Cybercrime is becoming the norm and the ease at which hackers can break into consumers? bank accounts and email accounts has grown exponentially. In ongoing efforts to get Americans back to work in a post-recession that still has millions unemployed, Vice President Joe Biden has announced a new initiative aimed at the cybersecurity sector. A $25 million grant for cybersecurity education and training will benefit 13 Historically Black Colleges and Universities.?
The announcement was made on Thursday at a roundtable discussion at the University of Norfolk. Attendees included Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz; White House Science Advisor John Holdren; cybersecurity leaders; and students. Some of the participating schools are North Carolina A&T State University; Bowie State University; Clark Atlanta; and Benedict College, to name a few.????
The funding for the Cybersecurity Workforce Pipeline Consortium?will be spread out over a 5-year period and will focus on the following areas:
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???? It is designed as a?system. This allows students that enter through any of the partner schools to have all consortia options available to them, to create career paths and degree options through collaboration between all the partners (labs and schools), and to open the doors to DOE sites and facilities.
???? It has a range of participating higher education institutions.?With Norfolk State University as a the lead, the consortium includes a K-12 school district, a two-year technical college, as well as four-year public and private universities that offer graduate degrees.
???? Built to change to evolving employer needs:?To be successful in the long term, this program is designed to be sufficiently flexible in its organization to reflect the unique regional priorities that Universities have in faculty research and developing STEM disciplines and skills, and DOE site targets for research and critical skill development.
???? Diversifying the pipeline by working with leading minority-serving institutions:?As the President stated in Executive Order 13532,??Promoting Excellence, Innovation, and Sustainability at Historically Black Colleges and Universities??in February 2010, America?s HBCUs, for over 150 years, have produced many of the Nation?s leaders in science, business, government, academia, and the military, and have provided generations of American men and women with hope and educational opportunity.
(For a related realted article on cybercrime, CLICK HERE.)
