Speaking before some 50 people at the Marriott Pere Marquette Hotel last week, Nielsen praised the program which seeks to train programmers to write software less vulnerable to cyberattacks.
The CICESS program, now established at ICC, seeks to employ students as apprentices at local companies.
CICESS founder Girish Seshagiri hopes to make the software center an employment driver for the area that would also provide opportunities for minority and women entrants in the tech field.
"There's nothing quite like this program at the community college level anywhere in the country," said Nielsen.
"Students will have to produce in order to attract more companies into the program," he said.
"I think this effort has a good shot," said Nielsen who heads an institute that employs 600 people.
"We have an annual budget of $150 million and do a lot of software work for the Department of Defense. We're also involved with systems that are designed for autonomy like self-driving cars," he said.
Nielsen likened the conversion to self-driving cars to society's move to self-service elevators after relying on elevator operators for many years.
©2016 Journal Star (Peoria, Ill.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.