WM William & Mary Cybersecurity Awareness Initiative for PIT-UN

The aim of William & Mary’s Cybersecurity Awareness Initiative was to leverage educational resources and experiential learning to benefit high school and college students, especially women and minorities who are significantly underrepresented in the cybersecurity workforce. To work within the students’ time and location constraints, we collaborated with iQ4, a digital talent Cloud infrastructure that offers cyber internships for students to develop skills and competencies to prepare them for the workforce. iQ4 is registered with the National Apprenticeship System in accordance with the apprenticeship standards established by the U.S. Secretary of Labor, and they provided students with a micro-accreditation. Students were appointed as “cyber interns,” working in teams under Professors Chon Abraham and Iria Giuffrida’s supervision and mentored by industry experts from iQ4’s Cybersecurity Workforce Alliance, comprising over 3,200 members. Working online within the iQ4 workforce development platform, interns took on real-world professional roles in real-life cybersecurity scenarios, focused on the interrelated dimensions of cybersecurity threats. Interns identified cybersecurity risks and analyzed them from technical, legal, and behavioral perspectives, sharpening their ability to examine problems critically through different experiential lenses. Weekly, the interns presented their work to iQ4’s industry mentors, who provided practical feedback and offered the sort of insider knowledge that many students would not have otherwise had access to outside of this program. All students received compensation for their internships. This allowed for greater access and inclusivity, enabling the participation of students who need to work to fund their education, many of whom come from underrepresented backgrounds.