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CYBER-HELP WANTED UWF’s Dr. Eman El-Sheikh leads effort to fill critical jobs by STEVE BORNHOFT
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he National Security Agency, in October of last year, awarded a $6 million cybersecurity workforce development grant to the University of West Florida, which has been selected to lead a coalition of ı0 colleges and universities in efforts to address a critical workforce shortage. “In the United States, we have 500,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs,” Dr. Eman El-Sheikh said in November, “and ı,500 of those openings are here in Northwest Florida. We can’t hope to fill those jobs by focusing solely on academic degree pathways.” UWF’s Center for Cybersecurity, which UWF associate vice president El-Sheikh leads, began blazing other trails years ago when it established its
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Cybersecurity for All program, whose mission includes up-skilling and re-skilling individuals for cybersecurity jobs. While other schools were more timid, UWF “took an innovative, bold approach to developing workforce programs, and the NSA grant recognizes our leadership in that area,” El-Sheikh said. “The grant is a huge opportunity for Northwest Florida and a huge honor and responsibility for UWF.” The development of a national cybersecurity workforce program will particularly involve recruiting military veterans — and military personnel and first responders in transition — and preparing them to take on cybersecurity roles. “Many institutions would rather stay in the comfort zone of academic degree programs,” said El-Sheikh, who credits UWF president Martha Saunders with leading the school to do more. “We were interested at UWF in having a bigger impact through strategic partnerships and innovation. We have been willing to do things that involved risk and were experimental, but somebody’s got to go there if we are to stay ahead of threats.” UWF Center for Cybersecurity extra-campus activities have included a partnership with the state Department of Management Services whereby it provided cyber-training across all state
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agencies. The center has worked with elections officials statewide and has conducted cybersecurity camps, funded by the NSA, for students and adults. Via its Cybersecurity Ambassadors Program, it sends top UWF students into the community to promote awareness of cybersecurity issues and the need for good cyber-hygiene. “Threats to cybersecurity grow in numbers and complexity daily,” El-Sheikh said. “The pandemic has created new vulnerabilities because so many people have transitioned to working and learning remotely. Employees may access confidential data or networks without secure connections or may not have a secure network environment at their home.” El-Sheikh said high-speed evolution in the way we communicate and interact with schools and workplaces will bring about permanent parts of a new normal. That, she said, makes creating more secure cyber-environments and communities imperative. About that work there is relentless urgency. “We don’t have time to reinvent the wheel, so we seek out and develop strategic partnerships that will spur innovation,” El-Sheikh said. “We are moving fast, but so are our adversaries. The new tools and technologies that we are employing, such as artificial
PHOTO BY BERNARD LEONARD WILCHUSKY JR. COURTESY OF CENTER FOR CYBERSECURITY AT UNIVERSITY OF WEST FLORIDA
Aassociate vice president Dr. Eman El-Sheikh, the director of the UWF Center for Cybersecurity and a professor in the Department of Computer Science, is playing a role in providing the Emerald Coast with a second identity: Cyber Coast. She is pictured here with students Justin Fruitticher and Caroline Krause.
