IPNET CYBER CLUB: Building the Next Generation of Cybersecurity Professionals
Founded and led by ASSIMTI Essowèréou Charles: President & Head of Infrastructure, IPNET Institute of Technology, Togo.
What I built
I founded and currently lead the IPNET CYBER CLUB, a structured cybersecurity training program that grew from zero to 60+ active members spanning every academic level (L1 to M2). It’s not a hobby club. It’s a full pedagogical system I designed, built, and operate.
To run it at scale, I took the open-source cyberstudent-ctf bot as a foundation and extended it significantly, adding a mandatory writeup system, tiered group management, anti-cheat enforcement, milestone role progression, and admin tracking.
Tech stack:
| Layer | Technology | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Bot Framework | Sapphire Framework + Discord.js v14 | Event-driven, modular, production-grade |
| Database | PostgreSQL + Prisma ORM | Persistent tracking, relational data integrity |
| Language | TypeScript | Type-safety across a complex codebase |
| Deployment | Docker + PM2 | 24/7 uptime, zero-downtime restarts |
| Validation | Zod | Input integrity and security |
Impact at a glance
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Active members trained | 60+ (L1 to M2) |
| Weekly training sessions | Every Saturday, year-round |
| National competition, teams present | 7 out of 10 trained by this club |
| National ANCY CTF | 1st place |
| International representation | 2 members selected for ICC Japan |
Seven of the ten teams at the national cybersecurity competition included people trained by the club.
Those numbers belong to the club as a whole. I founded it, designed the training model, led its operation and extended the bot used to manage participation.
What makes this different
Mandatory writeup system
No points without a writeup: a technical report covering the approach, tools used, exploitation steps, and remediation. Every member builds a security portfolio from day one.
Three skill tiers
Members are split into I-Am-New, I-ve-One-Year-Experience, and I-ve-More-Experience. Each group gets a calibrated challenge every Saturday. Beginners are challenged without being crushed.
“Learn by teaching” requirement
Anyone who solves a challenge has to present their method to the group. It develops the kind of technical clarity that matters in interviews and real work, not just CTF scores.
How the culture runs
- Zero-tolerance deadline policy: writeup by the following Saturday or temporary exclusion
- Anti-cheat system: the bot monitors all channels and removes any flag shared outside authorized areas
- Best Cyber Battle Woman award: a deliberate choice to recognize women in cybersecurity
- Togo’s first university-run CTF: the IPNET CYBER BATTLE
Results
- ICC Japan: 2 club members selected to represent Togo
- ANCY National CTF: 1st place
- National competition: 7 of the 10 participating teams had been trained through the club
From training to public competition
Weekly challenges were useful, but the members also needed a real event with a clock, a scoreboard and unfamiliar opponents. That became the IPNET CYBER BATTLE, a CTF organized by students at IPNET.
The competitive results are documented separately:
- Togo National CTF 2024: 1st place
- Togo National CTF 2024: technical writeup
- ICC Japan 2025: two Togolese representatives selected from the club
What still needs work
Running the club every week takes time. Someone has to prepare the challenges, review the writeups and follow member progress. The next step is to document more of the curriculum and share more of that work with mentors. I also want the bot to make progress easier to review without weakening its anti-cheat rules.