The field of cybersecurity is growing at an extraordinary rate, but there are not enough cybersecurity professionals to meet the demand. In Colorado alone, there currently are 12,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs. Nationally, there are expected to be 1.5 million unfilled positions by 2019.
Understanding the mounting need to fill these positions, the University of Denver’s Daniel Felix Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science now offers a one-year master’s degree in cybersecurity. This fast-track, experiential degree will equip students from any undergraduate discipline with the technical foundation they need to have an accelerated career in the fastest-growing industry in the nation.
JB Holston, dean of the Ritchie School, joined Gov. John Hickenlooper and several Colorado industry partners in Washington earlier this month to meet with federal policy experts to discuss how business, policy, technology and higher education can come together in a multi-sector effort to provide training and education for jobs in cybersecurity. These meetings happened at the same time President Obama sent Congress his annual budget, which calls for nearly $20 billion for cybersecurity.
“President Obama’s latest annual budget proposal includes $19 billion for cybersecurity,” Holston says. “The nation is in need of more experts as cybersecurity has become a central global concern. We’re positioning DU as a critical platform for driving the public/private cybersecurity ecosystem in Colorado.”
Because DU understands the increasing importance for cybersecurity, accepted students for the 2015–16 school year will receive a discounted scholarship of nearly 50 percent, bringing the usual $57,552 tuition cost down to $28,800.
On April 19, the University, along with the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, will cohost a convening on “Growing a Cybersecurity Ecosystem” on the DU campus. The event will cover a broad range of critical cybersecurity topics for attendees from industry, government and academia, including a talk by Gov. Hickenlooper regarding Colorado’s new National Cybersecurity Response Center Initiative. The event will kick off with a guest panel of Israelis who have been at the center of building that country’s best-in-class cybersecurity ecosystem.
“The conversation around cybersecurity is just getting started,” Holston says, “and DU is excited to be a critical Colorado platform for research and educating the experts needed around the world today.”
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