According to the National Initiative For Cyber security Careers and Studies African Americans constitute 10.7% of the Information Technology workforce but only 8.3% of the IT work force. Hispanics represent 12.9% of the work force but only 6.4% of the IT work force.

In a world of ever increasing threats to everything that allows our society to function in a modern way, we must equip the most vulnerable and underserved amongst us and it starts with the young people.

Greater Baltimore Cares will launch a cyber careers mentoring program by recruiting mentors from the cyber and computer fields.  We will partner with Ross Technologies Inc. and a soon to be published list of technology firms from the surrounding community but also from across the country  to deliver mentoring, resources, programmatic support and technology.

The goal is to teach STEM related skills while providing instruction that qualifies for entry level understanding of cyber and mobile computing typically sought by corporations and State and Local Governments.

The program targets middle and high school students. Each student will gain enough training and hands on skills typically needed for entry level intrusion detection and security operations center careers. Secondly the mobile application students will learn the basics of mobile application development and an understanding of how cyber risks impact mobile applications.

The Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that Information Security careers demand is out pacing almost all other IT career labor categories. Another study reports that over 200,000 Information security/Cyber jobs remained unfilled from year to year.

“By partnering with technology firms and mentors we can help our kids from underserved communities build the foundation needed for a bright future” said Kathy and Armando Seay from Ross Technologies. ”We were mentored by incredible teachers that taught us the fundamentals of what was known as Data Processing in the 70’s at Carver Vocational Technical High School in Baltimore – this foundation is what steered us into the over 30 years of work in the IT field. We are witnesses to the power of mentoring.”  – Kathy Seay.

If you would like to lend your talents to this important work please contact Greater Baltimore Cares at connect@baltimorecares.org or 443.840.9290.