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- The last year has brought a heightened focus
on cybersecurity and for good reason.
We've entered almost a new era of international relations.
We're seeing more actors, more threats,
more sophistication, more victims.
At Microsoft, we've been increasing
our cybersecurity investments,
but one of the things we've learned along the way
is that part of the country's cybersecurity challenge
is actually a cybersecurity workforce challenge.
We don't have enough people to do the jobs
that need to be done.
Today, I'm at Whatcom Community College
in the beautiful city of Bellingham,
north of Seattle, in the state of Washington.
It's one of the national leaders in cybersecurity education.
Across the country, we need to turn
to the nation's community colleges.
We need to work with them and support them
to educate a bigger, broader,
and more diverse cybersecurity workforce.
There's no better way to learn than to talk
to the people who are leading Whatcom,
studying here, teaching here.
Let's see what we can learn from them.
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And here we are today.
Whatcom Community College
has this amazing national resource called NCyTE
What does NCyTE stand for and what is it?
- NCyTE stands for the National Cybersecurity
Training & Education Center.
The goal is to increase the cybersecurity workforce
throughout the nation by assisting colleges and universities
to graduate more students that can go into the field.
There are over 500,000 job openings right now
that cannot be filled.
By not filling those jobs, basically,
we're making the country more vulnerable to attack.
So it really is a matter of national security.
- It's become a crisis in the workforce.
One of the things that we feel that we really need to do
is to partner and to collaborate
with government, private business and industry,
other higher education institutions,
as well as the K through 12.
Because it's about creating a pipeline of students,
students who first become aware of the possibilities
of a career in cybereducation or cybersecurity
and then gradually getting the needed skills
and meeting the competencies
so that they are employable and they are meeting
the workforce needs within their communities
or throughout the nation.
- I've had an interest for a long time
in community security,
so that was one reason I chose cybersecurity
as a future field is because I wanted
to kind of combine something that involved learning
a lot more technical emergency response in a way.
So this is kind of a different version
of emergency response.
- Believe me, you are gonna be joining
a profession that is, as we like to say,
the first responders, the digital first responders,
so I think you absolutely hit the nail on the head.
- I would say the best argument for coming to Whatcom
is just watch the news for five minutes.
There's a new cybersecurity incident almost daily now.
Then there's dire need for professionals
that can handle it,
and Whatcom's a great place to grow those professionals.
- It doesn't matter what kind of job
in the cybersecurity sector you take
because the issue is,
is that there's so much demand
and there's very little supply.
This field changes rapidly and you'll never be bored,
and you'll never have to worry about a job.
- We are funded through a huge grant
by the National Science Foundation,
and it is those government entities, along with others,
the White House included,
that have provided us the support
to continually look at expanding our programs.
And in order for us to expand,
we need government assistance and assistance
from private business and industry
to be able to hire faculty
at the going rate and to be able to recruit
and retain students.
So it really is a collaboration.
It's a partnership that we're seeking.