Bio Summary:
Texas Business Hall of Fame Outstanding High School Entrepreneur of the Year (2023) / Cyber Security Ambassador / Keynote Speaker / Child Hacker / Black Belt in Shaolin Do Kung Fu (3rd degree) / USA Gymnast / Video-gamer / Comicbook Character / Cyber Ninja Kid / Christian are some of the titles used to describe Reuben Paul aka “RAPst4r”, the Founder of CyberShaolin.
Currently a freshman, pursuing his Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, Reuben plans to continue his entrepreneurial passions leveraging technology to help make the world a better and safer place. Reuben was featured by Microsoft Network (MSN) as a child prodigy at age 8 for his cybersecurity skills & presentations. Now 18 years old, Reuben is an invited speaker and has delivered over 30 keynotes and presentations covering various cybersecurity topics with live demonstrations. He has been featured at several industry-leading security conferences such as RSA, TEDxYouth (Dubai), NIST FISSEA, International One (Netherlands), and Global Outlook Forum (Singapore). He even shared the stage as a co-keynote speaker with Ms. Glover-Jones, the CIO of the Defense Intelligence Agency in the 2017 Department of Defense Intelligence Information Systems (DoDIIS) worldwide conference. His demonstrations of hacking smart toys and talks on “Creating a Safe and Secure Cyber World for Kids (by a kid)”, “The Future of Cybersecurity” and his debut talk entitled “InfoSec from the Mouth of Babes (or an 8-year-old)” has been quoted and referenced by several infosec sources and news agencies. They have become a source of inspiration to kids and adults alike to start teaching cybersecurity to kids.
Reuben was featured as a hacker kid in the 15 Under 15: Rising Stars in Cybersecurity. When kids from all over the world started to write to him, expressing an interest in learning from him, Reuben wanted to help them by making educational content that would teach them what he was learning. When his parents asked him if he wanted to charge for his videos, he responded “No, the content that we develop should be free and accessible to any kid anywhere in the world.” Respecting his wishes, they helped Reuben create a cybersecurity awareness and education non-profit organization called CyberShaolin. CyberShaolin’s mission is to educate, equip and empower kids with cybersecurity knowledge, using videos and cybersecurity labs that he develops in his spare time. It is a non-profit organization and Reuben would like you to get involved and join hands with him to raise cybersecurity awareness in the community.
Conferences were scarce during COVID-19 times, but this did not stop Reuben‘s passion for learning about technology and wanting to spread awareness. He was reached out to by TEDxYouth and keynoted in a virtual session for their Dubai forum in 2020. Since then Reuben has continued speaking at conferences like Cyber Smart partnering with big brand corporations like FedEx to discuss future technologies and the importance of making sure they are secure.
In 2022, during his junior year in high school, Reuben was part of a business incubator class, where he strengthened his passion for entrepreneurship. He founded Notifeye, a car safety device that detects distracted and drowsy driving to keep drivers safe. He also coded a prototype of the Notifeye software that uses AI/ML Reuben led his team to winning the school and national INCubatoredu pitch competitions for a total of $32K in seed funding. In 2023 Reuben won the Texas Business Hall of Fame (TBHF) – Outstanding High School Entrepreneur award and was inducted into the TBHF network.
Reuben is also honored to become the youngest person to have received the Shaolin Do Kung Fu Black Belt in America which was featured in a Fox TV news channel Austin story and is now a 3rd degree black belt (earned 2019). He was one of the top 70 gymnasts in the USA G
ymnastics Nationals (2017), a gold medalist in the 2014 USA Gymnastics State competition for the ‘rings’ category, and one of the top 10 gymnasts in the 2013 State finals. When he was two years old, Reuben was also crowned as America’s Most Beautiful Baby by New Star Discovery.
Reuben’s twitter handle is @RAPst4r and he has over 3300 followers. He has also been paintedby the artist Eddie Mize for his contributions to the world of cybersecurity.
Reuben’s story of how he got started has been made into a comic book by the Hackerstrip group called “The Cyber Ninja” to inspire other kids.