CyberWarrior Foundation, the nonprofit arm of a Boston company focused on cybersecurity training and staffing, has received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to work on training a diverse workforce.
The organization will run a 28-week, 800-hour training program as part of a three-year pilot with DHS’ cyber subdivision, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. According to the agency, the goal is to “develop a scalable and replicable proof of concept to successfully identify and train talented individuals around the country.”
The program will specifically focus on recruiting women, people of color and veterans to join a field that CEO Reinier Moquete said is short millions of workers.
“When you talk about the dramatic need for talent and then you combine that with the social disparities that exist, cybersecurity becomes a very, very strong opportunity for economic development,” said Moquete, who founded the company in 2012.
Jonathan Edwards, CyberWarrior’s chief operating officer, said they saw the funding opportunity from the government and thought the firm would be a perfect fit.
“They were looking for that place where it dovetails between the need for cyber talent and the need to diversify the cyber workforce. And so it was a perfect storm for us ... being able to train up the exact target population that CISA and DHS were looking for,” Edwards said.
He added that the value of recruiting from a broader population is clear: “If you need the best and the brightest to protect your systems, then you better recruit from 100% of the population as opposed to just 50% of the population.”
The new award is CyberWarrior’s first federal grant, but the company has a long history of working with partners like the Boston Foundation, Citizens Bank and Microsoft.
The pandemic was difficult for its training efforts, said Moquete, but it “forced us to re-engineer everything we were doing,” shifting to an e-learning platform.
