Amani's first capture: from spectator to security analyst in 18 months.
Amani turned up to CPL 2024 because a friend had spare login credentials and the qualifier round needed two teammates. Eighteen months later she's a security analyst at a regional firm in Dar es Salaam. She didn't know what a capture-the-flag competition was when she walked into that first qualifier.
The first capture
Her team scored zero in round one. They watched a senior team move through the challenges with the fluency of people who'd been doing this for years, and Amani, Form 5 graduate, first-year IT student, no security background, decided that's what she wanted to be able to do.
She spent the next six months on the CyberSimba practice platform. Not because anyone told her to, and not because there was a prize at the end. She practised because she wanted to know how things worked under the hood. By CPL 2025 qualifiers her team came third in their university.
From competition to job
Partners at the Tanzania Cybersecurity Forum noticed. A regional firm reached out for a 3-month internship, paid, full-time, with a senior practitioner mentor, and offered her a full role at the end of it. She started in January 2026.
“I thought I needed years of certifications. I needed eighteen months of practising on real things with a community that kept asking me what I'd learned.”
Amani's now back on the CyberSimba platform as a junior mentor, building challenges for next season and pairing 1:1 with this year's first-time competitors. The pipeline she came through wasn't accidental. It was designed. And it's open to anyone who wants to walk into a qualifier with zero background and find out what's possible.