SAN ANGELO, Texas — Angelo State University hosted a news conference to announce a new partnership program between ASU and the University of Texas at San Antonio that is designed to help communities become more cyber secure nationwide. The program is the first of its kind and is funded by a grant from the National Security Agency.
President of ASU Ronnie D. Hawkins Jr. said this is considered a milestone not only for the potential enrollment at ASU, but the impact the community will have in learning more about cyber security.
“We're intently focused on the K-12 because a lot of those individuals don't know the power that's in their hands. We want them to appreciate and understand what's going on. Not just them, they're gonna be able to teach their parents and older siblings of sorts and this will be a spider web all the way through the entire society,” Hawkins said.
Goals for the project are to develop community-wide K-12 cybersecurity programs, support local industry and government to be more cyber resilient, and help local academic institutions to develop cybersecurity programs for students by helping create Centers of Academic Excellence.
Once the ASU-UTSA pilot project is complete, the program will be transferable and applicable to communities of any size across the U.S.
The Director of Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security (CIAS) Dr. Greg White describes ASU as a pilot for the advancements of knowledge in cyber security.
"We have for the last almost 20 years been working with states and locals to build a program. San Angelo gets to be the pilot of that program. The National Security Agency has provided us a grant to help San Angelo establish a whole community cyber establishing programming. That's the key," White said.
Right now there is no word on when the program will officially begin, but White says it will be sooner than later.
