The Hacker Spirit Scholarship, 2026

tl;dr Every year I give a Mineola High School senior $2,500 for teaching themselves to take systems apart. This year it goes to Richard Davidson.

I was the kid this award is for. At Mineola, I spent my free time taking the school’s systems apart, and the school’s answer was to ban me from the computers. I started the scholarship so the next kid like that gets called to the stage instead. The backstory is in last year’s Trail of Bits post.

I’m also dropping the original name. “Unconventional Innovator” was the version that fit on a certificate. “Hacker Spirit” is what it actually rewards, so that’s what I’ll call it from here, and that’s the name on hackerspirit.org.

This year’s recipient is Richard Davidson. He scored well enough in CyberStart America to earn a scholarship into the GIAC GFACT cybersecurity fundamentals course, then worked through it on his own. He’s competed in the National Cyber League and the National Cyber Cup.

No teacher assigned any of this. It happens after school, off the transcript, in programs Richard found and signed up for himself. Nobody made him start, and that’s the part the award is for.

Congratulations, Richard.