>> Announcer: From around the globe, it's theCUBE, covering Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020, hosted by Cal Poly. >> Everyone, welcome to this special presentation with Cal Poly hosting the Space and Cybersecurity Symposium 2020 virtual. I'm John Furrier, your host with theCUBE and SiliconANGLE here in our Palo Alto studios with our remote guests. We couldn't be there in person, but we're going to be here remote. We got a great session and a panel for one hour, topic preparing students for the jobs of today and tomorrow. Got a great lineup. Bill Britton, Lieutenant Colonel from the US Air Force, retired vice president for information technology and CIO and the director of the California Cybersecurity Institute for Cal Poly. Bill, thanks for joining us. Dr. Amy Fleischer, who's the dean of the College of Engineering at Cal Poly, and Trung Pham, professor and researcher at the US Air Force Academy. Folks, thanks for joining me today. >> Our pleasure. >> Got a great- >> Great to be here. >> Great panel. This is one of my favorite topics. >> Thank you for the opportunity. >> Preparing students for the next generation, the jobs for today and tomorrow. We got an hour. I'd love you guys to start with an opening statement to kick things off. Bill, we'll start with you. >> Well, I'm really pleased to be, to start on this as the director for the Cybersecurity Institute and the CIO at Cal Poly, it's really a fun, exciting job, because as a polytechnic, technology has such a forefront in what we're doing, and we've had a wonderful opportunity being 40 miles from Vandenberg Air Force Base to really look at the nexus of space and cybersecurity. And if you add into that both commercial, government, and civil space and cybersecurity, this is an expanding wide open time for cyber and space. In that role that we have with the Cybersecurity Institute, we partner with elements of the state and the university, and we try to really add value above our academic level, which is some of the highest in the nation, and to really merge down and go a little lower and start younger. So we actually are running the week prior to this showing a cybersecurity competition for high schools and middle schools in the state of California. That competition this year is based on a scenario around hacking of a commercial satellite and the forensics of the payload that was hacked and the networks associated with it. This is going to be done using products like Wireshark, Autopsy, and other tools that will give those high school students what we hope is a huge desire to follow up and go into cyber and cyberspace and space and follow that career path and either come to Cal Poly or some other institution that's going to let them really expand their horizons in cybersecurity and space for the future of our nation. >> Bill, thanks for that intro. By the way, I just want to give you props for an amazing team and job you guys are doing at Cal Poly, the DxHub and the efforts you guys are having with your challenge. Congratulations on that great work. >> Thank you. It's a rock star team. It's absolutely amazing to find that much talent at one location. And I think Amy's going to tell you, she's got the same amount of talent in her staff, so it's a great place to be. >> Dr. Amy Fleischer. You guys have a great organization down there, amazing curriculum, amazing people, great community. Your opening statement. >> Hello everybody. It's really great to be a part of this panel on behalf of the Cal Poly College of Engineering. Here at Cal Poly, we really take preparing students for the jobs of today and tomorrow completely seriously, and we can claim that our students really graduate so they're ready day one for their first real job. But that means that in getting them to that point, we have to help them get valuable and meaningful job experience before they graduate, both through our curriculum and through multiple internship or summer research opportunities. So we focus our curriculum on what we call a learn by doing philosophy. And this means that we have a combination of practical experience and learn by doing both in and out of the classroom. And we find that to be really critical for preparing students for the workforce. Here at Cal Poly, we have more than 6,000 engineering students. We're one of the largest undergraduate engineering schools in the country. And US News ranks us the eighth best undergraduate engineering program in the country and the top ranked state school. We're really, really proud that we offer this impactful hands-on engineering education that really exceeds that of virtually all private universities while reaching a wider audience of students. We offer 14 degree programs, and really, we're talking today about cyber and space, and I think most of those degree programs can really make an impact in the space and cybersecurity economy. And this includes not only things like aero and cyber directly, but also electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, materials engineering, even manufacturing, civil, and biomedical engineering, as there's a lot of infrastructure needs that go into supporting launch capabilities. Our aerospace program graduates hundreds of aerospace engineers and most of them are working right here in California with many of our corporate partners, including Northrop Grumman, Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic, JPL, and so many other places where we have Cal Poly engineers impacting the space economy. Our cybersecurity focus is found mainly in our computer science and software engineering programs, and it's really a rapidly growing interest among our students. Computer science is our most popular major, and industry interests and partnerships are integrated into our cyber curriculum, and we do that oftentimes through support from industry. So we have partnerships with Northrop Grumman for professorship in a cyber lab and from PG&E for critical infrastructure cybersecurity lab and professorship. And we think that industry partnerships like these are really critical to preparing students for the future as the field is evolving so quickly and making sure we adapt our facilities and our curriculum to stay in line with what we're seeing in industry is incredibly important. In our aerospace program, we have an educational partnership with the Air Force Research Labs that's allowing us to install new high-performance computing capabilities and a space environments lab that's going to enhance our satellite design capabilities. And if we talk about satellite design, Cal Poly is the founding home of the CubeSat program, which pioneered small satellite capabilities, And we remain the worldwide leader in maintaining the CubeSat standard, and our student program has launched more CubeSats than any other program. So here again we have this learn by doing experience every year for dozens of aerospace, electrical, computer science, mechanical engineering students, and other student activities that we think are just as important include ethical hacking through our white hat club, Cal Poly Space Systems, which does really, really big rocket launches, and our support program for women in both of these fields, like WISH, which is Women In Software and Hardware. Now, you know, really trying to bring in a wide variety of people into these fields is incredibly important, and outreach and support to those demographics traditionally underrepresented in these fields is going to be really critical to future success. So by drawing on the lived experiences by people with different types of backgrounds will we develop the type of culture and environment where all of us can get to the best solution. So in terms of bringing people into the field, we see that research shows we need to reach kids when they're in late elementary and middle schools to really overcome that cultural bias that works against diversity in our fields. And you heard Bill talking about the California Cybersecurity Institute's yearly cyber challenge, and there's a lot of other people who are working to bring in a wider variety of people into the field, like Girl Scouts, which has introduced dozens of new badges over the past few years, including a whole cybersecurity series of badges in concert with Palo Alto Networks. So we have our work cut out for us, but we know what we need to do, and if we're really committed to properly preparing the workforce for today and tomorrow, I think our future is going to be bright. I'm looking forward to our discussion today. >> Thank you, Dr. Fleischer, for a great comment, opening statement, and congratulations. You got the right formula down there, the right mindset, and you got a lot of talent, and community, as well. Thank you for that opening statement. Next up, from Colorado Springs, Trung Pham, who's a professor and researcher at the US Air Force Academy. He's doing a lot of research around the areas that are most important for the intersection of space and technology. Trung. >> Good afternoon. First I'd like to thank Cal Poly for the opportunity. And today I want to go briefly about cybersecurity in space application. Whenever we talk about cybersecurity, the impression is that it's a new field that is really highly complex involving a lot of technical area. But in reality, in my personal opinion, it is indeed a complex field because it involves many disciplines. The first thing we think about is computer engineering and computer networking, but it's also involving communication, sociology, law practice. And this practice of cybersecurity doesn't only involve computer expert, but it's also involve everybody else who has a computing device that is connected to the internet, and this participation is obviously everybody in today's environment. When we think about the internet, we know that it's a good source of information but come with the convenience of information that we can access, we are constantly facing danger from the internet. Some of them we might be aware of. Some of them we might not be aware of. For example, when we search on the internet, a lot of time our browser will be saying that this site is not trusted, so we will be more careful. But what about the sites that we trusted? We know that those are legitimate sites, but they're not 100% bulletproof. What happen if those site are attacked by a hacker and then they will be a silent source of danger that we might not be aware of. So in the reality, we need to be more practicing the cybersecurity from our civil point of view and not from a technical point of view. When we talk about space application, we should know that all the hardware are computer-based or controlled by by computer system, and therefore the hardware and the software must go through some certification process so that they can be rated as airworthy or flightworthy. When we know that in the certification process is focusing on the functionality of the hardware and software, but one aspect that is explicitly and implicitly required is the security of those components. And we know that those components have to be connected with the ground control station, and the communication is through the air, through the radio signal, so anybody who has access to those communication radio signal will be able to control the space system that we put up there. And we certainly do not want our system to be hijacked by a third party. Another aspect of cybersecurity is that we try to design the space system in a very strong manner so it's almost impossible to hack in. But what about some other weak system that might be connected to the strong system? For example, the space system will be connected to the ground control station, and on the ground control station, we have the human controller, and those people have cell phone. They are allowed to use cell phone for communication. But at the same time, they are connected to the internet through the cell phone, and their cell phone might be connected to the computer that control the flight software and hardware. So what I want to say is we try to build strong system and we've protected them, but there will be some weaker system that we could not intended but exists to be connected to our strong system, and those are the points the hacker will be trying to attack. If we know how to control the access to those weak points, we will be having a much better system for the space system. And when we see the cybersecurity that is requiring the participation everywhere it's important to notice that there is a source of opportunity for students who enter the workforce to consider. Obviously students in engineering can focus their knowledge and expertise to provide technological solution to protect the system that we view. But we also have students in business who can focus their expertise to write business plan so that they can provide a pathway for the engineering advances to reach the market. We also have student in law who can focus their expertise in policy governing the internet, governing the cybersecurity practice. And we also have student in education who can focus their expertise to design how to teach cybersecurity practice, and student in every other discipline can focus their effort to implement security measure to protect the system that they are using in their field. So it's obvious that cybersecurity is everywhere and it implies job opportunity everywhere for everybody in every discipline of study. Thank you. >> Thank you, Trung, for those great comments. Great technology opportunities. But interesting, as well, is the theme that we're seeing across the entire symposium and in the virtual hallways that we're hearing conversations, and you pointed out some of them. Dr. Fleischer did, as well. And Bill, you mentioned it. It's not one thing. It's not just technology. It's different skills. And Amy, you mentioned that computer science is the hottest degree, but you have the hottest aerospace program in the world. I mean, so all this is kind of balancing. It's interdisciplinary. It's a structural change. Before we get into some of the, how they prepare the students, can you guys talk about some of the structural changes that are modern now in preparing in these opportunities, because societal impact is a, law potentially impact, it's how we educate. There's now cross-discipline skill sets. It's not just get the degree, see you out in the field. Bill, you want to start? >> Well, what's really fun about this job is that in the Air Force, I worked in the space and missile business, and what we saw was a heavy reliance on checklist format, security procedures, analog systems, and what we're seeing now in our world, both in the government and the commercial side, is a move to a digital environment, and the digital environment is a very quick and adaptive environment, and it's going to require a digital understanding. Matter of fact, the undersecretary of Air Force for acquisition recently referenced the need to understand the digital environment and how that's affecting acquisition. So as both Amy and Trung said, even business students are now in the cybersecurity business. And so again, what we're seeing is the change. Now, another phenomenon that we're seeing in the space world is there's just so much data. One of the ways that we addressed that in the past was to look at high-performance computing. There was a lot stricter control over how that worked. But now what we're seeing is adaptation of cloud, cloud technologies in space support, space data, command and control. And so what we see is a modern space engineer who has to understand digital, has to understand cloud, and has to understand the context of all those with a cyber environment. That's really changing the forefront of what is a space engineer, what is a digital engineer, and what is a future engineer, both commercial or government. So I think the opportunity for all of these things is really good, particularly for a polytechnic, Air Force Academy, and others that are focusing on a more widened experiential level of cloud and engineering and other capabilities. And I'll tell you the part that as the CIO I have to remind everybody, all this stuff works with the IT stuff. So you've got to understand how your IT infrastructures are tied and working together. As we noted earlier, one of the things is that these are all relays from point to point, and that architecture is part of your cybersecurity architecture. So again, every component has now become a cyber aware, cyber knowledgeable, and what we like to call as a cyber cognizant citizen where they have to understand the context. (speaking on mute) >> (indistinct) software Dr. Fleischer, talk about your perspective, 'cause you mentioned some of the things about computer science. I remember in the '80s when I got my computer science degree, they called us software engineers and then you became software developers. And then, so again, engineering is the theme. If you're engineering a system, there's now software involved, and there's also business engineering, business models. So talk about some of your comments, 'cause you mentioned computer science is hot. You got the aerospace. You got these multi-disciplines. You got definitely diversity, as well, brings more perspectives in, as well. Your thoughts on these structural interdisciplinary things? >> I think this is really key to making sure that students are prepared to work in the workforce is looking at the blurring between fields. No longer are you just a computer scientist. No longer are you just an aerospace engineer. You really have to have an expertise where you can work with people across disciplines. All of these fields are just working with each other in ways we haven't seen before. And Bill brought up data. You know, data science is something that's cross-cutting across all of our fields. So we want engineers that have the disciplinary expertise that they can go deep into these fields, but we want them to be able to communicate with each other and to be able to communicate across disciplines and to be able to work in teams that are across disciplines. You can no longer just work with other computer scientists or just work with other aerospace engineers. There's no part of engineering that is siloed anymore. So that's how we're changing. You have to be able to work across those disciplines. And as you, as Trung pointed out, ethics has to come into this. So you can no longer try to fully separate what we would traditionally have called the liberal arts and say, well, that's over there in general education. No, ethics is an important part of what we're doing and how we integrate that into our curriculum. So is communication. So is working on public policy and seeing where all these different aspects tie together to make the impact that we want to have in the world. So you no longer can work solo in these fields. >> That's great point. And Bill also mentioned the cloud. One thing about the cloud that's showed us is horizontal scalability has created a lot of value, and certainly data is now horizontal. Trung, you mentioned some of the things about cryptography for the kids out there, I mean, you can look at the pathway for career. You can do a lot of tech, but you don't have to go deep sometimes. You can as deep as you want, but there's so much more there. What technology do you see that's going to help students, in your opinion? >> Well, I'm a professor in computer science, so I like to talk a little bit about computer programming. Now we are working in complex projects. So most of the time we don't design a system from scratch. We build it from different components, and the components that we have, either we get it from vendors or sometimes we get it from the internet in the open source environment. It's fun to get the source code and then make it work to our own application. So now when we are looking at cryptology, when we talk about encryption, for example, we can easily get the source code from the internet. And the question, is it safe to use those source code? And my question is maybe not. So I always encourage my students to learn how to write source code the traditional way that I learned a long time ago before I allow them to use the open source environment. And one of the things that they have to be careful especially with encryption is the code that might be hidden in the source that they downloaded. Some of the source might be harmful. It might open up back gate for a hacker to get in later. We've heard about these back gates back then when Microsoft designed the operating system with the protection of encryption, and it is true that is existing. So while open source code is a wonderful place to develop complex system, but it's also a dangerous place that we have to be aware of. >> Great point. Before we get into the comments, one quick thing for each of you I'd like to get your comments on. There's been a big movement on growth mindset, which has been a great big believer in having a growth mindset and learning and all that good stuff. But now when you talk about some of these things we're mentioning about systems, there's a new trend around a systems mindset, because if everything's now a system, distributed systems now you have space and cybersecurity, you have to understand the consequences of changes. And you mention some of that, Trung, in changes in the source code. Could you guys share your quick opinions on the of systems thinking? Is that a mindset that people should be looking at? Because it used to be just one thing. Oh, you're a systems guy or gal. There you go. You're done. Now it seems to be in social media and data, everything seems to be systems. What's your take? Dr. Fleischer, we'll start with you. >> I'd say it's another way of looking at not being just so deep in your discipline. You have to understand what the impact of the decisions that you're making have on a much broader system. And so I think it's important for all of our students to get some exposure to that systems level thinking and looking at the greater impact of the decision that they're making. Now, the issue is where do you set the systems boundary, right? And you can set the systems boundary very close in and concentrate on an aspect of a design, or you can continually move that system boundary out and see where do you hit the intersections of engineering and science along with ethics and public policy and the greater society. And I think that's where some of the interesting work is going to be. And I think at least exposing students and letting them know that they're going to have to make some of these considerations as they move throughout their career is going to be vital as we move into the future. >> Bill, what's your thoughts? >> I absolutely agree with Amy. And I think there's a context here that reverse engineering and forensics analysis and forensics engineering are becoming more critical than ever. The ability to look at what you have designed in a system and then tear it apart and look at it for gaps and holes and problem sets. Or when you're given some software that's already been pre-developed, checking it to make sure it is really going to do what it says it's going to do. That forensics ability becomes more and more a skillset that also you need the verbal skills to explain what it is you're doing and what you found. So the communication side, the systems analysis side, the forensics analysis side, these are all things that are part of system approach that I think you could spend hours on and we still haven't really done a great job on it. So it's one of my fortes is really the whole analysis side of forensics and reverse engineering. >> Trung, real quick, systems thinking, your thoughts. >> Well, I'd like to share with you my experience when I worked in the space station program at NASA. We had two different approaches. One is a compound approach where we design it from the system general point of view where we put components together to be a complex system. But at the same time, we have the (indistinct) approach where we have an engineer who spent time and effort building individual component and they have to be expert in those tiny component that general component they deliver. And in the space station program, we bring together the (indistinct) engineer who designed everything in detail and the system manager who managed the system design from the top down, and we meet in the middle, and together we compromised a lot of differences and we delivered the space station that we are operating today. >> Great insight. And that's the whole teamwork collaboration that Dr. Fleischer was mentioning. Thanks so much for that insight. I wanted to get that out there because I know myself as a parent, I'm always trying to think about what's best for my kids and their friends as they grow up into the workforce. I know educators and leaders in industry would love to know some of the best practices around some of the structural changes. So thanks for that insight. But this topic's about students and helping them prepare. So we heard be multiple discipline, broaden your horizons, think like systems, top down, bottom up, work together as a team, and follow the data. So I got to ask you guys, there's a huge amount of job openings in cybersecurity. It's well-documented. And certainly with the intersection of space and cyber, it's only going to get bigger, right? You're going to see more and more demand for new types of jobs. How do we get high school and college students interested in security as a career? Dr. Fleischer, we'll start with you on this one. I would say really one of the best ways to get students interested in a career is to show them the impact that it's going to have. There's definitely always going to be students who are going to want to do the technology for the technology's sake, but that will limit you to a narrow set of students, and by showing the greater impact that these types of careers are going to have on the types of problems that you're going to be able to solve and the impact you're going to be able to have on the world around you, that's the word that we really need to get out. And a wide variety of students really respond to these messages. So I think it's really kind of reaching out at the elementary, the middle school level, and really kind of getting this idea that you can make a big difference, a big positive difference in the field with some of these careers, is going to be really critical. >> Real question to follow up. What do you think is the best entry point? You mentioned middle. I didn't hear elementary school. There's a lot of discussions around pipelining, and we're going to get into women in tech and underrepresented minorities later. But is it too early, or what's your feeling on this? >> My feeling is the earlier we can normalize it, the better. If you can normalize an interest in computers and technology and building in elementary school, that's absolutely critical. But the drop-off point that we're seeing is between what I would call late elementary and early middle school. And just kind of as an anecdote, I for years ran an outreach program for Girl Scouts in grades four and five and grade six, seven, and eight. And we had 100 slots in each program. And every year the program would sell out for girls in grades four and five, and every year we'd have spots remaining in grades six, seven, and eight. And that's literally where the drop-off is occurring between that late elementary and that middle school range. So that's the area that we need to target to make sure we keep those young women involved and interested as we move forward. >> Bill, how are we going to get these kids interested in security? You mentioned a few programs you got. >> Yeah. >> I mean, who wouldn't want to be a white hat hacker? I mean, that sounds exciting. >> So yeah, great questions. Let's start with some basic principles, though, is let me ask you a question, John. Name for me one white hat, good person hacker, the name, who works in the space industry and is an exemplar for students to look up to. >> You? >> Oh man, I'm feeling really... >> I'm only, I can't imagine a figure- >> (indistinct) the answer because the answer we normally get is the cricket sound. So we don't have individuals we've identified in those areas for them to look up to. >> I was going to be snarky and say most white hackers won't even use their real name, but... >> Right, so there's an aura around their anonymity here. So again, the real question is how do we get them engaged and keep them engaged? And that's what Amy was pointing out to exactly, the engagement and sticking with it. So one of the things that we're trying to do through our competition on the state level and other elements is providing connections. We call them ambassadors. These are people in the business who can contact the students that are in the game or in that challenge environment and let 'em interact and let 'em talk about what they do and what they're doing in life. But give them a challenging game format. A lot of computer-based training, capture the flag stuff is great, but if you can make it hands-on, if you can make it a learn by doing experiment, if you can make it personally involved and see the benefit as a result of doing that challenge and then talk to the people who do that on a daily basis, that's how you get them involved. The second part is part of what we're doing is we're involving partnership companies in the development of the teams. So this year's competition that we're running has 82 teams from across the state of California. Of those 82 teams at six students a team, middle school, high school, and many of those have company partners, and these are practitioners in cybersecurity who are working with those students to participate. It's that adult connectivity. It's that visualization. So at the competition this year, we have the founder of Defcon Red Flag is a participant to talk to the students. We have Vint Cerf, who is, of course, very well-known for something called the internet, to participate. It's really getting the students to understand who's in this, who can I look up to, and how do I stay engaged with them? >> There's definitely a celebrity aspect of it, I will agree. I mean, the influencer aspect here with knowledge is key. Can you talk about these ambassadors, and how far along are you on that program? First of all, the challenge stuff is, anything gamification-wise, we've seen that with hackathons, it just really works well. Creates bonding. People who create together can get sticky and get very high community aspect to it. Talk about this ambassador thing. What is that, industry, is that academic? >> Yeah, absolutely. >> What is this ambassador thing? >> Industry partners that we've identified, some of which, and I won't hit all of 'em, so I'm sure I'll short change this, but Palo Alto, Cisco, Splunk, many of the companies in California, and what we've done is identified schools to participate in the challenge that may not have a strong STEM program or have any cyber program. And the idea of the company is they look for their employees who are in those school districts to partner with the schools to help provide outreach. It could be as simple as a couple hours a week, or it's a team support captain or it's providing computers and other devices to use. And so again, it's really about a constant connectivity and trying to help where some schools may not have the staff or support units in an area to really provide them what they need for connectivity. What that does is it gives us an opportunity to not just focus on it once a year, but throughout the year. So for the competition, all the teams that are participating have been receiving training and educational opportunities in the gamification side since they signed up to participate. So there's a website, there's learning materials, there's materials provided by certain vendor companies like Wireshark and others. So it's a continuum of opportunity for the students. >> You know, I've seen, just randomly, just got a random thought. Robotics clubs are moving then closer into that middle school area, Dr. Fleischer, and in certainly in high schools, it's almost like a varsity sport. E-sports is another one. My son just called me. "I made the JV at the college team." It's big and serious, right? And it's fun. This is the aspect of fun. It's hands-on. This is part of the culture down there. Learn by doing. Is there, like, a group? Is it, like, a club? I mean, how do you guys organize these bottoms-up organically interest topics? >> So here in the college of engineering, when we talk about learn by doing, we have learned by doing both in the classroom and out of the classroom. And if we look at these types of out of the classroom activities, we have over 80 clubs working on all different aspects, and many of these are bottom-up. The students have decided what they want to work on and have organized themselves around that. And then they get the leadership opportunities. The more experienced students train the less experienced students. And it continues to build from year after year after year with them even doing aspects of strategic planning from year to year for some of these competitions. Yeah, it's an absolutely great experience. And we don't define for them how their learn by doing experiences should be. We want them to define it. And I think the really cool thing about that is they have the ownership and they have the interest and they can come up with new clubs year after year to see which direction they want to take it, and we will help support those clubs as old clubs fade out and new clubs come in. >> Trung, real quick, before we go on the next talk track, what do you recommend for middle school, high school, or even elementary? A little bit of coding, Minecraft? I mean, how do you get 'em hooked on the fun and the dopamine of technology and cybersecurity? What's your take on that? >> On this aspect, I'd like to share with you my experience as a junior high and high school student in Texas. The university of Texas in Austin organized a competition for every high school in Texas in every field from poetry to mathematics to science, computer engineering. But it's not about the University of Texas. The University of Texas is only serving as a center for the final competition. They divide the competition to district and then regional and then state. At each level, we have local university and colleges volunteering to host the competition and make it fun for the student to participate. And also they connected the students with private enterprises to raise fund for scholarship. So student who see the competition is a fun event for them, they get exposed to different university hosting the event so that they can see different option for them to consider college. They also get a promise that if they participate, they will be considered for scholarship when they attend university and college. So I think the combination of fun and competition and the scholarship aspect will be a good thing to entice the student to commit to the area of cybersecurity. >> Got the engagement, the aspiration, scholarship, and you mentioned a volunteer. I think one of the things I'll observe is you guys are kind of hitting this as community. I mean, the story of Steve Jobs and Woz building the Mac, they called Bill Hewlett up in Palo Alto. He was in the phone book. And they scoured some parts from him. That's community. This is kind of what you're getting at. So this is kind of the formula we're seeing. So the next question I really want to get into is the women in technology, STEM, underrepresented minorities, how do we get them on cybersecurity career path? Is there a best practices there? Bill, we'll start with you. >> Well, I think it's really interesting. First thing I want to add is, if I could, just a clarification. What's really cool, the competition that we have and we're running, it's run by students from Cal Poly. So Amy referenced the clubs and other activities. So many of the organizers and developers of the competition that we're running are the students, but not just from engineering. So we actually have theater and liberal arts majors and technology for liberal arts majors who are part of the competition, and we use their areas of expertise, set design and other things, visualization, virtualization. Those are all part of how we then teach and educate cyber in our gamification and other areas. So they're all involved and they're learning, as well. So we have our students teaching other students. So we're really excited about that. And I think that's part of what leads to a mentoring aspect of what we're providing where our students are mentoring the other students. And I think it's also something that's really important in the game. The first year we held the game, we had several all-girl teams, and it was really interesting because A, they didn't really know if they could compete. I mean, this is their reference point. We don't know if. They did better than anybody. I mean, they just, they knocked the ball out of the park. The second part, then, is building that confidence level that can, going back and telling their cohorts that, hey, it's not this obtuse thing you can't do. It's something real that you can compete and win. And so again, it's building that camaraderie, that spirit, that knowledge that they can succeed. And I think that goes a long way. And Amy's programs and the reach out and the reach out that Cal Poly does to schools to develop, I think that's what it really is going to take. It is going to take that village approach to really increase diversity and inclusivity for the community. >> Dr. Fleischer, I'd love to get your thoughts. You mentioned your outreach program and the drop-off, some of those data. You're deeply involved in this. You're passionate about it. What's your thoughts on this career path opportunity for STEM? >> Yeah, I think STEM is an incredible career path opportunity for so many people. There's so many interesting problems that we can solve, particularly in cyber and in space systems. And I think we have to meet the kids where they are and kind of show them what the exciting part is about it, right? But Bill was alluding to this when he was talking about trying to name somebody that you can point to. And I think having those visible people where you can see yourself in that is absolutely critical, and those mentors and that mentorship program. So we use a lot of our students going out into California middle schools and elementary schools. And you want to see somebody that's like you, somebody that came from your background and was able to do this. So a lot of times we have students from our National Society of Black Engineers or our Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers or our Society of Women Engineers, which we have over 1,000 members, 1,000 student members in our Society of Women Engineers who are doing these outreach programs. But like I also said, it's hitting them at the lower levels, too, and Girl Scouts is actually distinguishing themselves as one of the leading STEM advocates in the country. And like I said, they developed all these cybersecurity badges starting in kindergarten. There's a cybersecurity badge for kindergartener and first graders. And it goes all the way up through late high school. The same thing with space systems. And they did the space systems in partnership with NASA. They did the cybersecurity in partnership with Palo Alto Networks. And what you do is you want to build these skills that the girls are developing, and like Bill said, work in girl-led teams where they can do it, and if they're doing it from kindergarten on, it just becomes normal, and they never think, well, this is not for me. And they see the older girls who are doing it and they see a very clear path leading them into these careers. >> Yeah, it's interesting, you used the word normalization earlier. That's exactly what it is. It's life, you get life skills and a new kind of badge. Why wouldn't you learn how to be a white hat hacker or have some fun or learn some skills? >> Amy: Absolutely. >> Just in the grind of your fun day. Super exciting. Okay, Trung, your thoughts on this. I mean, you have a diverse, diversity brings perspective to the table in cybersecurity because you have to think like the other guy, the adversary. You got to be the white hat. You can't be a white hat unless you know how black hat thinks. So there's a lot of needs here for more points of view. How are we going to get people trained on this from underrepresented minorities and women? What's your thoughts? >> Well, as a member of the IEEE Professional Society of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, every year we participate in the engineering week. We deploy our members to local junior high school and high school to talk about our project to promote the study of engineering. But at the same time, we also participate in the science fair that the state of Texas is organizing. Our engineer will be mentoring students, number one, to help them with the project, but number two, to help us identify talent so that we can recruit them further into the field of STEM. One of the participation that we did was the competition of the, what they call Future City, where students will be building a city on a computer simulation. And in recent year, we promote the theme of smart city where city will be connected the individual houses and together into the internet. And we want to bring awareness of cybersecurity into that competition. So we deploy engineer to supervise the people, the students who participate in the competition. We bring awareness not in the technical detail level, but in what we've call the compound level so student will be able to know what required to provide cybersecurity for the smart city that they are building. And at the same time, we were able to identify talent, especially talent in the minority and in the woman, so that we can recruit them more actively. And we also raise money for scholarship. We believe that scholarship is the best way to entice student to continue education at the college level. So with scholarship, it's very easy to recruit them to the field and then push them to go further into the cybersecurity area. >> Yeah, I mean, I see a lot of the parents like, oh, my kid's going to go join the soccer team, we get private lessons, and maybe they'll get a scholarship someday. Well, they only do half scholarships. Anyway. I mean, if they spent that time doing these other things, it's just, again, this is a new life skill, like the Girl Scouts. And this is where I want to get into this whole silo breaking down, because Amy, you brought this up, and Bill, you were talking about it, as well. You got multiple stakeholders here with this event. You've got public, you've got private, and you've got educators. It's the intersection of all of them. It's, again, if those silos break down, the confluence of those three stakeholders have to work together. So let's talk about that. Educators. You guys are educating young minds. You're interfacing with private institutions and now the public. What about educators? What can they do to make cyber better? 'Cause there's no real manual. I mean, it's not like this court is a body of work of how to educate cybersecurity. Maybe it's more recent. There's cutting edge best practices. But still, it's an evolving playbook. What's your thoughts for educators? Bill, we'll start with you. >> Well, I'm going to turn to Amy and let her go first. >> Let you go. >> That's fine. >> I would say as educators, it's really important for us to stay on top of how the field is evolving, right? So what we want to do is we want to promote these tight connections between educators and our faculty and applied research in industry and with industry partnerships. And I think that's how we're going to make sure that we're educating students in the best way. And you're talking about that inner, that confluence of the three different areas. And I think you have to keep those communication lines open to make sure that the information on where the field is going and what we need to concentrate on is flowing down into our educational process. And that works in both ways, that we can talk as educators and we can be telling industry what we're working on and what types of skills our students have and working with them to get the opportunities for our students to work in industry and develop those skills along the way, as well. And I think it's just all part of this really looking at what's going to be happening and how do we get people talking to each other? And the same thing with looking at public policy and bringing that into our education and into these real hands-on experiences. And that's how you really cement this type of knowledge with students, not by talking to them and not by showing them, but letting them do it. It's this learn by doing and building the resiliency that it takes when you learn by doing. And sometimes you learn by failing, but you just pick up and you keep going. And these are important skills that you develop along the way. >> You mentioned sharing, too. That's the key. Collaborating and sharing knowledge. It's an open world and everyone's collaborating. Bill, private-public partnerships. I mean, there's a real, private companies, you mentioned Palo Alto Networks and others. There's a real intersection there. They're motivated. They could, there's scholarship opportunities. Trung points to that. What is the public-private educator view there? How do companies get involved and what's the benefit for them? >> Well, that's what a lot of the universities are doing is to bring in as part of either their cyber centers or institutes people who are really focused on developing and furthering those public-private partnerships. That's really what my role is in all these things is to take us to a different level in those areas, not to take away from the academic side, but to add additional opportunities for both sides. Remember, in a public-private partnership, all entities have to have some gain in the process. Now, what I think is really interesting is the timing on particularly this subject, space and cybersecurity. This has been an absolute banner year for space. The standup of Space Force, the launch of commercial partnership, you know, commercial platforms delivering astronauts to the space station, recovering them, and bringing them back. The ability of a commercial satellite platform to be launched. Commercial platforms that not only launch but return back to where they're launched from. These are things that are stirring the hearts of the American citizens, the kids, again, they're getting interested. They're seeing this and getting enthused. So we have to seize upon that and we have to find a way to connect that. Public-private partnerships is the answer for that. It's not one segment that can handle it all. It's all of them combined together. If you look at space, space is going to be about commercial. It's going to be about civil. Moving from one side of the Earth to the other via space. And it's about government. And what's really cool for us, all those things are in our backyard. That's where that public-private comes together. The government's involved. The private sector's involved. The educators are involved. And we're all looking at the same things and trying to figure out, like this forum, what works best to go to the future. >> You know, if people are bored and they want to look for an exciting challenge, you couldn't have laid it out any clearer. It's the most exciting discipline. It's everything. I mean, we just talk about space. GPS is, everything we do is involved, has to do with satellites. (laughs) >> I have to tell you a story on that right? We have a very unique GPS story right in our backyard. So our sheriff is the son of the father of GPS for the Air Force. So you can't get better than that when it comes to being connected to all those platforms. So we really want to say, you know, this is so exciting for all of us because it gives everybody a job for a long time. >> You know, the kids that think TikTok's exciting, wait till they see what's going on here with you guys, this program. Trung, final word on this from the public side. You're at the Air Force. You're doing research. Are you guys opening it up? Are you integrating into the private and educational sectors? How do you see that formula playing out? And what's the best practice for students and preparing them? >> I think it's the same in every university in the engineering program will require our students to do the final project before graduation. And in this kind of project, we send them out to work in the private industry, the private company that sponsor them. They get the benefit of having an intern working for them and they get the benefit of reviewing the students as the prospective employee in the future. So it's good for the student to gain practical experience working in this program. Sometimes we call that a co-op program. Sometimes we call that a capstone program. And the company will accept the student on a trial basis, giving them some assignment and then pay them a little bit of money. So it's good for the student to earn some extra money, to have some experience that they can put on their resume when they apply for the final, for the job. So the collaboration between university and private sector is really important. When I join a faculty normally there already exist that connection. It came from normally, again, from the dean of engineering, who would wine and dine with companies, build up relationship, and sign up agreement. But it's us professor who have to do the (indistinct) approach to do a good performance so that we can build up credibility to continue the relationship with those company and the student that we selected to send to those company. We have to make sure that they will represent the university well, they will do a good job, and they will make a good impression. >> Thank you very much for a great insight, Trung, Bill, Amy. Amazing topic. I'd like to end this session with each of you to make a statement on the importance of cybersecurity to space. We'll go Trung, Bill, and Amy. Trung, the importance of cybersecurity to space, brief statement. >> The importance of cybersecurity, we know that it's affecting every component that we are using and we are connecting to, and those component, normally we use them for personal purpose, but when we enter the workforce, sometimes we connect them to the important system that the government or the company are investing to be put into space. So it's really important to practice cybersecurity, and a lot of time, it's very easy to know the concept. We have to be careful. But in reality, we tend to forget to to practice it the way we forget how to drive a car safely. And with driving a car, we have a program called defensive driving that requires us to go through training every two or three years so that we can get discount. Every organization we are providing the annual cybersecurity practice not to tell people about the technology, but to remind them about the danger of not practicing cybersecurity and it's a requirement for every one of us. >> Bill, the importance of cybersecurity to space. >> It's not just about young people. It's about all of us. As we grow and we change, as I referenced it, we're changing from an analog world to a digital world. Those of us who have been in the business and have hair that looks like mine, we need to be just as cognizant about cybersecurity practice as the young people. We need to understand how it affects our lives, and particularly in space, because we're going to be talking about people, moving people to space, moving payloads, data transfer, all of those things. And so there's a whole workforce that needs to be retrained or upskilled in cyber that's out there. So the opportunity is ever expansive for all of us. >> Amy, the importance of cybersecurity in space. >> I mean the emphasis of cybersecurity is space just simply can't be over emphasized. There are so many aspects that are going to have to be considered as systems get ever more complex. And as we pointed out, we're putting people's lives at stake here. This is incredibly, incredibly complicated and incredibly impactful, and actually really exciting, the opportunities that are here for students and the workforce of the future to really make an enormous impact on the world around us. And I hope we're able to get that message out to students and to children today, that these are really interesting fields that you need to consider. >> Thank you very much. I'm John Furrier with theCUBE, and the importance of cybersecurity and space is the future of the world's all going to happen in and around space with technology, people, and society. Thank you to Cal Poly, and thank you for watching the Cybersecurity and Space Symposium 2020. (bright music)