NETSCOUT and Shooting Stars Foundation Host Virtual Student Hackathon for "Life In 2031"

Providing STEM opportunities to more than 250 registered students from 7 countries

NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC., (NASDAQ: NTCT), a leading provider of service assurance, networking, security, and business analytics, today announced it is sponsoring its seventh civic hackathon with Shooting Stars Foundation. This 12-hour virtual civic hackathon asks students to think about “Life in 2031” as they challenge themselves to solve new problems through hands-on STEM experience.

Civic hackathons grow students’ interest in STEM topics and community issues by providing an opportunity to practice 21^st century skills such as critical thinking, technology literacy, collaboration, and innovation. This year’s theme is “Life in 2031” and students will be asked to consider what the world might look like 10 years from now, whether in learning, travel, culture, climate change, environment, health, or technology. Students, who may or may not have coding experience, will then develop creative solutions to address those anticipated needs and challenges, with support from mentors as needed. At the end of the day, student teams will pitch their solutions to the panel of judges.

With organizers making a concerted effort to include minority students by reaching out to youth organizations in underserved communities, a diverse group of middle and high school students from 22 states and Puerto Rico, as well as Jamaica, Canada, and four other countries are registered.

Event highlights are noted below and more information can be found on the event website.

Saturday, May 8, 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. Eastern

• In advance of the event, registered students will be offered pre-event workshops in HTML and CSS coding as well as other engagement opportunities, including a workshop for brainstorming and a STEM career exploration workshop featuring a panel of six NETSCOUT employees.
• Two NETSCOUT executives will deliver keynote addresses:
  • Jeff Levinson, Vice President and General Counsel, has been trained as a Climate Reality Project Leader. He will talk about climate change problems and solutions and the future of a just transition to clean energy.
  • Tony King, Senior Vice President, International Sales, an experienced technology executive, will discuss global technology trends and offer students pointers for a successful pitch presentation.
• NETSCOUT employees will serve as mentors, guiding brainstorming and advising students on their projects throughout the day, and as judges for the final presentations.
• Prizes will be awarded in several categories.

About Shooting Stars Foundation

Shooting Stars Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that empowers youth through education. We sponsor about 400 students in STEM Majors in universities in 8 countries and have executed multiple state-of-the-art technology camps in the US for the underserved communities. Shooting Stars strongly believes in empowering youth to break the cycle of poverty through relevant STEM education in the most needed communities!

About NETSCOUT

NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC. (NASDAQ: NTCT) helps assure digital business services against disruptions in availability, performance, and security. Our market and technology leadership stems from combining our patented smart data technology with smart analytics. We provide real-time, pervasive visibility and insights customers need to accelerate and secure their digital transformation. Our approach transforms the way organizations plan, deliver, integrate, test, and deploy services and applications. Our nGenius™ service assurance solutions provide real-time, contextual analysis of service, network, and application performance. Arbor Smart DDoS Protection by NETSCOUT products help protect against attacks that threaten availability and advanced threats that infiltrate networks to steal critical business assets. To learn more about improving service, network, and application performance in physical or virtual data centers, or in the cloud, and how NETSCOUT’s performance and security solutions powered by service intelligence can help you move forward with confidence, visit www.netscout.com or follow @NETSCOUT on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

©2021 NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC. All rights reserved. NETSCOUT, the NETSCOUT logo, Guardians of the Connected World, Adaptive Service Intelligence, Arbor, ATLAS, Cyber Threat Horizon, InfiniStream, nGenius, and nGeniusONE are registered trademarks or trademarks of NETSCOUT SYSTEMS, INC., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries. Third-party trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210429005286/en/