By Sahar Foladi
An Endeavour Hills teen is set to compete in WorldSkills National championships at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from 17 August.
The three day national competition will see Caleb Brown compete in the Cyber Security category at the young age of 19.
“I think it’ll be an interesting learning experience and if I win I’ll be ecstatic.
“I’ve been training very hard.”
The championships will consist of six teams, of two which will compete in the finale on Saturday 19 August.
Students who are successful at nationals will have the opportunity to represent Australia on the world stage as a member of the ‘Skillaroos’ in Lyon France 2024.
According to Mr Brown, he’s been fascinated by technology from a very young age and took on his teacher’s recommendation of cyber security course to get to where he is now.
“I always knew I wanted to do something in technology from a young age.
“As I grew I was fascinated with security, coding, breaking into sites, learning how to protect against attackers and so on.”
He’s just completed Certificate IV in Cyber Security in Chisholm and is on the road to complete an advanced diploma course.
At the championships’ opening round, Mr Brown was up against 73 other competitors in his field which was conducted as an online competition.
Competitors were tasked to break into websites and find exploits among others to earn points.
“Some of these people have been doing cyber security way longer than I have and they have the stuff padded down really well,” Mr Brown said.
“I had to overcome a lot of challenges that I think other competitors didn’t have to deal with.
“The first half of the competition was tricky because we had technical issues but then I got into the rhythm.”
He makes up four of Chisholm Institute’s students selected in the championship following a successful regional competition in their respected fields.
Ben Mickelburough will compete in the Fitting category, Callum Robertson will compete in the Turning category and Mitchell Ward will compete in the Automotive Mechanics category.
Chisholm chief executive officer Stephen Varty said that the championship is Australia’s biggest vocational education and excellence competition.
“WorldSkills competitions have been running since 1981 and aside from the competition, it also helps raise awareness about the importance of effective skills training for students.
“Chisholm is proud to have four students competing at the national level.
“Chisholm staff are working directly with the students to mentor and prepare them for the competition,” Mr Varty said.
The competition is Open to all Vocational Education and Training (VET) students, WorldSkills competitions are held at the regional, national and international level across 60 different categories.
