Usually ‘camp’ means setting up tents, roasting marshmallows for s’mores, and unplugging for a while to get some valuable relaxation and experience nature. But this summer at Beaufort County School District, attendees of the GenCyber Camp took the idea of ‘camp’ in a slightly different, but equally valuable direction – less campfires and a lot more plugging in.
This year’s GenCyber Camp, a two week-effort hosted on the Technical College of the Lowcountry’s Mather Campus, trained local middle school and high school educators on foundational concepts and practices of cybersecurity. The Camp was enabled by funding from the National Security Agency (NSA) as part of a $150,000 grant which Beaufort County School District won in November, 2022. The overall initiative behind the grant funding is called GenCyber Program, an NSA initiative to provide in-depth training and resources to school systems so that local areas can develop their own educational methods to inspire the next generation of cybersecurity professionals. The NSA has funded this program for the last eight years in order to provide opportunities for students and teachers to explore cybersecurity fundamentals, technology, and career pathways.
The BSCD’s grant win and their resulting GenCyber Camp are excellent examples of how the Beaufort area, and the Lowcountry as a whole, continue to expand the local footprints of the cyber and technology industry. As readers of this blog will know, a critical factor in the success of a cyber industry is the creation and expansion of a cyber-oriented workforce and it is exciting that BSCD has both recognized this need within the community and taken action to fulfill it through the GenCyber effort. As BSCD Superintendent Frank Rodriguez quite correctly stated in a media release, “This GenCyber grant is a win-win, equipping our educators to address high-level future trends and workforce needs while also ensuring our students’ long-term success”.
Even more exciting to see are the connections that the efforts of BSCD and others are now beginning to manifest, with additional results and continued professional development opportunities springing up in the Beaufort area. For example, the Beaufort Digital Corridor offers further resourcing opportunities for educators looking to build on their GenCyber Camp experience and BSCD has cyber-focused Career and Technical Education (CTE) and MedTech7 programs designed to increase students’ foundational skills in computer science and cybersecurity.
These developments, while thrilling and positive in their own right, are even more so against the backdrop of Beaufort’s military and defense industry. Any potential cyber workforce pipeline already has a clear endpoint with major military installations like MCAS Beaufort right in BSCD’s backyard. This local presence of significant national security resources can also be a key factor in the ability to gain more funding and resourcing from federal sources such as the NSA to grow more opportunities. We look forward to seeing how BSCD’s further efforts in the GenCyber program continue to pay off and congratulate the district on a job well done as they train the future great minds of Beaufort County!
