Our shared industry mission to close the cybersecurity workforce gap SC Media

It's no secret that our cybersecurity industry today suffers from a yawning talent gap -- a statistical juggernauton track to reach 3.5 million unfilled positions by 2021. As the wakeup call spreads, we're seeing more cross-disciplinary trainingsand nurture efforts deep into the educational pipeline -- from pre-K, elementaryand middle schoolinitiatives, to programs for high schooland higher education. We just got fresh momentum from the recent White House "Executive Order on America's Cybersecurity Workforce," which proclaims our collective cybersecurity talent pool "a strategic asset that protects the American people" and in need of "work-based learning, apprenticeships, and blended learning approaches…for both new workforce entrants and those who are advanced in their careers." As a cybersecurity education evangelist, this proclamation is at once music to my ears and the mother of all to-do lists. That's because the Executive Order focuses primarily on the Why and What -- meaning it's largely up to the industry to keep figuring out the How.