NEW YORK, Feb. 25, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- iQ4 Corporation and the Cybersecurity Workforce Alliance (CWA) announced today a partnership with ISACA New York Metropolitan Chapter (ISACA NYM) to collaborate, transform and scale the cybersecurity workforce of the future. ISACA members will earn Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits, while mentoring virtual-internships and apprenticeships on iQ4's centralized platform -- proven to help students, academia, business and government develop workplace readiness for cyber roles.
The reach of this partnership is broad -- with the CWA, a division of iQ4 created to accelerate the readiness and scale of the student workforce, currently having 1,500 members from both industry and academia, and ISACA's NYM chapter leveraging the expertise of its 4,000+ member professionals in cybersecurity, IT governance, assurance, risk and innovation.
As ISACA' s largest chapter, ISACA NYM is equipping its members with the knowledge, credentials, education and network to advance their careers and transform their organizations. Through education and knowledge sharing, the ISACA NYM chapter will help the professionalization, certification and quality assurance of its membership for the industries they serve.
ISACA was incorporated in 1969 by a small group of individuals who recognized a need for a centralized source of information and guidance in the growing field of auditing controls for computer systems. Today, it engages over 450,000 professionals around the world in information and cybersecurity, governance, assurance, risk and innovation and serves 188 countries, including 215 chapters worldwide and offices on every continent. ISACA NYM was founded in 1975 and became the 10th ISACA Chapter.
The partnership agreement between iQ4 and ISACA will have a direct impact on helping students get various types of jobs in cybersecurity -- allowing them to participate in digital internships and apprenticeships while ISACA members personally earn credits toward maintaining their own professional certifications. The partnership will also help to generate a pipeline of students for ISACA to certify and scale the student workforce with readiness programs that aim to close the global cyber security and risk profession skills gap.
ISACA NYM will recognize mentorship hours spent with students and will be granting CPE credits -- validating the knowledge shared and the value to accelerate and scale workforce readiness.
iQ4 also recently announced that it was part of an initiative with the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) that plans to transform New York City into a global leader of cybersecurity innovation and talent to combat one of the world's greatest threats.
Cyber NYC, the City's initiative to grow the cybersecurity sector, plans to leverage a roster of world-renowned partners, such as iQ4, to help fuel commercialization and research, and create new talent pipelines to train the cyber workforce of the future. iQ4's partnership with ISACA NYM will help scale this program and will lay the groundwork for certification potential.
"This agreement is focused on helping to close the skills gap in cybersecurity for students and businesses. Today's world is powered by technology, and together with ISACA we will help equip our next generation workforce with the knowledge, credentials, education and experience to advance their careers and transform their organizations," said Frank Cicio, founder and chief executive officer, iQ4. "The partnership provides broad industry driven certification programs for students and mentors, and levels the playing field for diversification and inclusion while reducing the cost to find, develop and retain talent by an order of magnitude."
iQ4 was formed with the mission to accelerate and scale the supply of workforce-ready candidates so they are more attractive to hire and provide productivity to their employer immediately upon joining the workforce. The acquisition of skills during the mentoring program empowers students with pertinent knowledge, soft skills and experience for future prospects. Companies are able to develop the next-generation workforce in accordance with the demands of the market. iQ4 facilitates the creation of a competent workforce by uniting the independent initiatives of industry and academia.
While education is increasing the number of academic courses for cybersecurity and risk, and the number of students taking them, the result is an academic qualification. Academia on its own, however, is not geared to produce the workforce readiness and the essential workplace soft skills, which employers look for in entry-level candidates.
"We are very excited about our new partnership with iQ4," said Alexander Abramov, president of ISACA NYM. "Both ISACA NYM and iQ4 have built strong partnerships with several prominent schools in New York City and together we have developed strong relationships with many senior cyber security leaders. By joining forces, we will be offering extended opportunities for mentorships via iQ4 and involvement with ISACA for both students and mentors. We will be offering CPEs for all qualified mentoring activities, and helping professional development for our members -- truly a win-win situation."
Peter Meehan, head of International Partnerships at iQ4 said, "The partnership with ISACA will help scale the CWA movement massively because ISACA members, who are experts in their fields, provide online mentoring of current real-world challenges, making students measurably much more workforce ready. The fact that ISACA members can now get CPE credits for mentoring adds value to the mentor's valuable time beyond the "give-back" ethos that ISACA encourages. Ultimately, ISACA members and their employers are solving their own problem of wondering where the next generation professionals were coming from. We are really excited about these first steps to change the future of cybersecurity."
About ISACA New York Metropolitan Chapter (ISACA NYM)
As ISACA' s largest chapter, ISACA NYM is equipping its members with the knowledge, credentials, education and network to advance their careers and transform their organizations. Through education and knowledge sharing, the ISACA NYM leverages the expertise of its 4000+ member professionals in cybersecurity, IT governance, assurance, risk and innovation, to help better its membership and industries they serve.
About iQ4
iQ4 is a centralized platform, which assesses workforce skills risk, empowers individual career pathway mobility and mobilizes applied learning through the strategic collaboration between students, academia, and the business world. The acquisition of skills during the mentoring program empowers students and professionals with pertinent knowledge for future prospects. Companies are able to develop and pipeline the next-generation workforce in accordance with the demands of the market. iQ4 facilitates the creation of a competent workforce by uniting the independent initiatives of industry and academia.
About the CWA
The CWA, a division founded by iQ4 Corporation, Chief Information Security Officers (CISO) representing the worlds largest financial firms and the City University of New York to scale the workforce readiness of students across our nation and globally. As an industry driven initiative, the organization models an open-source approach to the project curriculum content and work role taxonomy. With over 1,500 members the CWA also provides a vast resource of subject matter experts that mentor student teams in virtual projects as interns and apprentices.
SOURCE iQ4
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