The Challenge could not exist without the long term support of our sponsors. We are extremely grateful to them for their encouragement and financial assistance.
BCS - The Chartered Institute for IT is the pre-eminent professional society in information technology and have been involved with the Challenge for the past six years. They sponsor the Prizegiving at Bletchley Park, which will be held in early Spring 2014.
GCHQ is the front line in the nation's intelligence gathering operation, it is also one of the largest employers of professional mathematicians outside of the University sector. They have been sponsors of the Challenge more or less since it started and continue to support us by providing the GCHQ prize of £1,000 for the best individual codebreaker in the competition.
IBM is one of the oldest and most prestigious IT companies in the world. They have supported the competition from its inception. This year the IBM Prize will be awarded to the runners up in the team competition..
Trinity College Cambridge, home to Isaac Newton, needs no introduction. The College joined with the University of Southampton to support the National Cipher Challenge as part of their schools outreach partly because of links with Hampshire, and partly because so many of our competitors were applying there! They will award £750 to the runner up in the individual competition.
This year Winton Capital Management are joining us as sponsors and have provided generous funding which has allowed us to extend the reach of the competition into Scotland. They are also sponsoring a £1,000 prize for the best team entry. While secrecy is an important part of a codebreaker's job teamwork has always played an important role and this prize recognises that. We have more news to come on the Winton sponsorship, so keep your eyes peeled on the News page for information about an exciting new competition for teachers.
Netcraft is one of the leading internet security companies in the UK. Netcraft provides security services to companies worldwide, helping protect people from fraud and theft. They join us for the first time this year having learnt about us from a past winner of the competition. They were so impressed by him that they wanted to find out more and we are delighted to be working with them.
Last but not least we would like to thank our employer, the department of Mathematics at the University of Southampton for all its support of the competition. It is a fabulous place to work and study, with a real passion for mathematics in all its flavours.
We hope you will join us in thanking these organisations and their fantastic staff for all their support and encouragement.