Information Security Education Journal Yunkai Liu 8 2 2021 https://doi.org/10.6025/isej/2021/8/2/31-38 https://www.dline.info/isej/fulltext/v8n2/isejv8n2_1.pdf Cybersecurity is a rapidly growing field with jobs in high demand, however, it becomes a challenge to inspire high school student interest in the discipline. Traditionally, a hackathon is an event designated to broaden participation and perceptions in computing. It is usually programming-intensive and does not fulfil the features of cybersecurity. Faculty and staff from Gannon University recently designed and implemented an innovative hackathon event which included both virtual and on-site competitions. Student feedback and growth of enrolment demonstrated the program’s efficiency and effectiveness under tight-budget circumstances. This paper is an extension of work presented at Frontier in Education (FIE) 2020 and published in its proceedings [1].