VCs, Tech Firms Want to Raise $1 Million for Bay Area Cyber Education

Krishnan Chellakarai,

chief information security officer at biopharmaceutical company

Gilead Sciences Inc.

and the founder of NextGen Cyber Talent, said security chiefs are feeling the lack of workers in areas such as security operations and engineering, network security incident response. That often leads to poaching, which doesn’t address the root issue.

“Because we all need these talents, we end up recruiting valuable employees from one another, even though we are all trying to ultimately solve the same cyber challenge,” Mr. Chellakarai said. “Instead of trying to steal from one another, we need to work together to encourage more people to get into the field and increase the supply of skilled individuals.”

Professional organizations such as the International Information System Security Certification Consortium, or (ISC)2, estimate that around 2.72 million cybersecurity professionals are needed globally.

Just under 600,000 cyber positions in the U.S. alone are unfilled, according to CyberSeek, a joint project between the public and private sectors that examines cyber career data.

Dave DeWalt,

founder and managing director of venture-capital firm NightDragon LLC, said he believes the relative paucity of cyber workers places the U.S. at a strategic disadvantage to global rivals such as China, which has invested in a pipeline of tech talent over many years.

“They’ve prepared the next generation of cyber defenders that dwarfs what the Western world is doing,” Mr. DeWalt said. “So put together this perfect storm of needing all the talent and then an adversary well ahead of us in the arms race, and I believe this is one of the bigger risks we are facing.”

Targeting community colleges is an attempt to increase diversity in cybersecurity by focusing on underserved or underprivileged entrants, said

Lucia Milică,

resident CISO at cybersecurity firm Proofpoint Inc., who sits on NextGen’s San Francisco chapter board and has invested privately in the group.

“Folks that are able to go to some of the more prestigious colleges are maybe not necessarily in as much need,” Ms. Milică said. “We wanted to reach out to folks that want to have an education, that are very much interested in this area, but by the same token aren’t necessarily able to afford a robust, well-funded cybersecurity training program.”

A consortium of companies put together by NightDragon has so far raised $300,000 for the initiative, Mr. DeWalt said. But its $1 million goal pales next to funding rounds and capital raises at cyber companies, which often run to the hundreds of millions. By convincing companies to contribute even small amounts, Mr. DeWalt said, he hopes similar philanthropic programs will be launched in other cities, both in the U.S. and globally.

“We want the Uber driver, the farmer. We want the everyday person, to re-skill them, and put them in the classes,” he said. To broaden the program’s impact, he said, “Start with the local announcement, repeat that model, get a national program and really roll this thing into something meaningful that can close this threat gap that’s out there.”

NextGen’s effort is just one of a number of different programs launched in recent months to combat the skills shortage and increase diversity in cybersecurity. Some cyber chiefs have also rethought the way they recruit staff, at times by abandoning traditional degree requirements and looking for candidates who have complementary backgrounds in areas other than computer science.

On Thursday, the nonprofit Advancing Minorities’ Interest in Engineering said it has partnered with

Microsoft Corp.

,

Raytheon Technologies Corp.

and

Abbott Laboratories

on a pilot supporting cybersecurity education at historically Black colleges and universities. The companies will contribute to a test program at four colleges through funding, internships and sending staff to serve as guest lecturers.

Exposing students to cybersecurity careers can help seed the talent pool, said

Veronica Nelson,

AMIE’s executive director.

“We want to reach out to the students, give them the opportunity to speak to cybersecurity professionals and learn, as a mechanical engineer or a computer science engineer or electrical engineer, how they can get involved in cybersecurity, because many times they’re not aware,” she said.

A range of companies also said they would help improve cybersecurity education after an August 2021 meeting at the White House with President Biden. Commitments ranged from direct partnerships with community colleges and HBCUs, to funding for cybersecurity training. Among those promising help were companies such as

Apple Inc.,

Alphabet Inc.,

International Business Machines Corp.

and Microsoft.

Write to James Rundle at james.rundle@wsj.com