The University of West Florida Center for Cybersecurity has been awarded a $1.3 million contract from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, known as CISA. The agreement will further expand cyber career training pathways through CyberSkills2Work, a national cyber workforce development program led by UWF.
WUWF’s Sandra Averhart recently spoke with Dr. Eman El-Sheikh, associate vice president and professor at the UWF Center for Cybersecurity about what this latest CISA contract will allow them to do.
Dr. Eman El-Sheikh: Well, we're thrilled that CISA continues to partner with us and has awarded us a contract to expand the Cyber Skills to Work program. It's going to allow us to develop and offer more education and training pathways to help prepare our nation's cyber workforce. And so we're going to be offering three additional pathways with this funding next year in 2025. And we're looking forward to that.
Sandra Averhart: Talk about some of the new training pathways that you will be able to offer at UWF.
El-Sheikh: (We are) very interested on integrating cutting-edge technologies into cyber education and workforce development. And so we're offering new pathways that focus on defensive cybersecurity because defensive cybersecurity is a key work role across the public and private sector in the cybersecurity field as well as a new pathway that leverages AI cybersecurity and data management to enhance cybersecurity. And so we'll offer those along with some one-day exercises with the goal being really to help individuals prepare for or advance in a cybersecurity career.
Averhart: So as an example, take the defensive cybersecurity pathway and tell us more about that.
El-Sheikh: So the way we develop and offer pathways at the center as part of this program, CyberSkills2Work, is to take a backward approach. We focused from the beginning on employability and the pathways are aligned with work roles. So rather than, for example, tell a student what do you want to major in, we focus on what type of cyber work role do you need to prepare for. And so defensive cybersecurity as an example, prepares people who want to become cybersecurity analysts, cybersecurity specialists. And we put together courses and exercises as part of that pathway that will help learners gain the knowledge, skills, and competencies needed for each work role. And so that pathway and example include industry certifications that employers always tell us are so crucial for, employment. So, for example, CompTIA Security Plus we've also integrated new AI certificates, including one from EC Council Generative AI for Cybersecurity as well as Cybersecurity Analyst Plus, which is an intermediate or advanced level prep course. So it integrates kind of those industry certifications with UWF center courses to really give them a blend of foundational knowledge, hands-on skills, as well as industry certifications that are recognized globally.
Averhart: And just to give us a better understanding, tell us more about the concept of a cybersecurity training pathway under this broad career umbrella of cybersecurity.
El-Sheikh: Well, I think it's just important to emphasize that at UWF we chose to take a work role-based strategy for education and workforce development. And that's very different by design because it allows us to focus on employability. There are close to half a million open cybersecurity jobs across the country and I think that's a low estimate if you look at all the new emerging work roles that are needed to protect our critical infrastructure and other aspects. And so really if as a university and as a nation we want to be effective in addressing the cyber workforce challenge, we need more efficient methodologies than kind of traditional four-year degree programs. And so we focus on a work world-based approach that like you said, you can't learn everything in cybersecurity. It's just too broad of a field. So instead we help learners identify what work role they may be a good fit for. In fact, our program includes an aptitude assessment test that is optional and is mapped to cybersecurity work roles to help, diverse learners identify which work rules they may be a good fit for. And then they can apply to participate in one of our funded training programs such as the one funded via CISA.
READ MORE: UWF Cybersecurity awarded $2.5 million to expand the program to women, minorities, and more
Averhart: Dr. El-Sheikh says another thing to note is that the CISA funding has enabled the center to expand eligibility to include more learners in the CyberSkills2Work program.
El-Sheikh: So the contract provides funding for learners including veterans, transitioning military, first responders, military spouses, women, underrepresented minorities, and state and local government personnel. Any of those demographic types or learner categories are eligible to apply to receive this training at no cost to them.
Averhart: That means the training is free for those individuals and they don't have to be enrolled at UWF or any other college or university to participate. The only academic requirement is a high school diploma. This expansion of the Cyber Skills to Work program is made possible by the $1.3 million CISA contract announced last week. That follows a $1.5 million CISA contract secured a year ago and a $2.5 million federal grant, also received last year. Dr. El-Sheikh says it's a sign of great progress.
El-Sheikh: Yes, we are thrilled. The program was initially launched in 2020. Cybers Skills Tor work was initially launched in 2020 with funding from the NSA Centers of Academic Excellence Program. And since then, we've worked hard to really create a scalable and sustainable national program to help shrink the cyber workforce challenge facing our country. And so we're thrilled that CISA has seen the value in the program and we've been able to demonstrate success. And they awarded a contract to us last year and again this year to help expand the program. Their support is so valuable to us because a lot of what we do focuses on preparing individuals for cybersecurity and for critical infrastructure security roles. And that's what CISA focuses on. And there's a need either to get more individuals ready for those jobs or to get those who are already in such positions upskilled because cybersecurity is an evolving field. And so we're grateful for the support that CISA provides. And we've been able to prepare individuals who have gone on to government, military, financial services, health care, energy, and various cyber roles across the sectors, and this funding has helped make that happen.
