Across the nation, thousands of high-wage technician positions are available in cyber defense fields. Filling these positions would greatly increase the ability of businesses to prevent cyber breaches and to remediate them when they occur.
Many businesses hire contractors to fill this workforce need. Clearly, these contractors must have knowledge and skills in cyber defense. However, to be successful independent entrepreneurs or serve as entrepreneurs within consulting firms, they also need business knowledge and skills.
This project aims to prepare cyber defense technicians with both technical and business skills.
To do so, it will create a cyber defense technician certificate program that integrates entrepreneurial skills with cybersecurity skills to train Cyberpreneur specialists.
The Cyberpreneur program will include both new and existing courses to provide technical and business training.
Through focused recruiting and retention activities, the project also intends to increase diversity within the cyber defense workforce.
Individuals who complete the Cyberpreneur program will help to address cyber defense workforce needs within the Inland Empire region of Southern California and elsewhere in the country.
This project will develop a certificate program that teaches theory and enables students to develop technical expertise in cyber defense, auditing of systems, incident response, remediation of vulnerabilities, and the use of artificial intelligence tools.
Students will also complete coursework in entrepreneurship, finance, and accounting.
The National Science Foundation's Advanced Technological Education (ATE) program has been funding innovation at two-year colleges for over twenty years. With a focus on the education of technicians for the high-technology fields that drive our nation's economy, and strong partnerships between academic institutions and industry, ATE promotes improvement in the education of science and engineering technicians at the undergraduate and secondary school levels.
To learn more about ATE, please visit the NSF ATE program home page.
Preparing Cybersecurity Technicians with Technical and Entrepreneurial Skills to become independent contractors.
ATE Central Page
Supporting Advanced Technological Education
