Spotlight: Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst

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[Music] welcome thank you for joining this session my name is roxanna rosenbeiger i'm from the rogers cybersecure catalyst at ryerson university um and we are actually ryerson's national center for innovation and collaboration in cyber security we are actually a not-for-profit that is owned and operated by ryerson university and we're based in brampton ontario our mandate is to educate canadians and canadian companies on how to tackle the challenges of cyber security and we collaborate closely with industry with government with academic institutions and other public agencies across all sectors on anything related to cyber security so i'm going to tell you a little bit more about our initiatives and then i will tell you about our amazing accelerated cyber security

training program which is open to applicants nationwide i mean it is a fully virtual program so stay tuned for more information on that in just a few minutes so first we have at the catalyst a cyber accelerator so our cyber accelerator is the first cyber security focus commercial accelerator in canada we also have corporate training and cyber range and this is providing canadian organizations with access to cyber trading so that means they can bring their employees in to get trained in cyber security we also have the cyber secure policy exchange which actively supports policy development in cyber security and finally we have the accelerated cyber security training program which is empowering people from all different backgrounds and not

necessarily technical backgrounds to launch careers in cyber security so a little bit more about the cyber accelerator as i mentioned it's the first cyber security focus commercial accelerator in canada and it's really um helping early-stage canadian cyber security companies grow into national and international competitors by providing technical and strategic advice mentorship and business resources our corporates and residents include our access to senior leaders and functional teams with some of the most sophisticated cyber security operations in canada and they include rogers communications rbc torres llp herjavac group siemens sun life microsoft amazon web services and many many more so those are our corporates and residents who are there to help our cyber security companies accelerate the catalyst cyber range

is a unique cyber security training testing platform that provides experiential learning opportunities that are immersive and realistic it is a combination of tailored workshops tabletop exercises and catalyst cyber range technical scenarios and it is accessible to public and private organizations in canada enabling them to train and upskill their staff validate cyber security playbooks and test new products and finally the cybersecure policy exchange um and it's a mission to broaden and deepen the discussion about cybersecurity and digital privacy policy in canada um and our 2021 policy and research agenda covers things like social media social media encryption private messaging and online harms the internet of things including national defense vulnerabilities securing smart cities and biometrics facial recognition

technology and remote work technology and finally the accelerated cyber security training program which is our seven-month intensive training and certification program and it is addressing canada's cyber security skills shortage it's designed to give students the skills they need to launch entry-level careers in the cyber security sector so as you all probably know there is a very large cyber security skills shortage in canada this program was created in partnership with rogers with rbc and the government of canada to address that cyber security skills shortage the cost of the program is only 500 but the value of the program is 25 000 per student so our funders have invested about 30 million dollars into the rogers cybersecure catalyst at ryerson

university so that we can offer programs like this and the other initiatives for a very low cost or no cost we also have three cohorts per year february june and october so if you're interested in launching a career in cyber security through the rogers cybersecure catalyst you can apply for our february 2022 cohort or our june 2022 or our october 2022 cohort and uh the hybrid programming includes mostly self-study out of those seven months and three weeks of virtual live classes so the program is fully virtual but there are three weeks of live classes that are mandatory which you would log in online and there's a live instructor you'd be on there with the rest of your classmates

and those three weeks in class are spread out throughout the duration of the program so i'll get to the schedule in just a little bit at the catalyst we are reimagining the cyber security workforce so that means that we are providing a pathway into a career in cyber security for people from all different backgrounds and experiences as i mentioned you do not need to have a technical background to apply to our program and that is because we want to diversify the workforce so we can accelerate canada canada's ability to defend our communities our governments and our industries because we know for a fact that we need cyber defenders who are as diverse as the problems and attacks that

we are trying to solve currently in our program we have students from over 39 different countries of origin we have over 60 percent female students as we're trying to bring more women into cyber security over 90 of our students have post-secondary education 50 of them or so have less than 10 years of work experience and you know 60 of those have some experience in a previous technical role but really our program is about empowering new people to come into cyber security so if you're at that time in your career that you're looking for a career switch and you want to make it into cyber this is exactly the kind of program you're looking for our program is actually in partnership

with sans and giac so um as you may know sans is the world's leading cyber security training organization and it is also the most trusted and largest source of cyber security training in the world and our students in the program will earn three gia certifications as part of this program they will get their g fact which is their foundational cybersecurity technology certification their g sec the security essentials certification and the gcih which is the gx certified incident handler certification all of this for only five hundred dollars gx certifications provide employers with the highest and most rigorous assurance of cyber security knowledge and skills and they are listed as preferred qualifications on thousands of job postings across the globe

so who can apply to our program we our funders have identified underrepresented groups in cyber that they would like to bring into cyber so the first group is the rbc women in cyber stream and if you identify as female you can apply under the women in cyber stream the next stream is the new career stream and uh this one is open to anyone who has lost their full-time employment and has not been able to obtain another full-time position so you know unfortunately because of pandemic and coven there have been many people who have been applying to this stream because they've found themselves unemployed or only working part-time and they're rethinking their career and their their

thinking they want to enter into the tech and specifically into cyber and finally we have the new canadians in cyberstream and this one is open to anyone who has lived in canada for at least two years and has not been able to find full-time employment that aligns with their education and their skills so an example of this would be you know if you were if you're a new canadian and you come to canada you were an accountant or a lawyer back home let's say you haven't been able to pursue that career in canada and you want to now move into tech you could apply to the new canadian stream and for all of our streams you do have

to be either canadian citizen permanent resident or convention refugee to apply as we are trying to address a skill shortage in canada we need to make sure that our graduates are legally able to work in canada that they are living in canada permanently and will be able to go into the cyber security job market upon completion of this program uh the minimum age requirement is 18 years of age with at least a high school diploma so we do not require that you have post-secondary education to apply to this program a lot of companies especially tech companies um are now realizing that you know you don't have to have post-secondary education to succeed in a career in tech

so our program does not require you to have a post post-secondary education and finally the last requirement is that you're not enrolled in another academic program at the same time as you would be enrolled in our program so if you're completing a program in april 2022 let's say you can apply for our june 2022 cohort as long as you're not enrolled in another full-time program while doing our program i'm just going to stop right there do i have any questions so far there's nothing in the chat right now okay great so the program schedule looks like this over the seven months the first you're going to be doing four courses those four courses are sans

foundations that top one right there weeks one to six then you're going to do um week eight the sec 401 sands security essentials boot camp then you're going to do sec 504 in week 17 which is hacker techniques exploits and incident handling and then on week 26 you're going to do cyber security and business week pleasing ignore this in person class this is a lot virtual live class uh this is just an old schedule i have up here so the first six weeks is sans foundations um after which you're going to write your first certification exam which is your gfac certification exam on week seven once you pass that exam you're gonna come into week eight for your first

virtual live class for uh sac 401 security essentials boot camp and that is a monday to saturday 9 a.m to 7 p.m class um and that is mandatory attendance you will be required to be logged in listening to the instructor attendance will be taken and that is for the duration of the week so if you are working full-time or you have other commitments the expectation would be that you are able to take those three these three weeks of mandatory in class time off of work or you know unpaid leave vacation time or uh being able to arrange a schedule with your employer so after week eight of your in class your first in-class course you're

gonna have about seven weeks after that or uh yes six weeks or seven to self-study and review everything you learned in sec 401 and write your second certification exam in week 16 which is your g sex certification exam keeping these exams are pretty long exams so the g sec for example is a five hour open book exam and the passing score is about 73 percent um so these exams are usually in the 70 to pass so once you pass your gsec exam you're going to come in for your second virtual live class which is week 17 for hacker techniques exploits and incident handling that's another monday to saturday class 9 a.m to 7 00 p.m

and then you're going to self-study and review and prepare for your third certification exam which is your gcih certification exam and then finally your last week in class which is week 26 of virtual live class for your cyber security and business week and this one is only monday to friday nine a.m to five p.m and then you go into your career preparation module after that so as you can see you're going to be doing three sans courses three gx certifications and a catalyst run course which is the business course what you'll be learning in these courses are as follows so the first course foundations computers technology and security is where you're going to develop your fundamental skills and

knowledge in things like linux programming networking computer hardware operating systems encryption basic security concepts and much much more this is the introductory course this is the course that's going to be bring everyone to a level playing field and ready to go into the more advanced courses that come next so sec 401 security essentials network endpoint and cloud teaches you advanced cyber defense skills such as access control incident response network security and cloud essentials disaster recovery windows and azure security and more and then you have 504 which is hacker techniques and incident handling which teaches you advanced incident incident handler handling and hacker tool techniques strategies to identify vulnerabilities and intrusions as well as defending and responding to attacks

and finally cyber security professional practice course where you will learn how cyber security impacts business operations decision making and strategic planning so those are the courses in a nutshell and if you're still not convinced here are some other reasons why you should choose to study in the accelerated cyber security training program other than the fact that it is pretty much tuition free and you're getting an entire program like this plus industry certifications for only 500 we care about your success so we will provide you with alumni coaches you will do check-in calls with the staff we want to make sure you're staying on track with the material because it is an intensive and accelerated program so the

per this program that you're going to be doing in seven months and three gx certifications is what someone usually does in a year to two years so it is an accelerated program um but we want everybody to succeed complete the program pass the certifications and find employment in cyber security we also give you access to the sans technical mentors which are industry professionals they have their gex certifications and they're here to help you through the technical parts of the program you will do weekly check-in calls with your stance technical mentors and they will also provide one-on-one support we also have a strong student community which begins at orientation so before each cohort starts there is a mandatory

orientation that every student has to attend you are added to slack which is our communication tool and people form study groups um students answer each other's questions in slack we know all of us our students on a first name basis so we do pride ourselves on a very strong student community and finally the career development piece so not only do we train and certify our students we're going to help you find employment in cyber security our mandate is 100 employment of our graduates so we're going to work closely with you to help you transition to a career in cyber security we're going to uh get your resumes ready we have a pr interview practice platform that we're

going to give you access to along with typical cyber security interview questions that are asked that you can practice we host employer information sessions with employers that are hiring for cyber roles and directly hiring students from our program and our grads are hired into full-time permanent or full-time contract roles we do not place students in co-ops or internships salary expectations and hiring stats currently we have about a 94 employment rate within a couple of months of graduation so it is a very high employment rate um typical starting salaries um can range anywhere between 55 to 65 000 if you're brand new to tech and if you do have some previous technical experience you could get

anywhere between 65 to 80 000 uh depending on the company and the role of course so cyber of course is the next big industry um there's lots of jobs out there the salaries are great um our students right now are working at places like rogers samsung arctic wolves series um sirius cn herja back group ericsson freedom mobile east entire deloitte has hired about 10 or 15 of our students um mandiant mastercard 407 with many many more that are not on the screen but we have many employer partners that are jumping on board to hire students pwc just jumped on board kpmg all hiring for entry-level cyber roles which is what you will get out of this program so our

program prepares you for technical entry-level cyber roles like stock analyst cyber security analyst network security operations analyst application security analyst trio security analyst these are just some of the roles that our students have been hired into after completing the program and finally if you're still not convinced and you're thinking i don't have a tech background or maybe you do have a tech background employers are looking for transferable skills in addition to the technical skills that you're going to gain from our program so the first skill that employers are looking for is critical thinking uh communication skills customer service skills adaptability and of course lifelong learning because with cyber it's ever changing you're going to have

to always get more certifications to stay on top of industry trends so you're never going to stop learning once you get into a career in cyber and i'd like to just leave you with a couple of our alumni stories so our program is changing lives um simply put we are looking for people who wouldn't necessarily have access to this type of training if it weren't for a fully funded program and our mandate again is to bring an influx of newly trained and certified cyber security professionals into the canadian cyber security job market so this is chris lynn she just recently graduated from our program she was in marketing and communications before she applied to our program completely

different career recently completed our program and is now working as a cyber security analyst for the ontario government igor he was a truck driver um and he had always thought about a career in tech never had the courage to take the leap heard about our program decided to finally go for it was the top scorer on two of the certifications um and is now working at arctic wolf as a stock analyst so these are just a couple of our alumni stories we actually post many of our alumni stories on um on linkedin and twitter so please do follow the catalyst on social media if you want to hear more about these alumni stories and lastly is apply now so we have a

four-step application process the first is just fill in the online application on our website and we will contact you with next steps the next steps would be the sand aptitude assessment so we do uh test your aptitude for career in cyber security there is an interview portion which is a pre-recorded interview not a live interview where you'll have to submit a statement of interest and a resume and you'll also have to provide a professional or academic reference so those are the four application steps also listed on our on our website everything i've talked about in this presentation is also on our website but if you have additional questions or eligibility questions you can email us at catalyst training at

ryerson.ca so that's our admissions email or if you have questions about other parts of the catalyst like the cyber range the accelerator the policy exchange you can uh go on our website at cybersecurecatalyst.ca and read about those initiatives and also how you can apply into for example the the accelerator program if you choose to um so that's it for me i can open it up to questions now if there are any um otherwise i hope to have some interest and you know receive some applications um so yeah any questions there's no questions in the chat at the moment but we maybe give people a couple of minutes to collect their thoughts sure um so maybe i'll just stop sharing for

now or maybe i'll just leave this up on the screen

okay doesn't seem like there's any questions yet people seem a little shy today it's okay do you have a booth in the session as well uh yeah so i'm just in the expo session uh that's like yeah that would be a booth yeah so i've been uh in and out of it all day um see if there's any uh people asking questions but so far not but it was a good turnout it was a good turnout for the event yes

uh is your are your class cohorts always full um yeah so we do have to fill up all of our cohorts usually they're about 60 people per cohort but for 2022 we're actually almost doubling the amount of students that we're in taking so it'll be 80 for february 160 for june and 120 for october so lots of opportunity to uh to get admitted to the program but also a very small seat count so you do get lots of great one-on-one time i'm sure yes yep that's that's the whole point um you know we really created this program um as a way to address that cyber security skill shortage in a very short amount of time

um so seven months trained certified and they get the employment support coming out of the program as well and it's fully virtual so we can open it up to applicants uh nationwide which has been great i mean originally before the pandemic it was three weeks in class um but we had to pivot the lights just went off uh we had to pivot to fully virtual and it's working really well for us um so we're just going to keep it that way that's great are there any other questions today

i guess not it's a very thorough presentation thank you very much thank you so much have a great evening

the room will stay open for as long as there are still people in it so if uh you're not in a rush to get back to your booth you can hang out here for a while or we can direct everybody to ask their questions in your booth at the expo and you can answer them there okay yeah that would be great maybe um direct everyone to the booth in the expo and i can answer any questions that way great thanks everyone for attending bye everybody