Stay up to date follow us on Twitter @RattlerNationFL
FAMU receives $5 million grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to establish a Cyber Policy Institute. The grant is part of $20 million the foundation made to four minority serving colleges/universities to increase equity and diversity within the cyber field.
“We are proud to partner with the Hewlett Foundation to create the Cyber Policy Institute, an interdisciplinary collaboration between the University’s College of Science and Technology (CST) and the College of Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities (CSSAH),” said FAMU President Larry Robinson. “This partnership will help students develop expertise and, ultimately, earn a master’s degree in cyber policy. ”
“Because of the pivotal role digital technology plays in our society, it is critical that the cybersecurity field that protects computer networks and individual users can draw on the experience and expertise of people from diverse backgrounds – particularly those that have historically been underrepresented and excluded,” Eli Sugarman, who leads the Cyber Initiative for the Hewlett Foundation, said in a statement. “The work these institutions will do represents a key piece of the puzzle in developing a more diverse cyber policy field that can keep us all safer in cyberspace.”
The FAMU Cyber Policy Institute [Cyπ] addresses challenges and opportunities presented by the development of cyber-enabled disciplines where market science fuses with the domain, their impact on society and human evolvement while creating a talent pipeline that produces experts with the necessary mix of non-technical and technical skills and knowledge to staff our institutions- academia, government and corporate, said co-principal investigator Richard Aló, Dean, FAMU College of Science and Technology.
“The institute will engage faculty and graduate student fellows and broaden collaboration between non-STEM and STEM disciplines,” Aló explained.
With the spectacular and fast-paced technological innovation, particularly within social media, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Data Sciences, there has been a corresponding growth in the cyber-attack threat, Aló added.
“There have been great strides in how we respond to the cyber threat from a technological perspective, but cyber issues cannot be addressed from a purely technological perspective,” Aló said. “Data Science and its tools have significantly influenced the workforce where our professions are rapidly being digitalized and demand the fusion of our domain sciences with market science – psychology, policy, management, ethics, etc. There is a pressing need for experts in cyber/technology policy. Developing policies to address cyber/technology issues significantly lags technological advances in government or the corporate environment.”