UK ITS Cybersecurity Assistant wins PNC Wildcat Pitch Competition
After hearing the story of a Kentucky woman who lost $150,000 to a cybersecurity scam, University of Kentucky student and Information Technology Services Cybersecurity Assistant Ayah Abdeldayem, her brother and a friend devised an idea to address the growing number of cybersecurity scams.
The fallout from the Kentucky woman’s substantial monetary loss caused even more damage — resulting in a medical emergency that landed her in a hospital.
“We just realized that it's such a big problem that I feel like no one's really trying to do anything about,” Abdeldayem said. “So, our business is designed to alert seniors of potential threats in the tech space, because they don't always understand when things are scams or not.”
With an idea aimed at bridging the gap between cybersecurity literacy and seniors, ultimately, this motivated Abdeldayem to enter the PNC Wildcat Pitch Competition on April 26,2025 where she, her brother Naji Abdeldayem, a high school junior, and UK classmate Hannah Hale won first place at the pitch competition and received $5,000 in startup funds for AFO Cyber LLC.
When visiting the AFO Cyber LLC website, users have the option to submit emails, text messages, physical pieces of mail or anything that customers might believe is a scam, Abdeldayem said.
“Our team reviews it and then sends over a personalized report that confirms if it's a scam and then provides the exact steps on what to do next,” Abdeldayem said.
It was the first time Abdeldayem competed for seed money. Going into the competition, her team didn’t expect to win and approached the competition as a learning experience.
“We didn't know like exactly how it would go since none of us are business majors, but we signed up,” Abdeldayem said. “We practiced our pitched. Once we moved on past the first round, we didn't think we'd win the top prize.”
After her team received the $5,000 first-place seed money, Abdeldayem said they talked to investors.
“They actually told us that we could probably turn up this 5,000 into like 150,000 because we put a lot of thought into our idea and there’s nothing like this in market.”
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