PECAN+ history

PeCan was established by Edith Cowan University in 2019 as a 'Perth versus Canberra' friendly Capture the Flag (CTF) competition aimed at high school students in years 10 and above. The competition was designed to suit beginners through to the most capable and experienced CTF competitor with different levels and types of challenges.

This annual event evolved in both scale and reach with each passing year as more high schools joined and our ability to support more locations was facilitated by generous sponsorship and support from our partners and host organisations.

The 2022 competition saw over 200 high school students compete across five states and territories with participants from ACT, QLD, SA, TAS and WA. The 2022 competition also saw the introduction of Azure services (including Azure Labs to provide Kali Linux instances for each competitor) and the rCTF platform.

2023 extended the reach of PECAN+ with over 400 participants across ACT, NSW, QLD, SA, TAS, VIC and WA. In 2024, with the introduction of an NT activation, we saw 92 teams compete across the country and the introduction of Kasm Workspaces to provide all competitors with access to a virtual machine and Kali Linux instance toolkit.

Now in 2025, with the support of numerous partners and Sponsors, we look forward to growing the PECAN+ CTF initiative even further, increasing the number of locations around Australia and raising cyber security interest and engagement for more participants around the country!