Minecraft Education has launched Velocity Prize, a new global educational challenge created together with the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit, in which students aged 13-16 compete to find a hidden flag in a specially designed game world. The contest kicked off on October 13, 2026 and is open until November 17, 2026, with its format inspired by capture the flag competitions known from the world of cybersecurity.

How the competition works

The rule is simple to describe but requires real skills: somewhere in the Minecraft Education world a hidden flag is waiting, and the students' task is to find it as fast as possible. As the official Minecraft Education blog sums it up, the goal is to "find it as fast as possible, how they do it is entirely up to them."

Participants have several strategies to choose from. They can explore the world on foot, breaking blocks in search of clues, or write code in MakeCode or Python using the built-in Code Builder to move faster and automate the search of the terrain. Combining both methods is also allowed, much like in the real work of security analysts, where you have to think strategically and technically at the same time.

Partnership with the Digital Crimes Unit

The program was developed together with the Microsoft Digital Crimes Unit, a team dedicated to tracking down cybercrime and protecting users from online threats worldwide. The Minecraft Education team emphasizes in the announcement that students competing for the flag "need to notice what others might miss, work with incomplete information, and develop a method they can later explain and repeat," which are exactly the skills that specialists protecting the digital space use in their day-to-day work.

This isn't Minecraft Education's first approach to online safety: the program has featured lessons on responsible internet use for years. However, Velocity Prize is the first global competition of this kind, combining competitive play with computer science fundamentals. Readers interested in the wider educational uses of the game can find more in our guides.

Who can take part and what are the prizes

The competition is open to students aged 13-16, and submissions of the fastest flag-finding times go through a teacher or other trusted adult, who handles registration and submits the result via the competition portal. Participants can make unlimited attempts, but ultimately only their fastest documented time counts, confirmed with a screenshot.

The top participants earn global recognition and the chance for mentoring from Microsoft, so the prize carries more prestige and development value than a strictly material one. Importantly, running the Velocity Prize lesson requires no prior coding experience from the teacher: the lesson plan is ready to use in class right after downloading it from the Minecraft Education lesson library.

Velocity Prize's place in Microsoft's broader educational strategy

The contest is part of the October update to Microsoft Education, which also included the expansion of the AI Foundations program, helping students understand how artificial intelligence works and how to use it responsibly through the game's built-in Agent. The same period also brought new lessons to the library, such as the chess lesson CHESSssss and the civics activity Village Square, designed for students aged 8-12.

For Polish schools and teachers using Minecraft Education, Velocity Prize is a concrete opportunity to introduce the topic of cybersecurity in an engaging, familiar format. Instead of dry theory, students practice investigative thinking and coding basics in a world most of them already know well from their free time. More on the game's building and coding mechanics can be found in the site's wiki section.

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