U.S. Cyber Challenge and CyberCompEx Become “NSA Day of Cyber” Partners to Inspire interest in Cybersecurity Career Opportunities

Wednesday, September 28 — Collectively, U.S. Cyber Challenge (USCC) and CyberCompEx announced today their partnership with the “NSA Day of Cyber” Initiative—a national initiative to address the cyber skills crisis and raise the “Cyber IQ” of the nation. USCC and CyberCompEx will be joining a growing nationwide effort among K-12 educators, government agencies, colleges and universities, associations, and nonprofit organizations to ignite interest in cyber career opportunities.

The “NSA Day of Cyber,” powered by LifeJourney and sponsored by the National Security Agency (NSA), is a FREE online cybersecurity career exploration and mentorship platform. The virtual and interactive experience is designed to raise career awareness and help build a pipeline of future cyber professionals by enabling students to test drive and live a day in the life of six NSA cyber professionals.

Students and young professionals will participate in challenging, real-life virtual cyber scenarios, discover the skills and tools used by the NSA cyber professionals, explore the vast number of careers in cybersecurity, and generate their Cyber Resume! (Preview the experience)

“As we endeavor to fill the workforce gap nationwide, partnering with initiatives like the ‘NSA Day of Cyber’ allows us to bring life-changing, career path mentoring tools like LifeJourney into the hands of our future cybersecurity experts and sets them on a path for success,” stated Karen S. Evans, National Director of USCC.

Recently Forbes published a forecast that there will be 1 Million open and unfilled cybersecurity positions available by the end of 2016. Job growth in cybersecurity is expected to rise ten fold over the next 10 years without enough qualified talent to keep pace, according to the San Jose State University Jay Pinson STEM Education Center. All these data points underscore the depth of the nation’s cyber skills shortage.

“With hundreds of thousands of open and unfilled jobs in cybersecurity across every industry, the support of USCC and CyberCompEx is crucial to ensuring the NSA Day of Cyber platform is made accessible to a vast audience and will greatly contribute to the ongoing success,” said Rick Geritz, CEO and Founder of LifeJourney. “We are thankful to our 2016 partner organizations for their support and commitment to our shared responsibility of promoting cybersecurity education and cyber career awareness.”

Register for the NSA Day of Cyber here: 

For more information on the NSA Day of Cyber please visit: www.nsadayofcyber.com and follow on Twitter (@DayofCyber) #DayofCyber

Press Contact: Kim Paradise ([email protected]) (410) 598-2548

 

About U.S. Cyber Challenge:

U.S. Cyber Challenge (USCC) is a program supported by the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate through a contract with the Center for Internet Security, a 501(c)3 organization, and has the mission to significantly reduce the shortage in the cyber workforce by serving as the premier program to identify, attract, recruit and place the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. USCC’s goal is to find 10,000 of America’s best and brightest to fill the ranks of cybersecurity professionals where their skills can be of the greatest value to the nation. Visit Us Online: www.uscyberchallenge.org Twitter: @USCybChallenge & @CyberCompEx

 

About NSA Day of Cyber

The NSA Day of Cyber, sponsored by the National Security Agency and powered by the LifeJourney technology, is an online, self-guided career exploration and mentorship platform that enables students to test-drive cyber careers and live a day in the life of six leading NSA cyber professionals. Each student will receive a Cyber Resume and Certificate of Completion signed by the NSA.

The NSA Day of Cyber experience is available, at no cost, to be run by schools and organizations anytime throughout the year. Schools, teachers, organizations, parents and students can register athttp://nsadayofcyber.com.

 

About LifeJourney

LifeJourney ™ is the leader in cybersecurity and STEM online career exploration and simulation. A web-based tool for the classroom that enables students to explore, discover and test-drive exciting careers of America’s STEM and Cybersecurity leaders, and thus become informed and inspired to follow the related STEM pathways to achieve those futures. The LifeJourney experience enables teachers to directly connect what they are teaching in the classroom to what students learn through the tools and technologies of organizations defining the workforce needs of tomorrow. www.lifejourney.us.