Operation Motorsport partnership and NextGen Scholarship recipients support next generation of talent and leadership in cybersecurity and artificial intelligence

AUSTIN, Texas and Fal.Con 2022, Las Vegas – September 21, 2022 – CrowdStrike (Nasdaq: CRWD), a leader in cloud-delivered protection of endpoints, cloud workloads, identity and data, today announced a new giving strategy featuring a landmark partnership with Operation Motorsport Foundation and this year’s recipients of its NextGen Scholarship awards.

“Operation Motorsport and CrowdStrike have a shared passion for not only supporting military service members in need, but also the doors that motorsport racing can open, and our new partnership aligns perfectly with the core values between both organizations,” said George Kurtz, co-founder and chief executive officer at CrowdStrike. “I’d also like to congratulate this year’s NextGen Scholarship recipients, who demonstrate both excellent academic records and a passion for a career in cybersecurity or AI. The increasingly dangerous threat environment is creating tremendous demand for the best talent in cybersecurity. With these two initiatives, CrowdStrike is excited to show our commitment to closing the skills gap that plagues our industry.”

Operation Motorsport Foundation

Operation Motorsport Foundation is a veteran-led not-for-profit organization that serves and engages ill, injured, and wounded military service members and veterans from the U.S. and Canada through recreational motorsport activities to aid in their recovery and rehabilitation by providing them a sense of team, identity and purpose through motorsport engagement. To date, Operation Motorsport has supported countless veterans through multiple programs, such as, e-Motorsports iRacing leagues; motorsport immersion with active roles on race teams and driver development academies.

This strategic partnership between CrowdStrike and Operation Motorsport will support the goal to professionalize the Operation Motorsport organization so that they may better serve the military service member community and increase the number of beneficiaries in the program. Key features of the partnership will include:

• Multi-year donation of $400,000, paid through the CrowdStrike Foundation
• Future employee volunteer opportunities at the Patriot Corral at SRO Motorsports Group events
• Future employee skills-based volunteer opportunities to support Operation Motorsport program needs
• Future mentorship opportunities for CrowdStrike employees paired with Operation Motorsport beneficiaries
• Future internship opportunities for Operation Motorsport beneficiaries
• Future scholarship opportunities for beneficiaries to pursue higher education focused on cybersecurity

“At Operation Motorsport, our culture of ‘Team, Identity, Purpose’ resonates in everything we do to support our military service members. We are excited to partner with CrowdStrike, which shares these similar philosophies and values,” said Diezel Lodder, chief executive officer and co-founder of Operation Motorsport Foundation. “This partnership will provide us the ability to scale and expand our operations, enabling us to more effectively excite, engage and empower our military community.”

“Operation Motorsport has been instrumental in my transition from active duty into retirement and civilian life,” said Craig Neri, Operation Motorsport beneficiary and CrowdStrike Racing team member. “The skills I’ve gained from my military career – decision-making, leadership, logistics, project management, command and control – all translate easily to my role on the CrowdStrike Racing team. Operation Motorsport truly instills a sense of self-confidence back into its beneficiaries, providing the sense of teamwork, identity and purpose that the foundation is based on.”

NextGen Scholarship Awards

CrowdStrike also announced the recipients of its NextGen Scholarship awards for academic year 2022 – 2023. The eight scholarship recipients were chosen from numerous outstanding applicants studying cybersecurity and artificial intelligence (AI) at both the graduate and undergraduate level at universities across the United States and Canada.

The recipients of CrowdStrike’s NextGen scholarships for academic year 2022 – 2023 are:

• Arisa Chue, Stanford University
• Olivia Gallucci, Rochester Institute of Technology
• Tiffany Dinh, University of Alabama in Huntsville
• Paul Wilson, Morehouse College
• Danielle Pottinger, University of North Carolina
• Aayush Seth, Georgia Institute of Technology
• Angelica Knudsen, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Natalie Eckles, Champlain College

“I’d like to thank CrowdStrike for their generosity, which will allow me to pursue my dream of majoring in Networking and Cybersecurity at Champlain College,” said Natalie Eckles, 2022-2023 NextGen Scholarship award recipient. “I find this field to be fascinating, and look forward to advancing my knowledge as I continue my college education and start building a career.”

As a leader in AI-powered cybersecurity, CrowdStrike recognizes the importance of blending the power of human and machine-driven intelligence to defend customers against the world’s most advanced adversaries. The NextGen Scholarships are designed to foster the future generations of cybersecurity practitioner talent, as they pursue the education necessary to synergistically work alongside AI-powered tools to create a stronger defense against sophisticated threats.

For more information on Operation Motorsport, visit here and learn more about their upcoming Race of Remembrance, a 12-hour endurance motorsports race at Anglesey Circuit in Wales, UK to honor military service members and veterans. Operation Motorsport is accepting donations to place the names of military service members and veterans aboard the hood of their two race cars at the event.

For more information on the NextGen Scholarship program and application process, visit here. The CrowdStrike Foundation invests in the community by supporting nonprofits across the globe. Our donations support causes such as fighting poverty and racial injustice, helping young women and girls of color learn to code, and assisting victims of natural disasters recover and rebuild. CrowdStrike Foundation grants are managed by our Donor Advised Fund at Charities Aid Foundation America.

About CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike (Nasdaq: CRWD), a global cybersecurity leader, has redefined modern security with the world’s most advanced cloud-native platform for protecting critical areas of enterprise risk — endpoints and cloud workloads, identity and data.

Powered by the CrowdStrike Security Cloud and world-class AI, the CrowdStrike Falcon® platform leverages real-time indicators of attack, threat intelligence, evolving adversary tradecraft and enriched telemetry from across the enterprise to deliver hyper-accurate detections, automated protection and remediation, elite threat hunting and prioritized observability of vulnerabilities.

Purpose-built in the cloud with a single lightweight-agent architecture, the Falcon platform delivers rapid and scalable deployment, superior protection and performance, reduced complexity and immediate time-to-value.

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Contact
Kevin Benacci
CrowdStrike Corporate Communications
press@crowdstrike.com