about computers and the technology around it for as long as I can remember.

I learnt to think like a scientist: mathematically and critically. That is the most important skill that I still take with me from having this science education from my 3rd to 6th year in high school at Sint-Augustinusinstituut in Bree (Limburg, Belgium).