Accessible Cybersecurity Training for Northwest Kansas Counties
The Innovation Center now offers free cybersecurity training for teens and adults. Serving 26 northwest Kansas counties, the Innovation Center provides a variety of economic and entrepreneurial resources, including Google Career Certifications, childcare services, housing programs, small business services, a job site and more.
The Innovation Center is a Grow with Google Partner, which allows it to issue scholarships through Google to make technology and career training more accessible. Cybersecurity training is one of 10 Google certifications the center offers at no cost to participants. All courses incorporate self-guided lessons that can be completed remotely.
Participants who earn their Google Cybersecurity Professional certification through the Innovation Center will have the additional opportunity to enroll in Heartland Cyber Range, a partner program offered by the Kansas City-based economic development organization EnterpriseKC. Graduates from the Cyber Range program become prime candidates for entry-level cybersecurity jobs with an average starting salary of $70,000 a year.
Currently 22 students from five northwest Kansas high schools are enrolled in the Innovation Center’s cybersecurity training. The students will receive an elective credit toward graduation as well as nine college credits certified by the American Council on Education. Students work through the lessons online via Coursera at their own pace as the Innovation Center’s Technical Program Specialist, Maria Dahlquist, watches over their progress.
“It's really a very simple process. I enroll them and keep an eye on their progress via Coursera, communicate with them through Slack and send weekly progress reports to the schools,” Dahlquist said. “We've had four high school students complete the Google certification so far, and they will be moving on to EnterpriseKC’s Cyber Range program in the fall. We have also developed an online dashboard to give teachers and counselors live access to their students’ progress and grades on Coursera.”
The Innovation Center is in the process of working with the Kansas State Department of Education and school districts to implement these programs as STEM credits that could fulfill computer science requirements for high school graduation.
On average, obtaining the Google Cybersecurity Professional certification through the Innovation Center takes about a semester to complete, whereas the subsequent training with EnterpriseKC’s Cyber Range program lasts anywhere from two to six semesters.
“I have students who have prior knowledge and just blew right through the Google certification in two weeks,” Dahlquist said. “The students who may not have any prior knowledge will take a little bit longer. But it is self-paced, and they can work on it outside of school if they wish to.”
Once students have gained foundational knowledge from the Google certification, they receive a more robust and hands-on set of exercises through the Cyber Range program.
“EnterpriseKC has built an amazing system that shows the students how to fight real-world threats with dummy companies,” Dahlquist said. “They will get firsthand experience with the cybersecurity threats and defending against them.”
Cyber Range builds on the entry-level Google Cybersecurity Professional certification by providing more variability for each student. Using personal assessments, students can identify their strengths before beginning their training, which can help them reveal what areas of cybersecurity might suit them best.
Cyber Range program graduates can continue to access resources and mentors to keep up to date with new cyber threats and how to defend against them.
“We're building a network of cybersecurity employers,” Dahlquist said. “We’re also signing up cybersecurity professionals to become mentors for the students as they go through the training and ongoing support after employment.”
And like the process of completing the program, graduates have the potential to launch successful cybersecurity careers while working from home.
“If you can't even think about leaving home because you have to stay and help mom and dad with the farm, you don't have to move to Denver, Wichita or Chicago to get that high-paying job,” Dahlquist said. “It is possible to work remotely in cybersecurity.”
Anyone living in the 26 counties of northwest Kansas can enroll at no cost with the Innovation Center, and Kansas residents outside those counties can sign up for an identical program through EnterpriseKC, which is free for high school and college students.
Visit the Innovation Center’s website to learn more about its selection of programs.