The time to develop scalable pathways to cybersecurity careers in Illinois is now!

Forbes calls the field of cybersecurity “the fast growing job with a huge skills gap.” We’ve all read about or been affected by data breaches like the now infamous breaches at Yahoo, Target and Equifax. In each of these cases, there was a team of people tasked with identifying how the breach occurred and shoring up security to prevent further damage and mitigate future risk. The cybersecurity field in both the public and private sector is large and growing, but the talent pool of cybersecurity workers is not yet able to keep up.

A 2015 analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data by Stanford University’s Peninsula Press found that there were more than 209,000 open cybersecurity positions in the United States, and the number of job postings had risen 74 percent in the previous five years. The ISACA, a non-profit information security advocacy group, predicts there will be a global shortage of two million cyber security professionals by 2019.

A conversation about the future of cybersecurity education in Illinois

The Illinois Community College Board, Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Illinois Workforce Innovation Board, IBM, and Apple invite you to join other leaders in elementary and secondary education, higher education and industry for a conversation about the future of cybersecurity education in Illinois.

On Wednesday, March 21 at Forest View Educational Center, and hosted by High School District 214, the district leader of the national Redefining Ready! movement, we invite you to meet with other leaders to discuss what this pathway looks like today, how we can strengthen the opportunities for students to engage in this work by designing scalable pathways and learning the skills needed to access these “new collar” jobs.

Reserve your seat today!

Please click on the button below, by March 9th, in order to reserve your seat for this important conversation about the future of cybersecurity education in Illinois.