• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

IBIT

  • Home
  • Knowledge
    • Case studies
    • Digital Innovation Foundry
    • Projects and Research
    • The IBIT Report
    • National Information Systems Job Index
  • Talent
    • Mentoring Program
    • Scholarships
    • Temple Analytics Challenge
    • National Cyber Analyst Challenge
    • Professional Training
  • Engagement
    • Executive-in-Residence
    • Digital Leader Fireside Chats
    • Symposiums
    • Small Business and Non-Profit Digital Transformation
    • Information Technology Awards
    • Advisory Board
  • Sponsors
  • About
    • Annual Report 2020-2021
    • News
    • Staff
    • Advisory Board
    • Contact Us and Directions

IBIT addresses U.S. cyber talent crisis through partnership with Lockheed Martin

NCAC 2015Temple University’s Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) joined forces with Lockheed Martin in Washington D.C. in November 2015 to host the first annual National Cyber Analyst Challenge.

The competition, which welcomed 44 students and nine faculty advisors from nine universities, was designed to enhance students’ skills in combatting cyber-attacks and address a cyber talent crisis in the United States. The three-month, multi-phase competition aimed to inspire today’s technologically literate students to pursue careers in cyber security.

The result: It worked. Nearly 60 percent of the competition’s student-finalists completed online profiles with Lockheed Martin.

One of the students remarked “Also, hearing everyone tell us how valuable we are was a nice ego boost going into this field!”

The participants also rated the competition highly on the metric of ‘learned a lot’ (score of 1.33 on a scale of 1 to 5) and ‘value’ (score of 1.15).

“Cyber security analysts represent a critical skill need for most organizations,” said Chris Kearns, Lockheed Martin’s Vice President of Enterprise IT Solutions. “These students showed great promise through their hands-on teamwork to solve real world challenges and progress through the competition.”

According to SimplyHired.com, in mid-2015, there were 26,980 open cyber-security related positions. The need in these positions is less for operators and more for analysts. As threats multiply and diversify, intelligence analysis and identification is becoming critical, rather than secondary to the ability to configure or code secure servers. Yet, the job seekers in the talent pipeline find it difficult to integrate operational skills with strategic threat and cyber analysis. The goal of the National Cyber Analyst Challenge was to provide students with the opportunity to integrate specific operational skills with strategic threat analysis.

In the first phase of the competition, students pored over 75 gigabytes of data to find the cause of the simulated hack. Then the teams submitted 10-slide summary reports to explain their respective solutions for preventing future cyber-attacks. In the second phase, in which only nine teams competed, the students received training from industry experts. The competition culminated in a real-time practical challenge held at Lockheed Martin’s Global Vision Center in Crystal City, Va., in November.

A panel of industry experts, scoring finalists on technical proficiency, judgment, and communication, awarded the winning team $25,000 in prize money. Runners-up received awards of $7,500-$15,000 to support student, faculty, and curriculum development.

“It was gratifying to work with Lockheed Martin to create such a student- and faculty-centric opportunity,” said Dr. Munir Mandviwalla, IBIT’s Executive Director and the Chair of Management Information Systems at Temple’s Fox School of Business. “We hope to increase the national cyber talent pool across the nation’s top programs in Management Information Systems, Computer Science, and Engineering.”

Share:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Tweet

Primary Sidebar

IBIT NEWS

Workshop will focus on the role of metaverses, AR, VR, and digital twins

Career Experience wins 2022 Digital Innovation Award

Jignesh Patel, SVP at AmerisourceBergen

Information Systems Job Index 2022

Vince Ford, SVP at Curtis Institute of Music

20th Annual IT awards

IBIT Scholarships 2022

The digital transformation of workforce development summit

Agora World and LogixCxt win 2021 Digital Innovation Awards

Sondra Barbour, Executive-in-Residence spends the day engaging with students

Digital Innovation Award

9th annual IT career fair attracts 23 employers

IBIT Annual Report 2020-2021

Digital Innovation Foundry Projects in 2021

Digital Fireside Chats kept big ideas flowing during social distancing

[Read More...]

Footer

Fox School of Business

Institute for Business and Information Technology

210 Speakman Hall
1810 N. 13th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19122

RSSLinkedinFlickr

ABOUT IBIT

  • About
  • Staff
  • Advisory Board
  • Sponsors
  • News
  • Contact us and directions

Search

RSS IBIT NEWS

  • Workshop will focus on the role of metaverses, AR, VR, and digital twins
  • Career Experience wins 2022 Digital Innovation Award
  • Jignesh Patel, SVP at AmerisourceBergen
  • Information Systems Job Index 2022
  • Vince Ford, SVP at Curtis Institute of Music
  • 20th Annual IT awards
  • IBIT Scholarships 2022
  • The digital transformation of workforce development summit
MORE NEWS...

Copyright © 2023 IBIT · Fox School of Business · Temple University · contact us at ibit@temple.edu

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.