Small Business Track Overview

To register to compete in the Small Business Track Competition, eligible Teams visited registration.aicyberchallenge.com.

The Small Business Track Competition invited all eligible small businesses to complete a Concept White Paper outlining their knowledge, skills, capabilities, and approach for this challenge.

The Concept White Paper comprised two parts:

• Abstract: Competitors wrote a one (1) page abstract that describes a technical concept Cyber Reasoning System (CRS) for the AIxCC.
• White Paper: Competitors wrote a white paper, of no more than 20 pages, that discusses the following:
  • A justification of feasibility of their CRS concept. White papers are encouraged to include supporting evidence such as:
    • Publicly available evidence
    • Past work
    • Research results
    • Other relevant supporting evidence
  • The technical approach for constructing their CRS for competing in AIxCC, including:
    • Specific objectives and metrics
    • Risks and mitigations
    • A technical plan for accomplishment of objectives
  • The open-source strategy for their CRS should their Team advance past the ASC (in accordance with the Open-Source Requirement described in 3.5). This plan should:
    • Identify a license approved by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) under which their CRS would be released.
    • Identify any part or dependency of their expected CRS which would be exempt from the Open-Source Requirement, described in 3.5, including pre-existing intellectual property (IP) that existed prior to the AIxCC kickoff date, or external, commercial products on which the CRS may rely.
    • Identify any risks in their open-source strategy and describe mitigations.
      
      

Concept white paper submissions will be evaluated and ranked using the following scoring criteria:

• Abstract – (10%)
• White Paper – (80%)
  • Justification of feasibility – (35%)
  • Technical Approach – (35%)
  • Open-source strategy – (10%)
• Proposal Quality – (10%)
  
  

The Concept White Paper and the Technology Review Contest were judged by a panel of Government subject matter experts and judges based on the above scoring criteria.