“We are passionate about cultivating top technology talent in Connecticut who will soon be on the nation’s front lines of defense against cybercrime,” Carol Juel, executive vice president and chief information officer at Synchrony Financial, said in a statement. “Our partnership with UConn is an important step towards building the research and resources needed to fuel hiring in this growing area of technology.”
Through the partnership, the Stamford-based Synchrony Financial will provide an endowment for a Synchrony chairperson to lead cybersecurity education at UConn and help develop a pipeline of information-security talent. In addition to research, Synchrony Financial has committed to funding a Cybersecurity Fellows Program and a scholarship program that will provide stipends to attract graduate students to UConn, where they will study and conduct independent cybersecurity research.
Synchrony will provide $2.2 million for the cybersecurity programs, which will be funded during the next five years.
“We are thrilled to establish a world-class program in one of the fastest-growing fields in technology with Synchrony Financial,” Kazem Kazerounian, dean of UConn’s School of Engineering, said in a statement. “The program builds on the success of the Engineering School, which celebrates its centennial this year, and allows us to provide robust opportunities for our students looking to pursue a career in cybersecurity.”
Discussions about additional funding to support research are underway.
Synchrony and UConn officials say the partnership will develop Connecticut talent to help fill openings in the cybersecurity industry. There were approximately 209,000 unfilled cybersecurity jobs in the U.S., according to an analysis of March 2015 federal Bureau of Labor Statistics by Peninsula Press, a project of the Stanford Journalism Program.
©2016 the Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, Conn.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
