UCCS BUILDS CYBERSECURITY ECOSYSTEM, SEEKS CONTINUED FUNDING

by JEANNE DAVANT, SENIOR WRITER, SO COLORADO BUSINESS FORUM & DIGEST

For the past five years, The University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) has been at the forefront of developing the cybersecurity ecosystem in the Pikes Peak region. The university has been the statewide leader in opening up a workforce pipeline, collaborating with other educational institutions and conducting research to advance knowledge in the field.

This crucial work has been supported by state funding. Due to the foresight of then-Gov. John Hickenlooper and state legislators, SB18-086 allocated funding to build cybersecurity in Colorado. This included annual support to UCCS, Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet says.

The original three-year allocation was renewed for three more years, but that funding is expiring this year. Sobanet and Gretchen Bliss, UCCS director of cybersecurity programs, say it is crucial for the funding to be extended. Bliss and Sobanet both testified before the legislature’s Joint Business Committee, which voted unanimously in favor of continuing the funding for three years. The committee referred the matter for approval to the Joint Budget Committee, which will vote in mid-March.

The need is great, according to Sobanet. “We have 22,000 open jobs in Colorado in cybersecurity and 660,000 across the United States,” she says.

Colorado is now fifth in the nation in cybersecurity employment — one indication of the progress the state has made in creating the cybersecurity ecosystem, with UCCS at the forefront, Sobanet says. “We have taken that $5.1 million that they give to us per year for all of higher education and we have transformed it into $72 million with matching funds,” she says.

Assistant Vice Chancellor of Marketing and Communications Chris Valentine says UCCS has deployed its $2.8 million annual share to:

• Create more than 1,700 student scholarships worth almost $3.9 million

• Hire 38 faculty and staff

• Award 2,964 cybersecurity degrees and certificates

• Place 138 students in internships

• Engage with more than 130 companies and organizations (government, military and community)

• Host 65 cyber events since 2022, attended by more than 2,700 people, including students, as well as representatives of the government, the military and industry

Bliss led the development of cybersecurity courses across five colleges within the university and helped five other institutions of higher education across the state expand their cyber programming, Sobanet says. “We are asking our communities and our employers what they need,” she says. “We’re translating that into our programs and our research, and our co-curricular programs, and we are bringing people in, whether it’s K-12, transfer students from Pikes Peak State College, or adults who need graduate programs. To me, it’s higher education at its finest.”

Bliss adds, “It’s a multidimensional approach, and we try to find unique ways for industry to engage our students. We reach out across the community to bring industry into the university to meet our students, help them get into the workforce and learn about what it is to ‘do cyber.’ We collaborate with organizations on both paid and unpaid internships. We actually have quite a few of our cyber students that are now in the cyber industry.”

One ongoing event is Cyber First Fridays, which is held in the UCCS building on North Nevada Avenue, where the National Cybersecurity Center and the Space Information Sharing and Analysis Center also are located. Both organizations partner with UCCS, and these events bring in more than 100 people each month, including representatives of industry, government and the military, Bliss explains.

Continuation of the state funding will enable UCCS to launch Phase 2 of the cybersecurity development program, which will focus on outreach to school systems, teacher training, concurrent enrollment, cyber certifications and creation of more internships and industry partnerships.

“After the first three years, we did a lot of fact-finding,” Bliss says. “We found that we need to amplify the K-12 pathway. Also, we’ve got a whole bunch of new degrees, but what’s a little harder is that hands-on piece and those industry certificates.”

In the research arena, “there’s a lot of hard problems in cyber that need to be solved,” Bliss says. “We have amazing faculty in the cybersecurity part of computer science. But, we also have faculty that are working on cybersecurity research in our College of Public Service, where cyber fits in with law enforcement and the public sector.”

In Phase 2, UCCS will continue to develop industry and university partners to collaborate on research holistically across the cyber spectrum.

“Our research right here can generate new companies and new economic development here, in Colorado Springs and across southern Colorado,” Sobanet says. She urges citizens to contact their legislators and tell them they support funding to continue these efforts. “Let’s not squander our early leadership position in this burgeoning industry,” she says.

Jeanne Davant is a senior writer for the SoCo Business Forum & Digest.