CYBERSECURITY EDUCATIONIBM, Historically Black Colleges Partner to Tackle Cybersecurity Talent Shortage

IBM last week announced education initiatives with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Specialisterne Foundation, and six Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) to provide no-cost STEM job training to U.S. military veterans, neurodivergent learners worldwide, and university students from underrepresented communities in the U.S.

IBM says that these collaborations underscore the company’s focus on providing STEM job training to traditionally underrepresented communities as part of its commitment to skill thirty million people worldwide by 2030 to create equitable, inclusive economic opportunities while also addressing a longstanding STEM job skills shortage impacting the business community.

In 2021, IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna pledged for IBM to partner with HBCUs to establish Cybersecurity Leadership Centers, with the goal of building a more diverse U.S. cyber workforce. Last week, IBM announced the first six of more than twenty Cybersecurity Leadership Centers with the following HBCUs and HBCU systems: North Carolina A&T State University, Southern University System, Clark Atlanta University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Morgan State University, and South Carolina State University.

Participant universities will have access to a customized, multi-year cybersecurity experience with IBM, including cybersecurity curricula, cloud access, and an immersive learning experience to expand HBCUs’ capacity to develop top talent in the cybersecurity sector.

“Morgan’s Center for Cybersecurity Assurance and Policy is excited about this partnership opportunity as we work together with IBM to address the high workforce demand in the cybersecurity industry,” said Dr. Kevin T. Kornegay, Professor and IoT Security Endowed Chair at Morgan State University.

The collaboration between IBM and Morgan will focus on three specific areas:

·  Cybersecurity curricula: IBM will develop for each HBCU, a customized IBM Security Learning Academy portal – IBM client offering – including courses designed to help the university enhance its cybersecurity education portfolio. In addition, IBM will continue to give access to IBM Academic Programs.

·  Immersive learning experience: HBCUs’ faculty and students will have an opportunity to benefit from IBM Security’s Command Center, through which they can experience a highly realistic, simulated cyberattack, designed to prepare them and train them on response techniques. Moreover, HBCUs’ faculty will have access to consultation sessions with IBM technical personnel on cybersecurity.

·  Cloud access: IBM will provide faculty and students with no-cost access to multiple SaaS IBM Cloud environments.

“IBM is committed to extending skills training and technology credentials to individuals from underrepresented communities and will continue to pursue new and enhanced education partnerships like these,: IBM said.

“We believe that the most promising job candidates for today’s demanding careers will come from communities that may have been historically overlooked or excluded due to outdated hiring policies and old-fashioned credentialling,” said Justina Nixon-Saintil, Vice President, IBM Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG. “That’s why we’re uniting the public, private, and not-for-sector sectors to cultivate STEM talent from underrepresented communities to address the world’s most critical challenges.”

In 2020, Manpower Group found that the talent shortage in the U.S. has more than tripled over ten years, with 69 percent of employers surveyed struggling to fill skilled positions, up from just 14 percent in 2010. By September 2021, there were more than 1.2 million U.S. job vacancies postings in software-related professions, according to the National Foundation for American Policy.