By Stacey Tinsley, Bossier Press-Tribune
On Monday, November 7, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, Jen Easterly, Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director, Craig Spohn, CYBER.ORG, Executive Director/ President, Cyber Innovation Center (CIC) and Kevin Nolten, Vice President, Cyber Innovation Center (CIC) all spoke at a ribbon cutting event celebrating the launch of a Louisiana-funded CYBER.ORG Range in Bossier City. The event was held at the Cyber Innovation Center in Bossier City.
“This is important for the Cyber Innovation Center, for Bossier and really for our state. We invested 2 million dollars as a state into the CYBER.ORG Range program in order to develop it,” Gov. Edwards said.
“We’re going to have this product that’s been put together right here that will be in classrooms all over the United States of America,” he added.
CYBER.ORG Range is designed to address the shortage of 750,000 cybersecurity professionals nationwide and train the next generation of cybersecurity professionals.
“Cyber security is not about technology. It is not about code. It is about people. It is incredibly important that we have people with the skills, the dedication, the vision and the heart to enable us to be successful in defending this nation in this very complex and dynamic cyber threat environment,” said Easterly.
The CYBER.ORG Range will help K-12 students build cybersecurity skills through critical free resources and encourage them to join the cybersecurity field while building educator confidence in teaching cybersecurity. Building a qualified and diverse talent pipeline means ensuring that all students (even as young as kindergarten students) are cyber literate.
This initiative supports the CISA’s mission to help close the national cybersecurity workforce gap and bolster the national security of the United States. The expansion of the CYBER.ORG Range is critical to prepare the next generation of cybersecurity professionals for the challenges of tomorrow.